Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Chinua Achebe at 82: We remember differently

I have met Chinua Achebe only three times. The first, at the National Arts Club in Manhattan, I joined the admiring circle around him. A gentle-faced man in a wheelchair.

“Good evening, sir. I’m Chimamanda Adichie,” I said, and he replied, mildly, “I thought you were running away from me.”

I mumbled, nervous, grateful for the crush of people around us. I had been running away from him. After my first novel was published, I received an email from his son. My dad has just read your novel and liked it very much. He wants you to call him at this number. I read it over and over, breathless with excitement. But I never called. A few years later, my editor sent Achebe a manuscript of my second novel. She did not tell me, because she wanted to shield me from the possibility of disappointment. One afternoon, she called.

“Chimamanda, are you sitting down? I have wonderful news.” She read me the blurb Achebe had just sent her. We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers. Adichie knows what is at stake, and what to do about it. She is fearless or she would not have taken on the intimidating horror of Nigeria’s civil war. Adichie came almost fully made. Afterwards, I held on to the phone and wept. I have memorized those words. In my mind, they glimmer still, the validation of a writer whose work had validated me.

I grew up writing imitative stories. Of characters eating food I had never seen and having conversations I had never heard. They might have been good or bad, those stories, but they were emotionally false, they were not mine. Then came a glorious awakening: Chinua Achebe’s fiction. Here were familiar characters who felt true; here was language that captured my two worlds; here was a writer writing not what he felt he should write but what he wanted to write. His work was free of anxiety, wore its own skin effortlessly. It emboldened me, not to find my voice, but to speak in the voice I already had. And so, when that e-mail came from his son, I knew, overly-thrilled as I was, that I would not call. His work had done more than enough. In an odd way, I was so awed, so grateful, that I did not want to meet him. I wanted some distance between my literary hero and me.

Chinua Achebe and I have never had a proper conversation. The second time I saw him, at a luncheon in his honor hosted by the British House of Lords, I sat across from him and avoided his eye. (“Chinua Achebe is the only person I have seen you shy with,” a friend said). The third, at a New York event celebrating fifty years of THINGS FALL APART, we crowded around him backstage, Edwidge Danticat and I, Ha Jin and Toni Morrison, Colum McCann and Chris Abani. We seemed, magically, bound together in a warm web, all of us affected by his work. Achebe looked pleased, but also vaguely puzzled by all the attention. He spoke softly, the volume of his entire being turned to ‘low.’ I wanted to tell him how much I admired his integrity, his speaking out about the disastrous leadership in my home state of Anambra, but I did not. Before I went on stage, he told me, “Jisie ike.” I wondered if he fully grasped, if indeed it was possible to, how much his work meant to so many.

History and civics, as school subjects, function not merely to teach facts but to transmit more subtle things, like pride and dignity. My Nigerian education taught me much, but left gaping holes. I had not been taught to imagine my pre-colonial past with any accuracy, or pride, or complexity. And so Achebe’s work, for me, transcended literature. It became personal. ARROW OF GOD, my favorite, was not just about the British government’s creation of warrant chiefs and the linked destinies of two men, it became the life my grandfather might have lived. THINGS FALL APART is the African novel most read – and arguably most loved – by Africans, a novel published when ‘African novel’ meant European accounts of ‘native’ life.

Achebe was an unapologetic member of the generation of African writers who were ‘writing back,’ challenging the stock Western images of their homeland, but his work was not burdened by its intent. It is much-loved not because Achebe wrote back, but because he wrote back well. His work was wise, humorous, human. For many Africans, THINGS FALL APART remains a gesture of returned dignity, a literary and an emotional experience; Mandela called Achebe the writer in whose presence the prison walls came down.

Achebe’s most recent book, his long-awaited memoir of the Nigerian-Biafra war, is both sad and angry, a book by a writer looking back and mourning Nigeria’s failures. I wish THERE WAS A COUNTRY had been better edited and more rigorously detailed in its account of the war. But these flaws do not make it any less seminal: an account of the most important event in Nigeria’s history by Nigeria’s most important storyteller.

An excerpt from the book has ignited great controversy among Nigerians. In it, Achebe, indignant about the millions of people who starved to death in Biafra, holds Obafemi Awolowo, Nigerian Finance Minister during the war, responsible for the policy of blockading Biafra. He quote’s Awolowo’s own words on the blockade – ‘all is fair in war and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I don’t see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight harder’ and then argues that Awolowo’s support of the blockade was ‘driven by an overriding ambition for power for himself in particular and for the advancement of his Yoruba people in general.’

I have been startled and saddened by the responses to this excerpt. Many are blindingly ethnic, lacking in empathy and, most disturbing of all, lacking in knowledge. We can argue about how we interpret the facts of our shared history, but we cannot, surely, argue about the facts themselves. Awolowo, as de facto ‘number two man’ on the Nigerian side, was a central architect of the blockade on Biafra. During and after the war, Awolowo publicly defended the blockade. Without the blockade, the massive starvation in Biafra would not have occurred. These are the facts.

Some Nigerians, in responding to Achebe, have argued that the blockade was fair, as all is fair in war. The blockade was, in my opinion, inhumane and immoral. And it was unnecessary – Nigeria would have won anyway, it was the much-better-armed side in a war that Wole Soyinka called a shabby unequal conflict. The policy of starving a civilian population into surrender does not merely go against the Geneva conventions, but in this case, a war between siblings, people who were formerly fellow country men and women now suddenly on opposite sides, it seems more chilling. All is not fair in war.

Especially not in a fratricidal war. But I do not believe the blockade was a calculated power grab by Awolowo for himself and his ethnic group; I think of it, instead, as one of the many dehumanizing acts that war, by its nature, brings about.

Awolowo was undoubtedly a great political leader. He was also – rare for Nigerian leaders – a great intellectual. No Nigerian leader has, arguably, articulated a political vision as people-centered as Awolowo’s. For Nigerians from the west, he was the architect of free primary education, of progressive ideas. But for Nigerians from the east, he was a different man. I grew up hearing, from adults, versions of Achebe’s words about Awolowo. He was the man who prevented an Igbo man from leading the Western House of Assembly in the famous ‘carpet crossing’ incident of 1952. He was the man who betrayed Igbo people when he failed on his alleged promise to follow Biafra’s lead and pull the Western region out of Nigeria. He was the man who, in the words of my uncle, “made Igbo people poor because he never liked us.”

At the end of the war, every Igbo person who had a bank account in Nigeria was given twenty pounds, no matter how much they had in their accounts before the war. I have always thought this a livid injustice. I know a man who worked in a multinational company in 1965. He was, like Achebe, one of the many Igbo who just could not believe that their lives were in danger in Lagos and so he fled in a hurry, at the last minute, leaving thousands of pounds in his account. After the war, his account had twenty pounds. To many Igbo, this policy was uncommonly punitive, and went against the idea of ‘no victor, no vanquished.’ Then came the indigenization decree, which moved industrial and corporate power from foreign to Nigerian hands. It made many Nigerians wealthy; much of the great wealth in Nigeria today has its roots in this decree. But the Igbo could not participate; they were broke.

I do not agree, as Achebe writes, that one of the main reasons for Nigeria’s present backwardness is the failure to fully reintegrate the Igbo. I think Nigeria would be just as backward even if the Igbo had been fully integrated – institutional and leadership failures run across all ethnic lines. But the larger point Achebe makes is true, which is that the Igbo presence in Nigerian positions of power has been much reduced since the war. Before the war, many of Nigeria’s positions of power were occupied by Igbo people, in the military, politics, academia, business. Perhaps because the Igbo were very receptive to Western education, often at the expense of their own traditions, and had both a striving individualism and a communal ethic. This led to what, in history books, is often called a ‘fear of Igbo domination’ in the rest of Nigeria. The Igbo themselves were insensitive to this resentment, the bombast and brashness that is part of Igbo culture only exacerbated it. And so leading Igbo families entered the war as Nigeria’s privileged elite but emerged from it penniless, stripped and bitter.

Today, ‘marginalization’ is a popular word in Igboland. Many Igbo feel marginalized in Nigeria, a feeling based partly on experience and partly on the psychology of a defeated people. (Another consequence of this psychology, perhaps, is the loss of the communal ethic of the Igbo, much resented sixty years ago. It is almost non-existent today, or as my cousin eloquently put it: Igbo people don’t even send each other.)
Some responses to Achebe have had a ‘blame the victim’ undertone, suggesting that Biafrians started the war and therefore deserved what they got. But Biafrians did not ‘start the war.’ Nobody with a basic knowledge of the facts can make that case.

Biafrian secession was inevitable, after the federal government’s failure to implement the agreements reached at Aburi, itself prompted by the massacre of Igbo in the North. The cause of the massacres was arguably the first coup of 1966. Many believed it to be an ‘Igbo’ coup, which was not an unreasonable belief, Nigeria was already mired in ethnic resentments, the premiers of the West and North were murdered while the Eastern premier was not, and the coup plotters were Igbo. Except for Adewale Ademoyega, a Yoruba, who has argued that it was not an ethnic coup. I don’t believe it was. It seems, from most accounts, to have been an idealistic and poorly-planned nationalist exercise aimed at ridding Nigeria of a corrupt government. It was, also, horrendously, inexcusably violent. I wish the coup had never happened. I wish the premiers and other casualties had been arrested and imprisoned, rather than murdered. But the truth that glares above all else is that the thousands of Igbo people murdered in their homes and in the streets had nothing to do with the coup.

Some have blamed the Biafrian starvation on Ojukwu, Biafra’s leader, because he rejected an offer from the Nigerian government to bring in food through a land corridor. It was an ungenerous offer, one easy to refuse. A land corridor could also mean advancement of Nigerian troops. Ojukwu preferred airlifts, they were tactically safer, more strategic, and he could bring in much-needed arms as well. Ojukwu should have accepted the land offer, shabby as it was.

Innocent lives would have been saved. I wish he had not insisted on a ceasefire, a condition which the Nigerian side would never have agreed to. But it is disingenuous to claim that Ojukwu’s rejection of this offer caused the starvation. Many Biafrians had already starved to death. And, more crucially, the Nigerian government had shown little regard for Biafra’s civilian population; it had, for a while, banned international relief agencies from importing food. Nigerian planes bombed markets and targeted hospitals in Biafra, and had even shot down an International Red Cross plane.

Ordinary Biafrians were steeped in distrust of the Nigerian side. They felt safe eating food flown in from Sao Tome, but many believed that food brought from Nigeria would be poisoned, just as they believed that, if the war ended in defeat, there would be mass killings of Igbo people. The Biafrian propaganda machine further drummed this in. But, before the propaganda, something else had sown the seed of hateful fear: the 1966 mass murders of Igbo in the North. The scars left were deep and abiding. Had the federal government not been unwilling or incapable of protecting their lives and property, Igbo people would not have so massively supported secession and intellectuals, like Achebe, would not have joined in the war effort.

I have always admired Ojukwu, especially for his early idealism, the choices he made as a young man to escape the shadow of his father’s great wealth, to serve his country. In Biafra, he was a flawed leader, his paranoia and inability to trust those close to him clouded his judgments about the execution of the war, but he was also a man of principle who spoke up forcefully about the preservation of the lives of Igbo people when the federal government seemed indifferent. He was, for many Igbo, a Churchillian figure, a hero who inspired them, whose oratory moved them to action and made them feel valued, especially in the early months of the war.

Other responses to Achebe have dismissed the war as something that happened ‘long ago.’ But some of the people who played major roles are alive today. We must confront our history, if only to begin to understand how we came to be where we are today. The Americans are still hashing out details of their civil war that ended in 1865; the Spanish have only just started, seventy years after theirs ended. Of course, discussing a history as contested and contentious as the Nigeria-Biafra war will not always be pleasant. But it is necessary. An Igbo saying goes: If a child does not ask what killed his father, that same thing will kill him.

What many of the responses to Achebe make clear, above all else, is that we remember differently. For some, Biafra is history, a series of events in a book, fodder for argument and analysis. For others, it is a loved one killed in a market bombing, it is hunger as a near-constant companion, it is the death of certainty. The war was fought on Biafrian soil. There are buildings in my hometown with bullet holes; as a child, playing outside, I would sometimes come across bits of rusty ammunition left behind from the war. My generation was born after 1970, but we know of property lost, of relatives who never ‘returned’ from the North, of shadows that hung heavily over family stories. We inherited memory. And we have the privilege of distance that Achebe does not have.

Achebe is a war survivor. He was a member of the generation of Nigerians who were supposed to lead a new nation, inchoate but full of optimism. It shocked him, how quickly Nigerian fell apart. In THERE WAS A COUNTRY he sounds unbelieving, still, about the federal government’s indifference while Igbo people were being massacred in Northern Nigeria in 1966. But shock-worthy events did not only happen in the North. Achebe himself was forced to leave Lagos, a place he had called home for many years, because his life was no longer safe. His crime was being Igbo. A Yoruba acquaintance once told me a story of how he was nearly lynched in Lagos at the height of the tensions before the war; he was light-skinned, and a small mob in a market assumed him to be ‘Igbo Yellow’ and attacked him. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos was forced to leave. So was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan. Because they were Igbo. For Achebe, all this was deeply personal, deeply painful. His house was bombed, his office was destroyed.

He escaped death a few times. His best friend died in battle. To expect a dispassionate account from him is a remarkable failure of empathy. I wish more of the responses had acknowledged, a real acknowledgement and not merely a dismissive preface, the deep scars that experiences like Achebe’s must have left behind.

Ethnicity has become, in Nigeria, more political than cultural, less about philosophy and customs and values and more about which bank is a Yoruba or Hausa or Igbo bank, which political office is held by which ethnicity, which revered leader must be turned into a flawless saint. We cannot deny ethnicity. It matters. But our ethnic and national identities should not be spoken of as though they were mutually exclusive; I am as much Igbo as I am Nigerian. I have hope in the future of Nigeria, mostly because we have not yet made a real, conscious effort to begin creating a nation (We could start, for example, by not merely teaching Maths and English in primary schools, but also teaching idealism and citizenship.)

For some non-Igbo, confronting facts of the war is uncomfortable, even inconvenient. But we must hear one another’s stories. It is even more imperative for a subject like Biafra which, because of our different experiences, we remember differently. Biafrian minorities were distrusted by the Igbo majority, and some were unfairly attacked, blamed for being saboteurs. Nigerian minorities, particularly in the midwest, suffered at the hands of both Biafrian and Nigerian soldiers. ‘Abandoned property’ cases remain unresolved today in Port Harcourt, a city whose Igbo names were changed after the war, creating “Rumu” from “Umu.” Nigerian soldiers carried out a horrendous massacre in Asaba, murdering the males in a town which is today still alive with painful memories. Some Igbo families are still waiting, half-hoping, that a lost son, a lost daughter, will come home. All of these stories can sit alongside one another. The Nigerian stage is big enough. Chinua Achebe has told his story. This week, he turns 82. Long may he live.

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PREPARING FOR JOB APTITUDE TESTS? THERE’S NOW AN APP FOR THAT

Every year, over half a million university graduates seek carrier opportunities at blue-chip companies in Nigeria.  Majority of these companies subject graduates to job aptitude tests to gauge their quantitative, verbal, data interpretation and spatial reasoning skills during the first or second-stage screening process. Feedback from many of these companies showed us that about 80% of the job candidates fail the exam irrespective of the class of degree held. The number one cause of this is poor preparation.

Enter 360jobtest, the first-of-its-kind mobile app that lets users practice up-to-date relevant test questions currently used by blue-chip companies in banking, oil and gas, insurance, consulting, auditing and consumer-goods industries.  It provides advanced mobile features that allows users to study rigorously and practice strictly to test time, as well as provide a summative result analysis that shows whether the candidate is ready to take the real job test or not. Here are some of features in a list:

-          Works offline after download

-          Up-to-date questions used by top companies, with carefully explained answers

-          Test simulation with timing feature that allows candidates to practice to test time

-          Adaptive results analysis that gauges preparedness for real test

-          News about upcoming job tests and a closed forum to discuss them

Launch Date

The app is expected to debut online on Friday, 30^th November, 2012. This will mark the first release of unlock codes for paying users who want to upgrade from the trial version (with just over 30 questions) to the full version (with over 1000 questions).

N.B: It cost N1,000 to buy an unlock code. We are presently taking orders.

Partnership With Jobberman

Jobberman.com is the leading jobs website in West Africa with over 250,000 unique monthly visitors. The company behind 360jobtest, Youngsoul Ltd, has made a strategic partnership with Jobberman Ltd, which makes the company the sole distributor of the mobile app. According to the CEO of Youngsoul Ltd, Mr. Boye Oshinaga, “Partnering with Jobberman gives us the ample opportunity to have conversation with about 500,000 fresh graduates, and possibly make customers of most of them”.

In the words of the Co-founder of Jobberman and Product Lead, Mr. Opeyemi Awoyemi, “Youngsoul has produced a fantastic product which appeals strongly to their target market; we are excited about the possibilities of the partnership and the results that can be achieved through the Jobberman platform”.

About Youngsoul

Youngsoul is Nigeria’s foremost digital test prep company, our products include Nigeria’s first Interactive DVDs for UTME and SSCE, we’re presently selling thousands of copies to DVD retailers all over the country as well as companies and education arms of government. Youngsoul Nigeria also produce mobile applications for professional exam preparation.

Our vision is to become the foremost e-learning company on the continent. 

Contact

For more information, or for an interview, please contact:

Wale Hassan, Chief Marketing Officer

+234 807 730 4925, contact@360jobtest.com

            

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BURNA BOY COVERS THE SECOND ISSUE OF THE SCENE MAGAZINE

Burna Boy graces the cover of the 2nd Edition of THE SCENE MAGAZINE. The rising afro-hiphop artiste is popularly known for his hit single 'LIKE TO PARTY' which has taken over radio and T.V stations across Nigeria.  Also in the magazine are exclusive interviews with music stars Flowssick, Rilwan and Iyanya. The 'BE INSPIRED' column also features former Presidential candidate and Ovation magazine's editor-in-chief, Chief Dele Momodu.

This edition also includes exclusive coverage of some of the hottest concerts and parties between September and November as well as interesting articles on Fashion, Style, Sports and Beauty while also managing to celebrate Nigeria's 52nd birthday with an independence day theme added to the magazine. You surely don't want to miss out on this edition. With the magazine now also available online it's only a laptop or smartphone away.

The link to read online is:http://www.pageflip-flap.com/read?r=IabE1WKCSSh95xjD

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#PASTORSJETS: MY ISSUES WITH NIGERIAN PASTORS AND THEIR JETS BY @LANRE_OLAGUNJU

The most controversial issue on my TL this week was the issue of Nigerian pastors and their new quest for private jets. Just like it’s said that there’s no smoke without fire, the CAN president, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor’s jet gift was actually responsible for firing this controversy. On the occasion of the senior clergy’s birthday and the celebration of his 40^th anniversary in ministry, he was given a private jet as a gift.  It’s interesting to see Nigerians, most especially Christians get interested in issues that concern the extravagant lives of their pastors. It proves that the days of “sidon dey look” are over. On the present issue of extravagant living, I earnestly think that God is actually speaking to pastors with the voice of their followers.

Though pastor Oritsejafor’s jet was a gift, yet many argued that he could have rejected it. The past week’s controversy has revealed many other pastors who have quite a number, and the questions of “what’s the use?” keeps coming to mind.  If we are advocating the need to hold our political leaders and office holders accountable, honestly speaking, pastors and Imams shouldn’t be excluded. To those who think it’s rude or ungodly to re-examine the things “men of God” do and say. I say wake up and take a cue from the Berea Christians in the bible. This guys do not just receive the word with all eagerness, they daily, personally, search out the scriptures, to check whether the things the preachers said were actually so.

Many of the preachers obviously claim and want us to believe that they need the private jets to spread the word of God round the world. The question is what are some of them doing with two, three and even four jets? As a child who was brought up with the Foursquarian doctrine, where moderation is a watch word. I keep finding it difficult to see our recent day clergies struggling with the biblical instruction of “let your moderation be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.” It’s ok to eat from what you do and be comfortable, be it circularly or in the religious circle but moderation is key.

During the #OccupyNigeria protest in January, Nigerians were clamouring that presidency should reduce the cost of running government, essentially when it became known to all and sundry that the presidency feeds on almost a billion Naira per annum. It’s sad that some religious leaders are also misplacing their priorities.  The fact that Nigerians expects more from them than the dirty and heartless politicians is the reason why they purchasing private jets is becoming a bone of contention. Religious bodies should be thinking of more ways to eradicate poverty, speak truth to power rather than just eating and dinning with the political class and then claiming that all is well! With all the money in display, they should build schools that are affordable in the real sense of the word “affordable” just like the missionaries of old did.

Over 70% of the people they lead constitute the poor in the society and realistically it’s from the financial donations of these people that they accumulate their wealth. The major challenge with leadership in this part of the world is that it’s void of sensitivity and human feeling. Or how else do you explain that a religious leader who; flies a private jet  in the worth of billions of Naira, who pays the Pilots thousands of dollars per year, pays for hanger charges at least $4000/month, Insurance, maintenance,  jet fuel and the rest… has many of his congregation hungry, jobless and even homeless . Even Jesus was mindful of the belly of his congregation; hence he had to miraculously use five breads and two fishes to feed the multitude. By the time the fearful revolution former president, Olusegun Obasanjo predicted during the week comes, I’m afraid the mass of unemployed youth, in anger, might not be able to differentiate political leaders from religious leaders, because you don’t widen the gap between the poor and the rich and say all is well.

Beside that some of these senior pastors with their quest for privet jets are fulfilling the prophesy of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, they are actually refreshing the relevance of some of his controversial sayings.

With this private jet issue, Fela’s suffering and smiling song , where he said “Archbishop na miliki, Pope na enjoyment, Imam na gbaladun” becomes much more than just a controversial song.

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10 SIGNS HE’S NEVER GOING TO PROPOSE BY FUTURE SCOPES

One of the biggest dating questions which haunt women is whether her boyfriend is ready to commit. She may be sticking around with him for almost a couple of years now, hoping that he will make up his mind and still waiting for the elusive engagement ring. If you don’t want this to happen to you, learn to pick up ten signs which tell you that he’s not going to propose marriage in a hurry.

1.       He never discusses marriage: This is perhaps the first hint that should start ringing warning bells in your mind. Your boyfriend cannot be caught dead talking about marriage as an institution or even commenting on commercials for wedding products and services. He won’t mention it even if his own brother is getting married and he is going to be the best man. His aversion to the M-word should be indication enough that marriage does not figure anywhere in his near future.

2.      He is hugely ambitious: Guys whose only mission in their lives is to reach the top of their professional ladder are likely to take their time settling down. This is because emotional commitment to a partner might force them to cut down on their working hours and make networking with business contacts or frequent out-of-town trips difficult. Though this is not to say that married guys don’t find success – witness President Obama and Bill Gates – super ambitious men who are perpetually looking for the next bigger and better thing are more likely to consider marriage as leading to professional stagnation.

3.      All his friends are single: This is as sure a sign as any that your boyfriend is not going to propose marriage. If  you notice that his social circle is exclusively made of bachelors and divorced men, it is evident that he is uncomfortable around married couples and has no plans to join their ranks in near future.

4.      He has strong sexual needs: A guy who places great emphasis on sex and considers it the most important part of a relationship is unlikely to settle for a single partner. Gone are the days when men could be baited into marriage on the lure of sex. The dissociation of sex and marriage as well as sexual freedom for women has also made it easier for men to keep sleeping around unless they wish to marry for other reasons. And if your boyfriend has a large sexual appetite, it is unlikely to be satisfied by a single person. He will sooner or later get tired of being with you and move on to someone else he can go to bed with.

5.      He lives out of a suitcase: Men with unstable living conditions usually have priorities like work and travel which are bound to clash with a stable married life. You may be thrilled to have a high-flying  war correspondent or wildlife photographer as a boyfriend, but such people are unlikely to settle down to tame domesticity. Far easier to spot – and avoid – are guys who are in and out of jobs or in trouble with the law and thus perpetually on the move. Rather look for men who have stable lives since they are the ones more likely to be looking for stable relationships.

6.      He does not take you to meet his family: This is an unmistakable sign that a guy is not considering marriage even though he may be dating someone. Men usually discuss their families only with those who are close enough to be let into their inner lives. If your boyfriend has never suggested that you meet his parents and even appears to be uncomfortable talking about them to you, then perhaps he is not ready to make you an intrinsic part of his life.

7.      You don’t figure in his plans: When talking about his future, does your guy merely discuss his goals of starting a business someday and are his dreams limited to retiring by the sea with his very own beach house and luxury boat? If so or something similar, then this is an indication that you are not part of his future plans and thus unlikely to be his wife any time soon. Unless of course, he goes through a life-changing experience and realizes the value of a committed relationship which is again putting too much store by chance and therefore not worth wasting your life for.

8.      He doesn’t ask you about yours: In a reversal of the above point, a guy unwilling to commit will also be uninterested to know about your life goals and hopes for the future. The present – comfortably carefree and uncomplicated – is good enough for him. He does not want to know if you want to eventually settle in the suburbs or how many kids would you like to have and whether you would prefer little girls or boys. Hell, he doesn’t even want to know where you have always wanted to go for your honeymoon! If you find all this true in case of your boyfriend, then you can kiss your dreams of marrying him goodbye and start looking for a more suitable guy.

9.      He is divorced: While divorced men are technically single and thus seeming candidates for a committed relationship, if your guy has gone through a particularly messy divorce, then probably he cannot bear the thought of marrying again. To be sure about this, pry around gently to see how badly he feels about his breakup and whether the scars are deep enough to be permanent. Other than emotional issues, a divorced man may also be caught up in child support and alimony so as to make any further commitments completely out of the question.

10.   He is not forthcoming about personal information: Have you ever wondered why your boyfriend is always vague when you ask him about his work and where he lives? You might have a rough idea that he is into finance and that he commutes from the suburbs but if he is unwilling to clearly share his personal information with you, probably he has something to hide – a spouse or a lover maybe. Or more likely he is determined to keep you away from the rest of his personal life. Not exactly marriage material, is he?

No one can say for sure what goes on in a person’s mind and what influences his/her decisions. But if your boyfriend displays all or most of the above signs, then more likely than not, he is not yet ready to propose marriage to you.

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#OKADABAN: THE TERMINATION OF A NECESSARY EVIL BY @LANRE_OLAGUNJU

It might be difficult to look beyond the poverty and backwardness in our society, but only when we try, will it become intelligible that the use of motorcycle for commercial transportation has to stop. Aside that it’s unsafe, in the real sense it’s an abuse of the product itself, essentially when you consider that it was originally never meant for commercial transportation.

Motorcycles were initially not part of our transportation system. Institutional failure gave room for them in the first place. Okada came to being as a result of government’s failure to create adequate jobs and transportation facility that can cater for the growing population. No developing city can permit the nuisance they constitute on our roads, let alone the threat they pose to safety and security, security in the sense that it aids the easy movement of weapons and ammunitions and also the sudden influx of many okada riders who came into Lagos after they were banned in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Uyo and other states. This in itself is a threat to the city of Lagos.

Despite the annoyance in many Lagosians, we can’t but agree with Governor Fashola when he said “visit the hospitals and emergency wards and see those who have lost limbs, arms, those who had lost children or those who had become orphans by the recklessness of the okada riders.

Honestly, Nigerians should expect that if we must progress as a nation, many more difficult and unpopular laws and decisions would be needed. The only challenge is that our leaders have a knack for doing good things in bad ways, which majorly questions the sanity in their policy. Look at the fuel subsidy issue that put the entire nation to a stand-still in January for instance, and here again is Fashola destroying bikes. They shouldn’t have destroyed those seized bikes. Not for any reason! That in my opinion is cruel. Like some other states did, they should have made plans for them to pay more to receive brand new tricycles instead of their seized bikes. Nigerian politicians need to develop sensitivity and a human face to leadership; hence of what essence is democracy!

Trust they say is built on antecedents. Until Nigerians have a higher level of trust in their leaders, unpopular decisions taken by politicians will always be yelled at and seen as anti-people. This same spontaneous Governor in collaboration with his party gave out free crash helmets to okada riders during the 2011 general election and now it’s a different ball game entirely.

Fashola actually once said it’s only a dumb student that repeats a class. The denotation of this statement might actually be responsible for many of the overzealous laws that have characterized the second term of his administration. Or how else do you explain that a governor who doubles as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who in every sense should actually know better, will zealously and unreasonably criminalize traffic offenses.

Lagosians are not dumb. All they are angry and mad at is that Fashola and his group of advisers are yet to understand the concept of creating alternatives.  And that for every action there will be several equal and opposite reactions.

Many of these okada men used to be artisans; welders, carpenters, tailors and the rest. Just like a welder I spoke with asked me “when there’s no light to work, how do I buy diesel and still make money? So I’d to settle for okada. No be say me self won die now”. Lagos state government needs to think deep about the aftermath of the widened gap between the haves and don’t haves.

Fashola recently in Lagos urged business executives and corporate leaders to be mindful of the type of ventures they support, emphasizing that tricycles known as Keke Marwa represents the sign of India’s age of poverty which the country is doing so much to do away with by busy manufacturing TATA buses. Fashola said he wonders how Nigerians are now embracing it wholeheartedly. On the contrary, I wonder why he can’t learn the simple lesson of creating alternatives from the same Indian government he used as example.

In a society majorly comprised of the jobless and the poor, with no hope of social security, a society where hunger beat many soft like clay, you just don’t preach normalcy and order by banning a bad thing that comes with several good benefits. Moreover the ruling class will never have a feel of the consequences of such drastic actions. So how on earth do they expect people to see sanity in their decisions?

 Many of our roads are so bad and un-motorable. I had to take the picture of this part of Mushin road, a route I take almost every day. When you consider the traffic caused by such roads especially when it rains, okada becomes the available alternative if you must meet up. Ijegun road, Jakande Estate in Oke-afa in Isolo to Ejigbo road got some attention after so much complains, yet it hasn’t been completed donkey years after the contract has been awarded. 

The Lagos State government needs to do more in terms of infrastructure, transportation and good roads, before coming up with harsh laws and decisions. Fashola needs to be reminded that his tenure made all Lagosians, including bike men who pay for various nameless tickets, pay more in tax than any previous administration. Lagosians are playing their part. We can’t wait to see the tax collected transform the whole of Lagos and not some designated areas.

Eko o ni baje!

Follow @Lanre_Olagunju on Twitter

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NIGERIA WON’T CHANGE, UNTIL WE ARE TIRED BY @JIDELEIGH

Just as darkness is the absence of light, so would I attribute violence, extra-judicial killings, acts of terrorism and every other social vice that has plagued this supposed great nation of ours to idleness. An idle mind isn’t just the devil’s workshop; it’s the devil’s headquarters. A hungry man can’t but be angry. So what happens when you have a hungry idle man? What a combination! You see him harassing commercial bus conductors, leading mob actions, waylaying helpless citizens etc.

“It must be clear that the Nigerian government cannot protect your workers or assets. Leave our land while you can or die in it…. Our aim is to totally destroy the capacity of the Nigerian government to export oil.”MEND warned the oil industry giants in January 2006 via email. They were true to their words as we know how many expatriates, civilians and law enforcement agents  lost their lives ever since.

I rack my brain, trying to figure out the cause of these terrible happenings that befell Nigeria in the past few weeks, the #Aluu killings and that of Mubi amongst others. Despite that I don’t want to hastily conclude, I still want to say that idleness has a hand in it all.

I find it hard to comprehend the logic behind why the so-called trained police force, will have to be assisted by Vigilante groups, a group of uneducated, untrained men. Some states even go as far as passing laws to legitimize them. Sometimes, I wonder if deep thoughts were put into these decision making processes. The most bizarre twist is that these vigilante groups are answerable to no known authority, they are absolutely free. This however means that whenever they decide to go rogue, then nation better start preparing another amnesty plan.

Aint we tired of how emergency services arrive too late at emergency scenes or are we just going to sit in our “tokunbo” cars and pretend to be comfortable on roads that claim more lives yearly than even the Boko-Haram sect has ever done.

The judicial system has failed to the height that we now find enemies in the police force and friends with the devilish instinct to lynch our fellow citizens. Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, former attorney general of the federation in his speech at October 1st Platforms 10.2 event, said categorically that Nigeria has the lowest number of convicts in record in the world, despite our population of over 150 million. It’s either that Nigerians are one of the most well behaved people in the world or the criminals are here with us. Don’t ask me! We all know which is correct.

As many of us who think that the best way out of this ‘naija’ palaver is to lay low, stay out of trouble, get a good education, don’t owe any debt, say your prayers and get a decent life, you just need to think again, because the stench from the rotting system will definitely catch up with you, either in the form insecurity, poor healthcare system, unemployment, injustice or insensitivity.

We must be reminded that democracy is a government of the people, for the people and by the people. The ‘people’ in the definition actually refers to the over 150million of us all, and just like the numerous parts of a motor, we are all just as important as one another in our functionalities, right from the president, through to the market women and the almajiris.

One mistake common to us Nigerians is thinking that the responsibility of managing this nation and our lives solely lies with the government, forgetting that we all have a part to play. Moreover, our government has not minced words in telling us that they don’t give a damn, and that we are all on our own and that not until our existence affects the daily production of crude oil or the ambience in the presidential villa, we are considered non-existent.

A system that doesn’t have measures for check and balances is one that is about to run aground. The Nigerian system was originally designed to check and balance itself (executive, judiciary and legislative) and curb one another’s excesses but what do we have today? The three arms have formed a coalition, taking us as far away from the promise land as we could get, what is worse is that they seem not to be relenting. No thanks to corruption.

A couple of weeks has passed as Lagosian are still trying to adjust to the new traffic laws which in my opinion is not the best our legislature could come up with. Let’s neglect that it is loaded with so much fine to the tone of #30000 and #50000, which makes me conclude that Fashola’s government is broke, the laws are victimizing, incomplete and also serves as a tool for harassment.

In 1972, right hand vehicles were banned, it became a law that anyone found on the road would be impounded and the licensing officers that registered such vehicles would be prosecuted.  This law clearly states the object of concern (right hand vehicles) and who will bear the grunt should it find its way to the road (the owner of the vehicle and the licensing officer).

It’s high time we all manned our duty posts, screaming, praying, resisting, criticizing, encouraging, #occupying till things change, be law abiding, vexing because we all have a part to play in the betterment of this ‘great’ nation.

Jide Niyi-leigh

Jide_leigh@yahoo.com

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MY FELLOW JUNGLE MEN BY @LANRE_OLAGUNJU

When you ponder on the recent cycle of madness epitomized by mad leadership and disordered followers in a jungle damned by its people such as ours, you just want to wish that the year 2012 be erased out of the history of this big jungle which never seems to be tired of constantly hearing the worst of itself.

When you look into the massacre of the over forty students in Mubi in Adamawa on Independence Day, and the heartless killing of the four young and ambitious UNIPORT undergraduates, you definitely want to agree with Shakespeare that “hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

Some who have condemned the sad Aluu killing have said our thieving politicians should be the ones Nigerians carry out jungle justice on. I can’t but disagree vehemently. We should rather advocate for law and order. If the law says anyone found guilty of stealing public funds be put to death by hanging. So be it! ‘cos that is the law. Our society can’t afford to operate like this; else we completely lose our human feeling and then birth more Hitlers than the world can bear.

Jungle justice is a prevalent occurrence in our jungle only that social media, at this time, has amplified our nakedness and brought the picture of ourselves and our failed system to us in a manner that we are finding hard to accept.

It’s evidently clear that we are not safe in this country and that we all are on our own. There’s a limit to which we can rely on “self-government” by that I mean the type of government whereby citizens virtually provide every amenity including security. It so sad that I sometimes, out of anger, feel that one day Nigerians would be able to do without the government. We provide our own water by drilling boreholes all over the place not being mindful of the environmental hazard it might bring. We provide our own power with our generators, despite that the fume they generate is hazardous to health. In many communities, people contribute money to fix roads so the roads might be quite motorable. We just can’t continue to wait for the inept government.  What a shame!

When you need the fire men to salvage a fire accident, you can be sure that they won’t show up, and when they do, they either don’t have water or don’t have enough of it. When we need the police to show up at crime scenes, they either don’t have a van to come with or they don’t have fuel in it. And when you expect that the police or law enforcement agents show up and salvage a case such as that of the senseless Aluu killing, they’d rather look on, laugh with the mob, and then approve that the mob burn the boys alive. Only to later release fabricated lies and annoying unguided statements like “we were overwhelmed by the crowd, we didn’t have sufficient bullets in our guns”.  Just to scare away a mob with sticks?! It was Chude Jideonwo, Chief Editor of Y! Magazine who said “we are living like animals in this country” while narrating the series of horrible experiences he had with the Nigerian system a couple of hours after the death of his father, not excluding the gruesome one with that of the ruthless members of the Nigerian police.

One would naturally expect that Mr President in his speech on Tuesday 9^th of October, would at least mention the Aluu killing and that of Mubi in Adamawa and then talk about strategies in place to bring about justice. Infact, if it we were in places where things work, the Commissioner of Police in Rivers State should have tendered his resignation by now while all the police officers who were present at the scene be charged to court.

We earnestly can’t afford to continue like this. To sit and patiently expect that God will come down to save us from many of our man made troubles including the act of carrying out jungle justice, is to wait till the anger of His judgment come upon us. Most especially when we later realize that many of those who are murdered in such acts are most times innocent of the crime they were accused of.

We can do a lot to ensure that this case is not swept under the carpet. Justice must be done. Else we approve of this and more of it in our society. I advocate that the statue of these guys be erected in Aluu community as a memorial, so generations to come will always be reminded of the wickedness and innocent blood that was shared on that land.

May the souls of #Aluu4 find true rest.

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