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SOYINKA EKPO ABIOLA ACHEBE<br />
SARO-WIWA RIBADU<br />
free on-line download<br />
A brief muse on revolution + God is Allah + A chat with the Radio Amazon<br />
+ Anything is Possible + Let the Truth be Told + Licensed to Survive<br />
2
2<br />
word-up’<br />
Someone asked us recently if the <strong>Reload</strong><br />
is a magazine. No it’s not. It’s the<br />
<strong>Reload</strong>, plain and simple.<br />
Keeping true to our mission to cover<br />
youth-related issues in as many places<br />
in Naija as possible (yes people, Nigeria<br />
is much more than Lagos, Abuja and<br />
Port Harcourt), we have put together yet<br />
another packed issue.<br />
Contained within these pages is our first<br />
(ever) investigative feature. It’s a thoughtprovoking<br />
piece, and also an exciting<br />
read.<br />
We have our usual mix of unusual<br />
interviews, lifestyle features, personal<br />
essays, entertainment news, and loads<br />
and loads of brilliant photography and<br />
snazzy graphic art.<br />
What’s identity to you? Is it about pride,<br />
heritage, a sense of belonging, or just<br />
wearing a “Naija” t-shirt? We asked<br />
a selection of interesting citizens a few<br />
questions on this subject, and we got some<br />
really cool answers.<br />
Is our generation all talk-talk and tweettweet,<br />
or can we get off Facebook for a few<br />
minutes and take concrete steps to hold our<br />
government responsible for the change we<br />
want? We need to do more and forget less.<br />
The average Nigerian will rave and rant, but<br />
just moments later will he/she will forget<br />
what the noisemaking was all about. No<br />
more, people! #Enoughisenough. There<br />
are people in Jos who will live in fear and<br />
pain for years to come, and as you will read<br />
in our “Heal Jos” series of essays, we can<br />
live together in this country, despite our<br />
differences.<br />
As the politicians gear up to start their<br />
election campaigns, I hope we also gear up<br />
to choose the right leaders. Our vote is one<br />
way that we can stand up and make our<br />
voices heard, and we should, we must, use<br />
it. Come 2011, it’s Cool2Vote!<br />
One final thing: does anyone know where<br />
we can beg, buy or steal a pet octopus?<br />
We hope you enjoy this bumper issue of<br />
<strong>Reload</strong>, and don’t forget to surf by www.<br />
switchedonnaija.com to view other readers’<br />
comments on all the pieces published in this<br />
maga . . . erm . . . <strong>Reload</strong>.<br />
Sola Kuti<br />
www.switchedonnaija.com - re’load<br />
engineroom@switchedonnaija.com<br />
Get FREE downloads of our publications<br />
from www.switchedonnaija.com<br />
Getty Images
Contents EDITOR: AI Barrett<br />
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Sola Kuti<br />
PRODUCTION: Collins Ogundele<br />
ENGINEROOM: Ama Lydia Yankson<br />
DESIGN & LAYOUT: Naija Talk Limited<br />
LOGISTICS: Damilola Ogundele<br />
5 8 Things women should know about men.<br />
6 Who is Maye Hunta?<br />
8 The Best friend.<br />
9 A brief muse on revolution.<br />
10 God is Allah.<br />
18 A chat with the Radio Amazon.<br />
20 Anything is Possible.<br />
21 Let the Truth be Told.<br />
22 My representation of Heaven.<br />
24 The case of the two police officers detained<br />
indefinitely on charges of rape.<br />
26 Catching up with Tosyn Bucknor.<br />
27 Licensed to Survive.<br />
PG.19<br />
A hard-copy of the RELOAD will be needed for verification :)<br />
PG.12<br />
PG.16<br />
PG.22<br />
Send contributions to<br />
engineroom@switchedonnaija.com<br />
CONTACT<br />
+234 702 585 9199<br />
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CHAIRMAN: W. Adeyinka<br />
POSTAL ADDRESSES<br />
NIGERIA: P.O. Box 4016, Ikeja, Lagos State<br />
ADVERTISING advertise@switchedonnaija.com<br />
INFORMATION info@switchedonnaija.com<br />
WEBSITE www.switchedonnaija.com<br />
COMPETITION RULES<br />
1) Prizes are not transferable and may not be converted<br />
to cash. 2) You may enter as many times as you wish. 3)<br />
Switched On Media staff cannot be held liable for any prizes<br />
that go missing, are damaged in the post or may cause<br />
harm to the recipients. 4) The judgeʼs decision is final.<br />
NO correspondence will be entered into. 5) By entering<br />
any competition, Switched On Media reserves the right to<br />
use or publish either electronically or in print form, any<br />
entry submitted. 6) Employees of Switched On Media, their<br />
families, landlords, contractors, suppliers, ex-girlfriends,<br />
ex-boy friends, groupies and pets are not eligible to enter any<br />
competition.<br />
DISCLAIMER<br />
This magazine contains information received from a variety<br />
of sources. The information stated herein is that of the author<br />
and may not necessarily reflect the view of the Company.<br />
The information may also contain personal opinions and<br />
other expressions of the persons who make the report. This<br />
information does not constitute a representation by the<br />
Company, as SwitchedonNaija or Switched On Media does<br />
not control, monitor or guarantee the information contained<br />
herein. We shall not be held responsible or liable, directly or<br />
indirectly, for any damage caused or alleged to be caused by<br />
or in connection with this information.<br />
COPYRIGHT<br />
The views or opinions expressed in this publication or<br />
contents of advertisements are those of the contributors and<br />
correspondents concerned and do not necessarily reflect the<br />
views or policies of Switched On Media,<br />
the editor, publisher, printer or advertising agency, who do<br />
not accept responsibility for misinterpretation or fact in the<br />
subject matter or advertisement contained herein.<br />
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be<br />
reproduced, stored in a system or transmitted in any form or<br />
by any other means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying,<br />
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission<br />
of Switched On Media. Copyright is vested. Articles,<br />
which are published verbatim, contain the appropriate<br />
acknowledgements.<br />
Copyright © Switched On Media Limited 2010<br />
re’load - www.switchedonnaija.com<br />
3
4<br />
worth da hype<br />
shoot ‘em down<br />
Wande Coal > For winning 5 awards at the<br />
Hiphop World Awards 2010.<br />
#EnoughisEnough > For taking the message<br />
from the internet onto the streets.<br />
Nuhu Ribadu > For his reinstatement as<br />
AIG of the Nigeria Police.<br />
Wande Coal’s “Water to Wine” music video.<br />
Ruggedman’s phone call recording stunt with<br />
9ice.<br />
Untalented artists using Dagrin’s death to<br />
launch themselves into the limelight with<br />
tribute songs.<br />
The recent and unresolved Jos crisis.<br />
We have “Pizzard”<br />
It came from a friend of a friend who got it from a friend somewhere in<br />
Nigeria. Though we traced the source of this menu, we chose to let them be.<br />
Here’s our latest WTF picture! Read the list of mouth-watering dishes.<br />
www.switchedonnaija.com - re’load<br />
2face Idibia > For his hot new album,<br />
Unstoppable.<br />
Jesse Jagz > For his track ‘Intoxicated’,<br />
featuring Soul E and Wizkid.<br />
HHWA 2010 > For the inclusion of a<br />
tribute to the late rapper, Dagrin.<br />
Those who believed Nigeria would stand a<br />
chance of winning the 2010 FIFA World<br />
Cup on the strength of prayers rather than<br />
preparation.<br />
The Super Eagles for “falling our hand”.<br />
Mo’Cheddah drops her new hit single titled “Ko<br />
Maa Roll”, off her soon-to-be-released debut album<br />
The Franchise Celebrity. The song comes as a sequel<br />
to her recent hit debut ‘If You Want Me’, which is<br />
already enjoying heavy rotation on radio stations<br />
across the nation.<br />
Download the free wallpapers:<br />
http://www.switchedonnaija.com/index.<br />
php?option=com_joomgallery&func=viewcategory<br />
&catid=18&Itemid=579<br />
“Haleeeoou” (it’s the royal wave from the Don<br />
of Mo’Hits). Ehn . . . but the wave shocked even<br />
our camera guy. He’s so LOL the pose made us<br />
go OMG. Not forgetting Oga Kwame in white.<br />
Hello Boss! Send us a caption for this pic guys! Email:<br />
captions@switchedonnaija.com<br />
Skales, whose real name is Raoul John Njeng-Njeng,<br />
is an 18-year-old rapper, song writer and performer.<br />
This emerging talent has wowed audiences around<br />
Nigeria with his unique rap style and his charm on<br />
stage, from the Zain Tru Search talent competition in<br />
2008 to the Soundcity Blast concert in 2009, where<br />
he astonished the crowd with a rap a cappella.<br />
His first single, “Must Shine”, enjoyed good airplay<br />
in early 2009 and made it into the Rhythm FM “Top<br />
7 Jamz at 7” in Lagos. It was also the ‘Hit Song of<br />
the Week’ on Rhythm FM in Jos and Abuja. Skales<br />
has gone on to record and write well over 20 songs<br />
and has collaborated with some of the finest music<br />
acts in Nigeria, such as Eldee Tha Don, Jeremiah<br />
Gyang, Banky W and Knighthouse.<br />
His new singles ‘Heading for A Grammy’ and ‘Be<br />
Mine’ will hit the airwaves in 2010.<br />
Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun aka Wizkid is a talented singer, songwriter and<br />
performer. He kicked off his singing career at the age of 11 when he recorded<br />
his first song with one of Nigeria’s most celebrated music icons, OJB Jezreel.<br />
2009 would prove to be Wizkid’s break-out year, as his collaboration with MI on<br />
“Fast Money, Fast Cars” on the multi-award-winning Talk About It album drew<br />
major attention to his distinct voice, singing style and songwriting skills.<br />
Wizkid is hard at work on his debut album, which will be released by EME<br />
Records, and he has released his first two singles titled “Holla at your Boy” and<br />
“Gidi Girl”.<br />
+ mo’cheddah wallpapers<br />
+ ese peters<br />
Ese Peters is a Nigerian singer,<br />
songwriter and guitarist. His music has<br />
been described as soft rock, pop and folk.<br />
Ese learned to play the guitar by himself<br />
when he was 12 and wrote his first string<br />
of songs when he was 16.<br />
Check out: http://www.<br />
reverbnation.com/artist/song_<br />
details/2967541#/esepeters
9 “WORST”<br />
WAYS TO<br />
BREAK UP<br />
WITH A GIRL<br />
By @gigachic<br />
Is there really a good way to end a<br />
relationship? The likely answer is HELL<br />
NO! But there are some ways to send a<br />
lover packing that are more horrible than<br />
others and I’ll be sharing with you those<br />
I feel are the absolute worst . . .<br />
1. Status updates: changing your Facebook status from<br />
“in a relationship” to “single” in the hope that she’ll<br />
take the hint. This is a funny but very wicked way to<br />
end a relationship . . . and it’s quite silly also because<br />
you now leave room for the “offended” party to post all<br />
sorts of retorts/insults or teary love songs on your wall .<br />
. . this is so not cool!<br />
2. SMS, email: this is a cowardly way to end a<br />
relationship. If you ever cared for that person you<br />
should find the courage to tell them to their face . . . no<br />
matter how uncomfortable it is.<br />
3. Call a friend: you are too chicken to tell her yourself<br />
so you get a friend to tell her . . . it even sounds wrong!<br />
Wow, it sucks to be you . . . plus, your friend may even<br />
get slapped for his effort at straightening your love-life.<br />
4. Rumours: you tell everyone it’s over, everyone<br />
but her . . . and then she gets to hear the news from<br />
someone else. Don’t underestimate the power of a<br />
woman scorned! Especially if her favourite song is “I<br />
burst the windows out your car . . .”<br />
5. In public: you are at a party when all of a sudden you<br />
can’t take it anymore and need to tell her it’s over . . .<br />
bad idea . . . you should be prepared for a scene. She<br />
could get all weepy and beg or she could hurl insults at<br />
you that would most likely consist of the inadequate<br />
size of your you-know-what and how much you suck in<br />
bed . . .<br />
6. Turn the tables: you start behaving badly . . .<br />
missing dates, etcetera, and all of a sudden you’re<br />
always too busy. You’re on your worst behaviour to<br />
frustrate her into breaking up with you . . . mind games<br />
aren’t cute!<br />
7. Disappearing act: you stop calling, stop visiting<br />
and in some extreme cases, change your number and<br />
move out of your apartment . . . this leaves your partner<br />
wondering if you have been kidnapped or worse still,<br />
you are dead. Isn’t it easier to just say it’s over?<br />
8. I love you and all but I’ve found someone<br />
else: this is guaranteed to get your tyres slashed. End<br />
one relationship before you start another . . . you don’t<br />
want to be remembered as the asshole that cheated on<br />
her . . .<br />
9. It’s not you, it’s me: please, whatever you do, never<br />
use this line—it’s just plain stupid! She knows it’s her,<br />
it’s all about her . . . just state your reasons for the breakup<br />
and leave, quickly!<br />
So I saw @gigachic’s article and<br />
decided to do one for the guys. It<br />
would seem an honourable gesture<br />
considering the fact that she did<br />
school us about the other half. Well<br />
ladies, I saw your comments too . . .<br />
maybe this will help cool you chics<br />
off a bit (sorry I just thought about<br />
wet t-shirt contests!)<br />
1. We get “turned on” easily.<br />
So the occasional hug or knee rub means nothing to you,<br />
but did you notice he’s still sitting down? Most guys have<br />
perfected the art of “de-boning” (my phrase). However if<br />
you also catch him walking sideways with his back towards<br />
you . . . don’t be alarmed, just understand!<br />
2. We calculate when you’re not looking.<br />
So we take you out for dinner and look through the menu<br />
and ask what you would like to have. Don’t be fooled,<br />
we’ve already done the calculation. At times you might also<br />
notice that our hands have been in our pockets for a while<br />
. . . beneath the cloth, our fingers are moving like money<br />
counters, calculating how much we have. Now you know<br />
why some guys put different denominations in separate<br />
pockets!<br />
3. We love to feel the ‘boys’, ‘mini mes’,<br />
‘weapons of destruction’.<br />
Women have for long felt that men scratch or fiddle way<br />
too much down there. Wrong! We are checking to see that<br />
the ‘family’ is still there . . . or don’t you remember there<br />
was a time you could easily lose your ‘precious’ while<br />
walking on Naija streets? Also, some of us have been so<br />
blessed that we have no problem counting in inches, and so<br />
once in a while we have to position things in comfortable<br />
places.<br />
attention to detail<br />
By Unoma Giese<br />
The ripple of muscle<br />
The sheen of dark black skin<br />
The rough of stubble<br />
On square strong chin<br />
The power of your 6foot6<br />
The presence of your aura<br />
The plenty in your bag of tricks<br />
The last gift of Pandora<br />
The fervour of a kiss<br />
Senses blaze aflame<br />
A zoning-in on bliss<br />
A breathless call of name<br />
The clinging to your torso<br />
The sounds of flesh on flesh<br />
Makes every caress moreso<br />
A net to us enmesh<br />
The arch of my back<br />
The tingling scented lubes<br />
A thrust and a smack<br />
The trimmed curly pubes<br />
Nipples and tongues<br />
Fingers exploring<br />
Moans like songs<br />
Entangled limbs adoring<br />
8 things<br />
women should<br />
know about<br />
guys!<br />
By (One Broken Rose) OBR<br />
4. We hate old school nightgowns!<br />
Who wants to come home to a woman covered from neck<br />
to ankle with lace trimmings and little blue and pink roses<br />
scattered like a bad curse over the material. Your man might<br />
not say it, but he knows a sexy nightgown when he sees it. Be<br />
careful if he never complains . . . there could be a Victoria’s<br />
Secret somewhere!<br />
5. If and when we do propose…<br />
Don’t laugh or wait too long before you answer! It’s already<br />
a daunting task to decide to throw away our “little black<br />
books” and grow old with you. A swift (hopefully positive)<br />
response will be appreciated. However, we wouldn’t mind a<br />
tear or two . . . what the hell . . . cry all you want. It would<br />
make the proposal feel all the more effective.<br />
6. We have egos (that sometime need massaging)<br />
I know most women don’t get the “daddy’s cup”, “daddy’s<br />
chair” or “daddy’s meat” thing. But most guys need to<br />
feel like the men of the house. However, some of us have<br />
experienced the revelation that the woman is the stronger sex,<br />
but once in a while we try to exert supreme prowess . . . even<br />
if we will beg you later.<br />
7. We are curious beings!<br />
No explanation needed. I’ll end with a story. I once saw a<br />
little kid hold up a magazine that had a picture of a model<br />
with a miniskirt. He tried without luck to look through the<br />
paper. He then placed his head sideways on the magazine . .<br />
. right on the models legs, pressing his head so his eyes could<br />
touch the paper. It only hit me later . . . the little brat was<br />
trying to look up her skirt!<br />
8. We send signals to the competition<br />
Did he just help you fix your hair, straighten your collar or<br />
hold your waist? Most times women see this as a show of<br />
affection. Wrong! He’s signalling the competition to KEEP<br />
OFF. Yes, somewhere in the crowd, another guy is looking<br />
at you and he has just made the guy know he is the King of<br />
your castle. But there’s another side to this behaviour: if he’s<br />
not doing it, it could be because he wants the females out<br />
there to think he is available.<br />
Sweat in skin’s creases<br />
The sheer funk of pleasure<br />
The gasp of releases<br />
Abandon beyond measure<br />
The manliness of the man<br />
Your rhythm, your breath<br />
The canliness of oh yes you can<br />
Inertia in the aftermath.<br />
re’load - www.switchedonnaija.com<br />
5
6<br />
who is<br />
maye<br />
hunta?<br />
By Damola “Wild eye” Ogundele<br />
I had been tracking Maye Hunta for<br />
some weeks, until he finally gave up<br />
running and invited me over to his<br />
house for the interview. On arriving<br />
at his place, I found, as I had<br />
expected, this good-looking, well-built<br />
dude—very much the image of the<br />
music star—but his warm, cool and<br />
calm attitude was a real surprise. I<br />
enjoyed talking with him, and I hope<br />
you enjoy the interview too.<br />
www.switchedonnaija.com - re’load<br />
Damola: Who is Maye Hunta?<br />
Maye: Maye Hunta is a Nigerian singer, songwriter, actor—<br />
in short, I am an entertainer. My real name is Olumayowa<br />
Adekunle Odejimi and I’m from Ogun State. I represent the<br />
rock city, Abeokuta. Egba for sure!<br />
Damola: You just classified yourself as an actor. Any major<br />
movie?<br />
Maye: My first professional acting experience was on<br />
“Jacob’s Cross”. It’s a series that shows on MNET. I acted in<br />
it as a bodyguard.<br />
Damola: You have the looks . . .<br />
Maye: Yeah, I know what you mean . . . [He flexes his<br />
muscles].<br />
Damola: I remember one of your early videos. You wore<br />
baggy jeans shorts and a yellow basketball jersey in it . . .<br />
From then till now, how would you rate your penetration of<br />
the Nigerian music scene?<br />
Maye: Well . . . I must give all the kudos to God first of all<br />
and obviously to “Ekaette”—that song has been good to<br />
me. I have been doing music for a while now. I left Nigeria<br />
in 2002 for South Africa to study and also purse my music<br />
career, and that video you were talking about was the first<br />
single off my first album, which was called “Introduction”.<br />
That song was called “Gbedu”, featuring DJ Waxxy.<br />
From that album I released 3 major singles, shot 3 videos.<br />
There was “Gbedu IV” featuring Buffalo Solider, and also<br />
[another single titled] “Igho”. Then there was the video of<br />
the song that was nominated for the Channel O Awards in<br />
2007, in 3 categories, which were the Best Reggae Dancehall<br />
category, Best African video category and the Video of the<br />
Year category . . . We didn’t win, but that was a good start<br />
for us. So I have been doing music for a while now. I started<br />
writing songs in 1998, left Nigeria for South Africa in 2002,<br />
and dropped my first album in 2005. The album was not<br />
released in Nigeria ‘cos I had issues . . .<br />
Damola: What issues?<br />
Maye: I had issues with my partners. There were also some<br />
unforeseen circumstances—I was basically trying to come<br />
back to Nigeria and then . . . I just saw what everybody was<br />
doing and I decided to put my old album aside and work on<br />
a new one.<br />
Damola: Was that what inspired you to launch yourself on<br />
a controversial note?<br />
Maye: Well . . . not necessarily. The thing was, like I said,<br />
we had the album ready, I came back home, had issues<br />
with my partners, I tried to work it out but results were not<br />
forthcoming, so I decided to “rebrand” basically, you know,<br />
changed my looks and all that. I wasn’t such in a hurry to<br />
come out—for me it was about coming out with my own<br />
style. So I decided to go back to the drawing board and<br />
see how I could do something different and unique. Now,<br />
“Ekaette”, the way it came about, I think was somehow<br />
spiritual . . .<br />
Damola: First of all, who is Ekaette?<br />
Maye: Ekaette na fine babe mehn! It’s a character in a song,<br />
you know what I mean, just in case you want to ask me of<br />
whether it’s a true story or not . . .<br />
Damola: So, how is Ekaette doing?<br />
Maye: Ekaette dey alright mehn! She dey house. Madam no<br />
gree make she dey commot anyhow these days . . . So yeah,<br />
she’s a character in a song—a fictitious character that I<br />
came up with. But at the same time, it’s a true story, because<br />
it’s a story that happens in our society a lot. And I just<br />
figured that, why can’t we tell a story of things that people<br />
can relate to? And at the same time, pass out a message.<br />
Now, the reason why we had the whole “Ekaette” thing<br />
going was not to say that it’s okay to sleep with your house<br />
help—it’s a wakeup call in a society where most couples<br />
are always busy. There’s the hardworking, career-driven<br />
wife and the busy husband, and in the process of chasing a<br />
career, she leaves her home and allows a third party inside<br />
the home, and there the problem starts. So basically, there’s<br />
a moral in the story.<br />
Damola: Do you have a house girl?<br />
Maye: Ah ah now—everybody got a house girl!<br />
Damola: I don’t mean everybody. I mean you.<br />
Maye: No, I don’t have a house girl—I have a house boy . . .<br />
Damola: How successfully have you managed the Ekaette<br />
issues around you?<br />
Maye: Somehow, it’s a very controversial topic—for starters<br />
with the video and everything. I think it’s been successful,<br />
‘cos it’s given me the kind of break into the Nigerian market<br />
that I’ve never had before. So yeah, it’s successful. I thank<br />
God and my fans . . .<br />
Damola: And it’s a reflection of a true story, isn’t it?<br />
Maye: Yeah, it’s a reflection of a true story, so a lot of<br />
people can identify with the whole story . . .<br />
Damola: Nothing personal?
Maye: No, nothing personal at all . . .<br />
Damola: Someone around you?<br />
Maye: Yeah, I mean, you could say that, you know.<br />
Firsthand information . . . shit happens, you know . . .<br />
Damola: So—is Ekaette really that fine?<br />
Maye: Mehn . . . Ekaette fine o! She sexy—from what I even<br />
hear . . . I hear say “Ekaette” don turn slang for street. So<br />
there is the madam of the house and the Ekaette too. It’s<br />
like having a serious relationship and having something on<br />
the side too. But at the same time, I would like to use this<br />
medium to say that the choice of the name “Ekaette” is not<br />
meant to be derogatory in any way, ‘cos there’s this issue of<br />
people saying its stereotypical, saying that the house girl is<br />
Ekaette. Yeah, we’ve had some criticism on that issue. But<br />
like I keep saying to everybody, it could have been “Risikat”<br />
or “Amina”. It’s just that Ekaette was a good cook in the<br />
story, that’s why the madam brought her to the house,<br />
because she did not have the time to cook for her husband .<br />
. .<br />
Damola: And she cooks well, abi?<br />
Maye: Mehn! The edikainkan is bad ehn—if you taste it, you<br />
won’t want to leave the house o!<br />
Damola: What’s the relationship between madam and<br />
Ekaette after the whole “belle” issue?<br />
Maye: No be small thing o. Well, “Ekaette” has a sequel—it<br />
says “to be continued” in the video.<br />
Damola: So is Ekaette bringing her younger sister from the<br />
village—or she opts for an abortion or what?<br />
Maye: Haba bros, calm down now . . . you no want make<br />
I hammer ni? You just have to wait—there is a Part 2 and<br />
possibly Part 3.<br />
Damola: Now, there is the audio and video restriction on the<br />
song by the NBC’s censors’ board. How are you coping with<br />
the ban?<br />
Maye: You know, it’s just unfortunate, the whole NBC<br />
issue has kind of slowed down its airplay in Nigeria, as they<br />
basically banned both the video and audio, so the song is no<br />
longer on TV and radio, but it does not mean it’s not playing<br />
on cable. So yeah, we have tried to look into the issue, I<br />
have been to the NBC office to see what can be done about<br />
the whole issue, because what they said they want was the<br />
radio edit of the song. Now, if you listen closely to the song,<br />
there are no swear words, so I don’t understand what they<br />
want us to do. But my management went back and said, you<br />
know what, let’s take it a step further, so we went and did a<br />
broadcast version of it and still they won’t allow it to go on<br />
air.<br />
Damola: Despite the ban, do you think that you’ve made<br />
your breakthrough as an artiste?<br />
Maye: Well . . . I’m not halfway to where I want to be. You<br />
are never there, ‘cos if you think you are then you obviously<br />
you won’t grow. But I think it’s a good start—I have been<br />
able to get my style of music and my face into the homes of<br />
people and now I have more fans in Nigeria than I have ever<br />
had before, and it helps me build some anticipation around<br />
the album. “Mayefestation”, that’s the name of the album.<br />
The album drops in a short while, and there’s excitement in<br />
the air and even though “Ekaette” is not playing, people are<br />
still craving for it. So as an artiste, that’s what you want—but<br />
there’s still more goodies to come.<br />
Damola: What’s your relationship with other artistes?<br />
Maye: We are cool, ‘cos I have been around for some time<br />
now—I’ve been able to develop a relationship with many of<br />
them. They would come to South Africa and I would come<br />
home—and we interact well. Forgetting the kind of music<br />
you do, it’s all about the creativity . . .<br />
Damola: Anything to say about the forthcoming album?<br />
Maye: The album is called “Mayefestation”. The title means<br />
the manifestation of Maye—I don show. It’s a 14-track<br />
album. The first single off the album is titled “Ekaette”, and<br />
we have other songs like “Street University” featuring Sound<br />
Sultan, “Owo Faaji”, and “Paparaazi” featuring Vector.<br />
So Ekaeatte will not be the only the successful song on the<br />
album. For the critics out there, grab yourself a copy of the<br />
album and then decide . . .<br />
Damola: On your first album you were known as Maye, but<br />
now you are Maye Hunta. What’s with the change of name?<br />
Maye: Maye is just a nickname coined out of Mayowa—I<br />
got the name when I was in the university, that’s Ogun State<br />
University—I be OSU boy. My friends used to call me Maye<br />
and so I stuck with that. But as time went by, I rebranded<br />
and felt a need to have a stage surname. My surname is<br />
Odejimi, which means the crowned hunter. So that’s where<br />
the Hunta comes from.<br />
Damola: We can say your music career is taking off. Are<br />
there any other plans the fans should know of?<br />
Maye: Like I said before, Maye is not only about music—<br />
I’m a whole entertainment brand. But you know you need<br />
a platform for starting—I’m also interested in the business<br />
side of music—I’m a business man and also a hustler. So I<br />
will get into other things, but I’m not going to have so many<br />
things on my table, such that I won’t be able to concentrate.<br />
I just want to break in and so far, so good. I represent my<br />
own label called Made Entertainment and I’m the first<br />
artiste on my label—na me sign myself!<br />
re’load - www.switchedonnaija.com<br />
7
8<br />
THE BEST FRIEND By Chris Ugo-Jones<br />
The two women embraced with the joy of<br />
a friendship regained.<br />
One was clothed in an ankara blouse and<br />
skirt. At the age of thirty-one, her face was<br />
beginning to show signs of age, brought<br />
about by pockets of fat, which hinted at<br />
a decline in her sense of style. A head<br />
tie and a wedding ring completed her<br />
dressing and announced her as a married<br />
woman.<br />
The second woman wore a purple<br />
trouser suit and black high-heel shoes.<br />
The makeup on her face attempted to<br />
reduce her age by a significant number<br />
of years—it succeeded. Her weave-on<br />
was so expertly done that it was difficult<br />
even for other ladies to discern if it was<br />
her real hair or not. Her age of thirty-two<br />
was contained in a slim frame of five feet<br />
and six inches, which was just right for a<br />
Nigerian woman.<br />
I watched the two hug and jump and<br />
scream all at once and I smiled. Lara<br />
and I were on an errand for the Head of<br />
Operations to buy packs of food from the<br />
nearest eatery. We had just turned onto<br />
Lalubu Road, when she shouted at the<br />
driver:<br />
“Stop, stop, stop!”<br />
“What is it?” I said, alarmed.<br />
“See, oh my God. See, stop, don’t pass!<br />
Please, oh my God, stop!”<br />
The urgency in her voice caused the driver<br />
to turn sharply to the right. As he did so,<br />
a horn blared loudly behind us. I looked<br />
back and I saw an eighteen-wheeler truck<br />
hurtling towards our car. Our driver<br />
looked in his side mirror and realized his<br />
mistake on time. As he swerved to avoid<br />
a crash, the truck missed us by inches and<br />
clipped off the side mirror. Lara and I<br />
screamed in terror and hugged ourselves<br />
without thinking while the driver struggled<br />
to control the car, steering it this way and<br />
that before finally bringing it to rest by the<br />
side of the road.<br />
Both of us were still screaming sixty<br />
seconds after the car had stopped. Lara<br />
stopped screaming first—the driver had<br />
to slap me hard for me to regain control.<br />
Tears ran down my eyes and mucus down<br />
my nose in the aftermath of the distressing<br />
incident. Lara had to cradle me in her<br />
arms before I calmed down; and I was not<br />
ashamed.<br />
But before I had time to fully appreciate<br />
this embrace, Lara flung open the car door<br />
and ran out, shouting a name. A woman<br />
turned, with a questioning look, looked<br />
a little harder, opened her eyes wide and<br />
screamed: “Lara!”<br />
“Oyin!” Lara screamed back.<br />
And they both jumped into each other’s<br />
arms . . . which is where this story began.<br />
They talked for twenty minutes straight<br />
and finally exchanged phone numbers.<br />
Then Lara came back into the car,<br />
beaming.<br />
“That was my best friend in secondary<br />
school. Oh my God.”<br />
“Aw, that’s nice. You guys lost touch?” I<br />
asked.<br />
“Yes. And we were so tight. We did<br />
everything together.”<br />
Girls. They like doing everything together<br />
with their best friends. And when they<br />
marry, they expect to do everything with<br />
their husbands which, most of the time,<br />
never works.<br />
We bought the food and headed back to<br />
the office. Two minutes out, Lara’s phone<br />
chirped to the music of P-Square’s ‘No<br />
One Like You’. She answered it.<br />
“Hi dear . . . I’m good. You? Ah-ah, you<br />
are too sweet sometimes . . . tonight? Most<br />
definitely darling . . . I’m on my way to<br />
the office and I’ll see you . . . Bye.” She<br />
blew a kiss into the mouthpiece and cut<br />
the connection.<br />
As a confirmed amebo, curiosity was<br />
eating me up inside and I wanted—no,<br />
needed—to know who called.<br />
“So,” I said, not able to contain my<br />
curiosity any longer, “Who’s the guy?”<br />
“Which guy?” She couldn’t hold her smile<br />
in.<br />
“The guy you were talking with on the<br />
phone. Lara, you may not know this, but<br />
I’m actually as intelligent as I look.”<br />
“I agree, given that you look like a<br />
monkey.” I was about to take offence at<br />
her statement when she added with a<br />
laugh, “Just joking. You are a fine boy.”<br />
Phew. That was close. Heads would<br />
have rolled if she hadn’t retracted the<br />
statement. And yes, I’m pretty vain. Pun<br />
intended.<br />
“Promise me you won’t tell anybody,” she<br />
said as she gazed into my eyes.<br />
“I promise,” I said, not wanting to but<br />
having no other choice.<br />
“CJ, make sure you don’t tell or else, I’ll<br />
be very cross with you. I know you like<br />
gist.”<br />
“I won’t breathe a word.”<br />
“Okay. You know the new guy in<br />
Corporate Banking that was just<br />
transferred from the Head Office?”<br />
“Yeah. Hamza Bukar. That fine guy. Wait<br />
. . . you’re going out with him?”<br />
“Um, yes.”<br />
“Hm. Fast babe. But isn’t he married?”<br />
“No.”<br />
www.switchedonnaija.com - re’load<br />
“He looks married.”<br />
“Really. How do married men look?”<br />
“I don’t know. More mature I guess.”<br />
“He told me he isn’t and that’s good<br />
enough for me.”<br />
“Okay. Just be careful,” I said with a<br />
niggling feeling I could not shake off. I<br />
could sense trouble was coming but I did<br />
not know in what way it would appear.<br />
Back at the office, I decided to watch out<br />
for confirmation of the office romance.<br />
And it did not take long in coming.<br />
Lara was a customer service officer<br />
and, later that day, as she attended to a<br />
customer Hamza strolled to her seat. She<br />
did not see him until he put his hand on<br />
her back, pretending to ask a question.<br />
I tapped Dare, who was beside me, and<br />
pointed as Hamza gently caressed her<br />
back. The gesture seemed innocuous<br />
to the uninformed but then, I was not<br />
uninformed; neither was I a slacker.<br />
“Why are you pointing at Lara?” Dare<br />
asked.<br />
“Nothing,” I replied.<br />
He kept looking at me to understand what<br />
was happening. But I had promised to<br />
say nothing and if he could not decode<br />
the situation, then my lips were sealed.<br />
He gave up trying to understand and<br />
continued what he was doing.<br />
Two days later, Oyin, Lara’s friend,<br />
walked into the bank. After the initial<br />
hugs and greetings, she sat down and they<br />
entered into a conversation. I knew this<br />
was something I needed to hear to feed<br />
the vast chasm of curiosity that ailed me. I<br />
walked casually to her desk and pretended<br />
to fill a cup with water from the dispenser.<br />
The conversation, though in hushed tones,<br />
was loud enough for me to eavesdrop on.<br />
“…have a boyfriend now,” Lara said.<br />
“Hm. That’s cool. What’s his name?”<br />
Oyin asked.<br />
“I won’t tell you just yet. It’s better I show<br />
you. Before you leave, I’ll take you to see<br />
him.”<br />
“Please tell me his name, now.”<br />
“Wait small ah. We’ll go there soon. Let<br />
me finish up what I’m doing here.”<br />
“Hope he’s a fine guy oh. Anyhow, I trust<br />
you. You never went out with rubbish<br />
guys.”<br />
“Abi. But I was so picky that till now, I<br />
am not married. I hope this guy is the one.<br />
And to answer your question, turn around<br />
and see for yourself.”<br />
Good timing. The water had just filled<br />
the cup when Hamza came to see Lara<br />
for one of their intimate moments. As he<br />
walked towards the customer service desk,<br />
he stopped and the smile on his face froze.<br />
I wondered what was happening and I<br />
turned to see Oyin staring open-mouthed<br />
at Hamza. Lara, oblivious to the tension<br />
in the room, ran and hugged him.<br />
Uh oh. So this was the trouble I felt<br />
coming.<br />
It took a while for Lara to realize<br />
something was wrong. Hamza stood rigid<br />
on the spot and all the customers stared.<br />
“Hamza, what is wrong?” she asked. Then<br />
she turned to Oyin, whose face had the<br />
ferocity of a wounded lion.<br />
“Do . . . do you know him?” she asked<br />
Oyin.<br />
“He is my husband,” her newly regained<br />
friend replied in a flat tone.<br />
Someone whistled. I think it was me but<br />
I did not have the time ponder on this.<br />
There was too much drama in the room.<br />
Lara turned to Hamza. “Is . . . this . .<br />
. true? Hamza, is this true?” She was<br />
crying. “Say it isn’t so. Please tell me Oyin<br />
is lying. Oh God.” And she fainted.<br />
There was commotion in the hall as<br />
people rushed over to revive her. When<br />
she finally came to, she saw Oyin and<br />
Hamza standing over her, concern etched<br />
on their faces.<br />
“Oyin, why are you crying? You should be<br />
angry with me,” Lara whispered, sitting<br />
up.<br />
Oyin wiped her face. “Lara, there is<br />
something Hamza and I have to tell you.”<br />
Huh? The drama was not over?<br />
“Hamza and I are not married,” Oyin<br />
said.<br />
What? There was nothing else that<br />
she could say that would be any more<br />
“Lara stopped<br />
screaming first—the<br />
driver had to slap<br />
me hard for me<br />
to regain control.<br />
Tears ran down<br />
my eyes and mucus<br />
down my nose in<br />
the aftermath of the<br />
distressing incident.<br />
Lara had to cradle<br />
me in her arms<br />
before I calmed<br />
down; and I was not<br />
ashamed.”<br />
confusing. What was happening? I was<br />
itching to hear the end of this mystery.<br />
“Hamza and I are old friends. He came to<br />
my house when I moved to Abeokuta and<br />
told me he was going out with you. We<br />
decided to be naughty and pull your legs<br />
a bit to make you loosen up about your<br />
relationship. Unfortunately, it went worse<br />
than we expected. I’m sorry.”<br />
“Baby,” Hamza begged as he knelt,<br />
“please forgive us.”<br />
Lara was in shock for a while before she<br />
could speak. When she finally did, she<br />
said with great effort:<br />
“Hamza, you embarrassed me in front of<br />
staff and customers. You made me think I<br />
had made myself a whore . . .”<br />
“Baby I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I love<br />
you,” he pleaded.<br />
“. . . You connived with my best friend<br />
to ruin my reputation. That, as far as I’m<br />
concerned, is cheating.”<br />
“My darling, please don’t talk like this. It<br />
was only a joke.”<br />
“A very expensive one. Hamza, this is the<br />
end. Me and you are through.”<br />
Hamza looked like he wanted to burst into<br />
tears. Oyin rested her chin on her chest<br />
and shook her head. Even with my love<br />
for office drama, this was a bit too much<br />
for me. A tear ran down my cheek. But<br />
Lara was not finished.<br />
“Me and you are through,” she repeated—<br />
“through with all the secrecy!” And<br />
she began to laugh. Everyone burst into<br />
laughter as the prankster got a dose of his<br />
own medicine. “I love you, Hamza.”<br />
“I love you too, Lara.” They hugged<br />
tightly. This is not an American movie so,<br />
no kisses here. Only hugs.<br />
It was a happy ending to what seemed like<br />
a Mexican soap opera—full of romance,<br />
beautiful people and intrigue. I love happy<br />
endings.<br />
And all’s well that ends well.<br />
Rock on!<br />
Chris Ugo-Jones is the pseudonym of a banker who is also,<br />
in his spare time, a writer with a flair for the comic.
A BRIEF MUSE ON<br />
REVOLUTION:<br />
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!<br />
By Q’dance<br />
These days I have learnt to keep my mouth<br />
shut and ignore comments about the state<br />
of the Nigerian polity. I think we talk too<br />
much of our desired world—and too much<br />
talk hinders the possibility of action. When<br />
we scream “Enough is Enough!” and rush<br />
to update our Facebook and Twitter status,<br />
what do we hope to achieve? I’m no man<br />
of experience in all these, but I am aware<br />
of a certain kind of disposition that comes<br />
with these virtual beer-parlour chatters.<br />
The human and social sciences have<br />
accustomed us to see the figure of<br />
man behind every social event, just as<br />
Christianity taught us to see the eye of the<br />
Lord looking down upon us. Such forms of<br />
knowledge project an image of reality, at<br />
the expense of reality itself.<br />
In Nigeria, we are so bound by talking<br />
that the reality of power overwhelms us,<br />
turning us into docile and obedient citizens.<br />
When we settle for the politics of desire,<br />
which drives our wishes and actions into a<br />
revolution (the kind that is directed against<br />
all that is egoistic—and heroic—in man),<br />
we are prompted by an instinct of selfaffirmation<br />
and self-preservation that cares<br />
little about affirming or preserving a real<br />
cause.<br />
In brief, see how culture works.<br />
There is something we call Official<br />
Culture—that of religion, academia and<br />
the state—which provide definitions<br />
of patriotism, loyalty, belonging and<br />
boundaries. It speaks in the name of the<br />
whole, in opposition to that, we have the<br />
counter-culture, that of the unorthodox,<br />
heterodox and other alternative strengths<br />
that contains many anti-authoritarian<br />
themes that are in competition with the<br />
official culture. This “counter-culture”<br />
is in essence an ensemble of practices<br />
associated with various kinds of outsiders:<br />
the poor, the immigrants, the activists, the<br />
workers, the rebels and the artists (as a rule<br />
it excludes celebrities—at least the attitude<br />
they represent).<br />
Vocal Slender<br />
The first episode uncovers life in the Olusosun<br />
rubbish dump. The film follows the daily lives<br />
of two men who have become skilled at turning<br />
rubbish into gold. Eric, aka Vocal Slender, is a<br />
musician, and every piece of scrap material he<br />
finds brings him one step closer to his dream of<br />
launching his music career. But a serious fight<br />
nearly ruins his chances . . .<br />
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s3bmx<br />
Let the real artistes please stand up.<br />
Real artistes are those whose minds are<br />
like every other mind, who have one head<br />
and two feet and so are not superhuman.<br />
The major difference is that they possess<br />
a superlative mental power of sensation,<br />
perception, memory and imagination,<br />
which makes them seem more susceptible<br />
to the world that surrounds them and makes<br />
them deal less in artificial aesthetic values.<br />
They are like visionaries that lead the way to<br />
the unknown; they are not manipulators of<br />
the present, doing all they can to stop time,<br />
either for enjoyment of power, fame and<br />
self-aggrandisement.<br />
This is why pop culture cannot lead<br />
anywhere in nation building; it can do no<br />
more than come and go like the arrogance<br />
of a single stick of cigarette. Thus, I find<br />
it rather disturbing how we christen every<br />
riffraff as an artiste these days—you can’t<br />
just buy or lobby for that title.<br />
One thing I realise as a basic contrast<br />
between dictatorship and democracy?<br />
Dictatorship = SHUT YOUR MOUTH<br />
(that’s why opposition is stronger during a<br />
dictatorship).<br />
Democracy = JUST KEEP TALKING<br />
(that’s all the opposition’s got).<br />
At the end of the day it’s all same and alike,<br />
especially with pop culture, capitalism and<br />
globalisation working side by side with<br />
democracy. We shall talk, sing and rally<br />
for a very long time, and some shall acquire<br />
more fame in the process. At some radical<br />
moments, I am tempted to believe that our<br />
problem is democracy.<br />
So:<br />
• Let’s endeavour free political action from<br />
all unitary and totalitarian paranoia and<br />
take a journey through loss of ego;<br />
• Develop action, thought and desire by<br />
proliferation, juxtaposition, and disjunction,<br />
and not by subdivision and pyramidal<br />
“hierarchization” (for example, I need no<br />
Audu’s picture to see how important a cause<br />
is);<br />
• Do not think one has to be miserable or<br />
2face Idibia<br />
Nigeria is a blessed country, truly we are. We are<br />
bestowed with resources that make us the envy of<br />
many. There’s crude oil in the creeks, gold in Oyo,<br />
tin in Jos, coal in Enugu, and then to crown it all,<br />
there’s Innocent Idibia in Benue.<br />
http://www.thenetng.com/2010/06/01/exporting-<br />
2face-idibia/<br />
has to be known in order to be militant,<br />
even though the thing one is fighting is<br />
abominable. It is the connection of desire<br />
to reality—and not its retreat into the<br />
forms of representation—that possesses<br />
revolutionary force. So, let’s ask ourselves:<br />
does the general psyche call for a real<br />
life revolution, away from Twitter and<br />
Facebook and Sahara Reporters?<br />
• Do not use thought to ground a political<br />
practice; nor political action to discredit—<br />
as mere speculation—a line of thought.<br />
Use political practice as an intensifier of<br />
thought, and analysis as a multiplier of the<br />
forms and domains for the intervention of<br />
political actions.<br />
And let me say this:<br />
When we approach the task of nationbuilding<br />
through logos and slogans, it<br />
makes absolutely no sense—don’t get me<br />
wrong, we can tear ourselves apart, or<br />
reunite with a slogan: “Ghana must go”,<br />
“make Nigeria one”, “come with us or go<br />
to hell”, “Boko haram”, etc. This has little<br />
or nothing to do with nation-building.<br />
The cultural and other values which we<br />
live by are the values that led us “here”<br />
in the first place—these distorting mists<br />
of national (youth) euphoria and moral<br />
negligence and ideological barrenness<br />
which led us to this point are still seen as<br />
continuing in the identity of the nation.<br />
Since that identity has not changed, has<br />
undergone no revolutionary purge either in<br />
its guts or at the head—this revolution has<br />
no date and no place in time and space—<br />
the real revolution must therefore be made<br />
of fragments, and not as a whole body (of<br />
TV peoples). It must shatter the foundations<br />
of thoughts and attitudes, and recreate. Our<br />
collective break/down must result to our<br />
collective break/through.<br />
Only in this way does every individual<br />
share in the holy mess and understand the<br />
real purpose of the sacrifice.<br />
And then we can all scream “Enough is<br />
Enough!”<br />
But how soon will this be?<br />
I wish us all the best.<br />
Nollywood’s Finest<br />
A contemporary, Nigerian take on the classic story<br />
of Cinderella, an ordinary girl who rises to win<br />
the heart of—and also marry—the Prince through<br />
the intervention of a Fairy Godmother despite<br />
the obstacles life throws her way in the shape of<br />
a hostile Stepmother, envious Half-Sisters and a<br />
family rocking from financial vulnerability.<br />
http://www.nollywoodsfinest.com/info.html<br />
CONTD. PG12<br />
Who are you?<br />
Michaela Moye.<br />
What do you do?<br />
I’m a writer. I studied law at University of<br />
Abuja but I have worked as a journalist<br />
since 2005 and I also write short stories (as<br />
yet unpublished). I recently began working<br />
in PR after setting up Moye Media. I make<br />
and sell jewelry under my business name,<br />
IYANNU.<br />
How would you define identity?<br />
I believe that identity is not so much a<br />
destination, as the journey to discovering<br />
who we are. Identity is not solely about<br />
who we are and where we are from; the<br />
discovery process is just as important<br />
because that identity changes every day.<br />
Today, I might be a writer from Nigeria.<br />
Tomorrow, I might embrace all my other<br />
roots—the different cultures, religions and<br />
tribes. We are. I am. That is identity.<br />
What is the first question, in your<br />
opinion, a foreigner would ask about<br />
Nigeria?<br />
Can we drink the water? (My answer would<br />
be “Yes!”)<br />
Are you comfortable writing about non-<br />
Nigerian characters?<br />
Yes.<br />
How many states in Nigeria have you<br />
visited?<br />
18.<br />
If you were President of Nigeria for a<br />
day, what would you do?<br />
Sort out the electricity. Power runs industry.<br />
Name 3 Nigerians that inspire you?<br />
Jesse Jagz, Audu Maikori and Wole<br />
Soyinka.<br />
9<br />
“Shame” 2 Nigerians that make you want<br />
to migrate?<br />
I don’t think I could ever be so ashamed of<br />
being Nigerian that I would have to migrate.<br />
Describe, in one word, how Nigeria will<br />
be in the year 2060?<br />
United.<br />
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10<br />
God Is<br />
Allah<br />
By Gimba Kakanda<br />
Childhood revolves around innocence and a strange<br />
perception of the essence of existence. Childhood<br />
could also be a period of guilt, especially if the morality<br />
conveyed by religion isn’t inculcated.<br />
I grew up with the peaceful constitution of Islam, which to<br />
this day remains the cardinals of my existence. I lived Islam,<br />
spoke Islam, slept Islam, and woke Islam. All around me—<br />
in the northern city of Minna with its sizable population of<br />
Christians—was Islam.<br />
Islam teaches the submission to the commands of the<br />
Supreme Being—Allah—carried in the Koran and Hadith.<br />
My parents broke my childish resistance to the acceptance<br />
of moral virtues, to the attendance of Koranic schools, to<br />
deference of my elders, to the perpetuation of good deeds—<br />
all so I would have a shade in paradise when I depart this<br />
world. And the thought of purgatory alone, preached<br />
by our mullahs, turned us, the children, into passionate<br />
adherents of godly acts.<br />
In that time of childhood, we saw the followers of other<br />
faiths as infidels or unwise believers in God; a look that<br />
they, too, cast on us. As a child, I would flaunt my religion<br />
with a saint’s innate pride, narrating the exemplary life<br />
of Prophet Muhammad to my Christian friends. In such<br />
moments we debated the supremacy of our Prophets,<br />
estimating their influences on humanity with childish<br />
vehemence, often exaggerating our respective stories to gain<br />
the upper hand.<br />
Our fervent adherence to religion waned as we grew older,<br />
perhaps diluted by the secularism of the modern world.<br />
Many of my friends—Muslims and Christians—who had<br />
lost the “fright of hereafter” or had loosened the strings<br />
of parental supervision, grew weak in the practise of<br />
their religion. A number of them stepped into the fort of<br />
agnosticism, many driven to this by the charlatan displays<br />
of some of those on the frontlines of our religions.<br />
In truth, the reasons to question the faith of our childhood<br />
were many: our rising awareness of the history of the<br />
Negro race, with its trials and tribulations; the discovery<br />
that our religions were forced on our forebears by “white”<br />
colonialists; the realisation that there were doses of white<br />
supremacy fallacies in the construction of these religions,<br />
and so on. A number of my friends, in recognition of their<br />
raped heritage, opened their arms and hearts to traditional<br />
African religion.<br />
www.switchedonnaija.com - re’load<br />
But my years of whingeing over the rape of black Africa<br />
by the non-African preachers of God, Allah, Jesus,<br />
Muhammad, etc., had failed to throw me into the lake of<br />
atheism. My dread: if I rebelled against my faith, what<br />
then would guide my life? I am human, fragile—without<br />
the shield of my submission to the will of Allah, I could<br />
be easily tempted into immoralities. I am human, and<br />
could be thrown onto a path of spiritual destruction if I<br />
chose to be the “god” of my life. The thought of Allah, I<br />
realised, tethered me to morality.<br />
It is true that international politics has interfered with the<br />
purity of religion. The shameful hues of tyranny, rivalry,<br />
racism, nationalism, and even egotism have turned the<br />
universality of religion into an expired pill—this divine<br />
pill that ought to cure the lunacy that despoils the happy<br />
constitution of the world. Politics has blinded us, has<br />
caused us to repel the Koran as an Arabic doctrine,<br />
the Bible because it was authored by many, the Torah<br />
as an outdated text of the Jews, the Bahgavad Ghita<br />
as inconsequential scribbling. Political, cultural and<br />
racial mischief asked us to see Islam as lore of the<br />
Arabs, Christianity as the stolen tradition of the Jews, or<br />
Hinduism as a practice of primitive Indians—and so also<br />
the rain of repulsion demolishes other faiths across the<br />
world.<br />
Now, as an adult, I’ve long broken that deceit that paints<br />
other religions as inauthentic lore, or promotes Islam in<br />
superlatives charged by the politics of racial or provincial<br />
superiority. But many out there—brainwashed and misled,<br />
uneducated and poor—have embraced fanaticism in<br />
the name of religion. Islam could be a religion of war.<br />
Christianity, too, could be a religion of war. This we know<br />
all too well in Nigeria. These religions could be martial<br />
when marshalled by fanatics that know no colour of<br />
fundamentalism. The best path to co-existence is never to<br />
‘beckon’ the war in peace.<br />
Maturity awakened me to the knowledge that I am a<br />
Muslim because of my parents, and that my friend Joe is<br />
a Christian because of his parents. I accept that my friend<br />
and I could have been born into different faiths. This<br />
‘blasphemous’ realisation has prodded me to search for<br />
a connecting strand between our humanities. It has led<br />
me, ultimately, to define our many religions as ‘tributaries<br />
of oneness”. Oneness, yes; because the God of the Ibo<br />
is the same as the Allah of the Fulani. In spite of all our<br />
differences, God is Allah.<br />
Journey to<br />
believing<br />
by lulu oyigah<br />
was born and raised a Roman Catholic. I wouldn’t<br />
I use the word ‘staunch’ or even ‘devout’ to describe my<br />
family or my Roman Catholic experience, but my parents,<br />
especially my mother, would instil The Fear of God in<br />
you with a whip if need be. My earliest memories of<br />
church were sitting next to my father in the pews of Saint<br />
Dominic’s Catholic Church, Yaba as the congregation<br />
sang the Build for the Lord song (a song which I can still sing<br />
perfectly today), and after church was over, waiting for him<br />
to buy us banana-flavoured Walls Ice Cream on a wooden<br />
stick. Some weekdays after school, we went straight to<br />
church—our nanny, my elder brother and I—so my brother<br />
could attend his First Holy Communion Catechism classes.<br />
As we waited for my brother, my fondest memories were<br />
of wandering through the ancient architecture of the quiet<br />
church compound, talking to the statues of dead Saints,<br />
chasing after lizards and pigeons. I remember sitting on<br />
the moss-laden concrete blocks, creating fantasy words and<br />
worlds. With the sand as a board and a twig as my chalk<br />
I taught an imaginary class lessons on Vocabulary and<br />
Addition and Subtraction.<br />
My early years were more an experience of the church<br />
than they were of God, of the church as a building than<br />
as a people. It was not absolute but it was enough. During<br />
those formative years the church was a symbol of peace<br />
and goodness, Sunday was a quiet, holy day (even when<br />
we didn’t go to church), and God was Our Father up there<br />
who watched over us, who we were not to offend by doing<br />
anything bad. Bad Things were things like lying, stealing,<br />
fighting at school, and being disobedient.<br />
By the time I got to secondary school you were either<br />
Roman Catholic or Anglican. If you were Other, you<br />
belonged to the Anglicans. I was neither Anglican nor<br />
Roman Catholic enough. I didn’t fit in anywhere and it<br />
hurt at first. I cried once in my JSS 1 during an October<br />
Devotion, as the voices of the students rose in call and<br />
response and I could only contribute a few words to the<br />
resounding chorus. Never having recited the Rosary<br />
and the Litanies much as a child, I found them initially<br />
interesting but later mechanical and impassive. There had<br />
to be something more to being a Christian than this bipolar<br />
denominational take. I saw more of what I wanted in the
Anglicans (and Others), so at the end of my secondary<br />
school years I attended a Youth Camp with them. After<br />
the camp it was just the right thing to do: I became ‘Born<br />
Again’.<br />
It was then I felt, okay, right now I really belong to God’s<br />
family. But it was far from perfect. The greatest challenge<br />
of Christianity is its diversity in doctrine, scriptural<br />
interpretation and teaching. But the Word of God remains<br />
the one thing that binds us all together, forever. I wasn’t<br />
Roman Catholic anymore, neither was I Anglican, I<br />
admired Pentecostalism, I attended Deeper Life and<br />
Redeemed Christian Church for two semesters each<br />
and Christ Embassy for one semester while I was in the<br />
university, I’d been to a Jehovah’s Witness conference for<br />
two days, I’d been fascinated by the Rosicrucians and the<br />
Mormons (who have church premises so neat you could eat<br />
off their grounds). Religion-wise, I have been there, done<br />
that.<br />
My journey was not that of a confused soul, it was one<br />
of a seeking heart. Everything I have experienced, every<br />
spiritual journey I have made, has helped to further cement<br />
my belief in the God I call my own and in the standards<br />
He has called me to live by and uphold. My heart was wide<br />
open because I wanted Christianity to mean much more<br />
to me than the ritual of church attendance and fellowship;<br />
I wanted to really know God. I’m alarmed at this new<br />
theory of Christianity not being a religion but a way of life.<br />
Christianity is a religion and a way of life. It is a religion<br />
because we believe in it; it is a way of life because we live it.<br />
Everything in life points to the existence of a Higher Power,<br />
an Intelligent Creator who made all things with such<br />
precision and astounding detail. Max Lucado said that, “If<br />
a person had nothing but nature then nature is enough to<br />
reveal something about God.” I ask myself: What would<br />
it cost me not to believe? Or to believe? God’s Word, The<br />
Holy Bible, with its origin shrouded in scepticism by some,<br />
is still the best of all bestsellers. I like to say that even if<br />
it was forged or cooked up, it was a dish so wonderfully<br />
prepared, so excellently fabricated, contrived for the benefit<br />
of mankind. But we all know good things like the Bible<br />
don’t happen by accident. For example, no other definition<br />
of love I know can surpass that expressed in the Bible in the<br />
first book of Corinthians, Chapter 13. If a person should say<br />
I don’t believe in God but lived by the principles in the Bible<br />
then they would have lived a good life indeed. The teachings<br />
of Christ embody peace, love, unity and purity; I don’t know<br />
how I cannot follow this Man who gave His life for me. I<br />
don’t know how I cannot believe.<br />
Christianity seems abstract because it’s odd, really, to say<br />
that you believe in a God you cannot see. I draw most<br />
of my inspiration and strength from intangible things:<br />
meditation, belief in a cause, relying on my subconscious.<br />
The essence of life, then, in itself is supernatural. The<br />
seeming abstractness of Christianity is a beautiful paradox.<br />
The Bible says that “it is impossible to please God without<br />
faith. Anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that<br />
there is a God and that He rewards those who sincerely<br />
seek Him.” The same Bible says that if someone says ‘I love<br />
God’ but hates a Christian brother or sister that person is<br />
a liar. For if we don’t love people we can see, how can we<br />
love God whom we have not seen? The true measure of<br />
spirituality then is not only in how much we love God but<br />
in how much we love our fellow men. An honest devotion<br />
to God translates into love, acceptance and tolerance of our<br />
fellow human beings.<br />
Living out my faith involves sticking to godly principles<br />
but also being willing to understand the convictions and<br />
the lifestyles of those around me. This used to be quite<br />
difficult, learning to assert my beliefs and still give room for<br />
differences of opinion.<br />
My friend, Jide, lives in the same estate as I do. We had met<br />
during my National Youth Service Corps year and became<br />
friends when we found ourselves living in the same area.<br />
One evening we met on the streets where I was returning<br />
from seeing someone off and he had gone to buy fruits. To<br />
break his daily Ramadan fast, he said. That was the day I<br />
discovered he was a Muslim, our discussions had always<br />
been centred on experiences during our service year and on<br />
computers—he was doing a Cisco certification programme.<br />
My facial expression revealed my shock. He asked why I<br />
was so surprised. I said nothing. He prodded. I told him<br />
that he didn’t look or act Muslim, he seemed so . . .<br />
“Gentle?” he said.<br />
I looked away. All Muslim men should have a long beard,<br />
wear caps on flowing caftans, speak Hausa or Arabic, and<br />
be violent; having encountered so few in my lifetime that<br />
was the image I unconsciously carried with me; so Jide<br />
couldn’t have been a Muslim.<br />
Later on we began to talk about Islam and the Bible. I<br />
wanted to know what the Quran said about Jesus. He told<br />
me that Mohammed was the last of all prophets. I told<br />
him that Isaac was the child of promise, not Ishmael. He<br />
told me there was only one true God, Allah. We talked<br />
about Boko Haram, the Jos crisis and Sharia Law, how<br />
religion was now being used as a tool for violence. He told<br />
me about Yusuf and his twelve brothers; I told him that it<br />
was the same story of Joseph in the Bible. We had more in<br />
common than I had thought. In the end, we disagreed on<br />
the most important things. Jesus Christ is the Son of God,<br />
My Lord, My Saviour; Jesus (Isa) to him is a prophet.<br />
But we agreed on one point: our humanity, how religion<br />
affected us both.<br />
Christianity is summed up thus: You must love the Lord<br />
your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your<br />
mind. A second (commandment) is equally important:<br />
Love your neighbour as yourself.<br />
It doesn’t take much to embrace a Faith that encourages<br />
me to do the one thing that would make my life, my<br />
world, better: to love.<br />
JOS<br />
By Kola Tubosun<br />
When I served in the mandatory one-year national<br />
youth service in a little village close to the city<br />
of Jos in 2005, the state still deserved its motto, “The<br />
Home of Peace and Tourism”, even though there was<br />
always a shadow of violence looming in every corner and<br />
conversation. In September 2001, 4 years before I arrived<br />
there, there was one of the bloodiest bouts of violence<br />
between the Hausa–Fulani “settlers” and the “indigenes”<br />
of the state and when the smoke cleared, there were over<br />
1000 people dead, with many homes and businesses<br />
destroyed. In a few months things returned to normal<br />
but there was always the shadow. Nobody knew when it<br />
would rear its ugly head or what its trigger would be. But<br />
it was always there.<br />
In May 2004, a few months before I got my deployment<br />
papers to travel over 800 km from my home city to Plateau<br />
State, there was another bout of killings in Yelwa, the<br />
southern part of the state, in which over 700 people died.<br />
In all of these cases, the failure of government has been<br />
the cause of the carnage. In all of these cases, the violence<br />
spread and caused irreparable havoc before the agents<br />
of state appeared on the scene. And in some of these<br />
cases, when they eventually showed up, they took sides<br />
and did some extra-judicial killings of their own. Of all<br />
the ills of a badly-run government, the biggest and most<br />
disappointing crime is to be found guilty of taking sides<br />
and complicating the situation, and finally, not bringing<br />
the perpetrators of crime to justice.<br />
While I was in Riyom, which is a short distance from<br />
the state capital of Jos, I lived in relative shelter from the<br />
political realities of the town, but only to the extent of<br />
actual violence that eventually occurred in some parts of<br />
the state even while I was there. I was not sheltered from<br />
the conversations and the anger. For many who lived in<br />
my part of the state, the problem of the state was not only<br />
fuelled by religion, but also by a political and economic<br />
undertone. Who were the indigenes and who were the<br />
settlers? To many who had an opinion, the Hausa–Fulani<br />
cattle herders had come from the North to take over the<br />
land from the Plateau indigenes, who were of a different<br />
tribe. Plateau state is one of Nigeria’s most linguistically<br />
“In Nigeria today,<br />
this politics of<br />
ethno-religious<br />
domination,<br />
mistrust and<br />
ignorance/<br />
arrogance is<br />
sadly one of the<br />
biggest threats to<br />
the survival of the<br />
nation.”<br />
and ethnically pluralized states, yet Hausa is a language<br />
spoken by all in addition to local languages. In Riyom,<br />
where I lived, the language was Berom. The indigenes did<br />
not see themselves as Hausa–Fulani and always seemed to<br />
be fighting against a perceived dominance of the language<br />
and culture of the “settlers”.<br />
In Nigeria today, this politics of ethno-religious<br />
domination, mistrust and ignorance/arrogance is sadly<br />
one of the biggest threats to the survival of the nation.<br />
And because of this, an agriculturally unique region<br />
of the nation—that was famous nationwide as the best<br />
place to live in the country because of its climate, history<br />
and people—is trapped in a burning fire. In an ideal<br />
federation, there should never be restrictions on where free<br />
citizens should live, as long as it’s within the borders and<br />
one can respect the rules of the land, which are fair and<br />
just.<br />
The religious dimension of these series of crises is as<br />
unfortunate as it is saddening. It is high time we removed<br />
separated religion from all affairs of state, as is accepted<br />
practice in the most developed countries in the world. The<br />
case in Plateau state as well as many other volatile regions<br />
in the country—including some places in the Christian<br />
south—is the distrust that comes from ethnic affiliations.<br />
When it becomes tied to economic and political survival,<br />
hell is let loose— especially in the absence of a moderating<br />
influence of a trusted agent of state.<br />
I am, like every other patriotic Nigerian, wondering how<br />
we got to this sad juncture, and wondering, too, how to<br />
move on from this cycle of violence. More than prayers<br />
for the family of victims, we need a more responsible<br />
and responsive government, just as much as we need<br />
better education for all. Also, as deterrent, all culprits in<br />
the killings must be brought to justice. If international<br />
intervention is needed, let us have it. Those who kill fellow<br />
citizens do not deserve to live among us, if they deserve to<br />
live at all. There is nothing that should stop Hausa–Fulani<br />
cattle herders from living and prospering in Jos or in<br />
any other part of Plateau State, and neither should there<br />
be a threat to the practice of Christianity, Islam or any<br />
other religion in the state. For years the 2 major religions<br />
practiced in this area—Christianity and Islam—have lived<br />
alongside each other without any hint of violence. What<br />
changed?<br />
I intend to visit Plateau State again. I still have friends<br />
there, many of whom I’m still in touch with. I will go<br />
with a camera and I intend to visit places I didn’t get to<br />
see during my first visit. It is not just a sense of loss and<br />
sadness that moves me to plan this visit; it is also a sense<br />
of disappointment at the wasted lives, the wasted property,<br />
and the wasted chance of nationhood as exemplified by<br />
Jos, formerly the home of peace and tourism.<br />
Kola Tubosun is a Fulbright Scholar and the author of the<br />
blog www.ktravula.com where a version of this piece first<br />
appeared in March 2010.<br />
11<br />
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12<br />
Unoma Giese<br />
What is the first question a foreigner<br />
would ask about Nigeria?<br />
Depending on the foreigner, “Where’s<br />
that?”<br />
What do you do?<br />
Photographer and writer.<br />
How many states in Nigeria have you<br />
visited?<br />
Dunno but quite a few.<br />
Who are you?<br />
#Unoma Giese (yes, with the hash!)<br />
Name 3 Nigerians that inspire you.<br />
Babatunde Raji Fashola, Igoni Barrett,<br />
Prof Onuora Osamo.<br />
“Shame” 2 Nigerians that make you<br />
want to migrate.<br />
IBB and Anaconda the attorney general.<br />
What is identity?<br />
Who one feels one is.<br />
Describe—in one word—how Nigeria<br />
will be in the year 2060.<br />
Depends.<br />
What is Nigeria?<br />
That big country with big brains, big<br />
egos, big mouths and big mistakes.<br />
If you were President of Nigeria what<br />
is the first thing you would do?<br />
Implement the constitution to the letter.<br />
When was the last time you told a lie?<br />
Less than an hour ago.<br />
Who are you?<br />
I am Chris Ihidero.<br />
What do you do?<br />
I am a writer and TV drama & film<br />
director. I run the Centre for Excellence in<br />
Film and Media Studies, the training arm<br />
of Amaka Igwe Studios, where I’m also<br />
the Creative Head.<br />
How would you define identity?<br />
It’s a combination of how we see<br />
ourselves and how we are seen. While I<br />
strongly believe that how we see ourselves<br />
is primary, I also insist that it is extremely<br />
important to pay attention to how we are<br />
seen by others. Not so that we may change<br />
to suit their purposes, but that we do not<br />
live in a fool’s paradise constructed by the<br />
identity we have created for ourselves.<br />
What is the first question a foreigner<br />
would ask about Nigeria?<br />
If the foreigner is American, it most likely<br />
would be “Where is Nigeria?” Or worse<br />
still, “What is Nigeria?” Americans can<br />
be notoriously uninformed! If European,<br />
it could be how we are sorting out our<br />
numerous wahala. If Chinese, it would be<br />
about investment opportunities, seeing as<br />
half of Africa has already been “bought<br />
up” by China. If Indian, there’ll be no<br />
question, as Indians litter all nooks and<br />
crannies of Nigeria and Nigerians are<br />
beginning to look Indian these days! They<br />
even have their own cinema; what’s next,<br />
an Ashram? If the foreigner is a fellow<br />
African it most likely would be “When<br />
are you Nigerians going to finish killing<br />
yourselves so that Africa can truly be<br />
great?”<br />
Are you comfortable making movies<br />
about non-Nigerian characters?<br />
I could be, especially as a great story<br />
transcends borders. However, context is<br />
key, and the stories we tell best are the<br />
ones that are skin deep, steeped in our<br />
reality.<br />
How many states in Nigeria have you<br />
visited?<br />
Six.<br />
If you were President of Nigeria for a<br />
day, what would you do?<br />
Nothing. One day is too short to<br />
do anything that would amount to<br />
something.<br />
Name 3 Nigerians that inspire you?<br />
Obafemi Awolowo, Amaka Igwe and<br />
Williams Ihidero, my father.<br />
“Shame” 2 Nigerians that make you<br />
want to migrate?<br />
None. I shall not be moved!<br />
Describe, in one word, how Nigeria<br />
will be in the year 2060?<br />
Confused.<br />
www.switchedonnaija.com - re’load<br />
Lola Shoneyin<br />
What is the first question a foreigner<br />
would ask about Nigeria?<br />
Why hasn’t there been a revolution?<br />
What do you do?<br />
I teach and I write, without the luxury of<br />
changing that order.<br />
How many states in Nigeria have you<br />
visited?<br />
About 20. I found myself in some<br />
unexpected states during my NYSC<br />
year.<br />
Who are you?<br />
A woman in search of substance.<br />
Name 3 Nigerians that inspire you.<br />
Christopher Okigbo, Mamman Vatsa and<br />
Fela Anikulapo. Go figure.<br />
“Shame” 2 Nigerians that make you<br />
want to migrate.<br />
I’ll rather not mention names. But I’d like<br />
them to migrate, for the sake of the next<br />
generation.<br />
What is identity?<br />
The sum of what we most want to be.<br />
Describe—in one word—how Nigeria<br />
will be in the year 2060.<br />
Smaller.<br />
What is Nigeria?<br />
Potential interrupted.<br />
If you were President of Nigeria what<br />
is the first thing you would do?<br />
I would abolish poverty.<br />
When was the last time you told a lie?<br />
When was the last time I said the<br />
pledge?<br />
Wana Udobang<br />
What is the first question a foreigner<br />
would ask about Nigeria?<br />
Dangerous place, isn’t it?<br />
What do you do?<br />
I work as a radio personality at 92.3<br />
Inspiration FM. I am a freelance writer<br />
for Next, FAB magazine, Naija Times<br />
magazine and Bellanaija website. I also<br />
have a blog called Guerrilla Basement<br />
productions. I’m a publicist on the side<br />
and a voice over artist. I also write<br />
poetry. I have too many occupations . . .<br />
How many states in Nigeria have you<br />
visited?<br />
Nine<br />
Who are you?<br />
I’m just a young gypsy woman educating<br />
myself about the universe that surrounds<br />
me—its infinite opportunities and its<br />
energies. Also hoping that in some part<br />
of my existence, I can make some kind<br />
of difference to humanity.<br />
Name 3 Nigerians that inspire you.<br />
Iheoma Obibi, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Rev.<br />
Mrs. Bamidele George. Can I add my<br />
mother in there?<br />
“Shame” 2 Nigerians that make you<br />
want to migrate.<br />
OBJ and Abdulmutalab.<br />
What is identity?<br />
It’s an awareness and acceptance of<br />
who you are and what you are.<br />
Describe—in one word—how Nigeria<br />
will be in the year 2060.<br />
Progressive.<br />
What is Nigeria?<br />
An abyss of contradictions.<br />
If you were President of Nigeria what<br />
is the first thing you would do?<br />
Make it mandatory that anyone running<br />
for any kind of political office undergoes<br />
extensive psychiatric evaluation and lie<br />
detector tests as a part of their process<br />
to evaluate if they are even fit to run for<br />
anything.<br />
When was the last time you told a lie?<br />
Probably today . . . just an “alternative<br />
truth” really.
Who are you?<br />
I am Afolabi Durotoye. Aka Beazy.<br />
What do you do?<br />
I make music, so I guess that<br />
makes me a musician. To be more<br />
specific, I’m a rapper.<br />
How would you define identity?<br />
I would define it as a state of being. It’s<br />
what I am, what I do and what I stand for.<br />
What is the first question, in your<br />
opinion, a foreigner would ask about<br />
Nigeria?<br />
“Um . . . excuse me, but how do you guys<br />
cope with the lack of constant electricity?”<br />
How many states in Nigeria have you<br />
visited?<br />
I’ve been to Lagos (I currently reside<br />
here), Ekiti (I’m from there), Ondo (I used<br />
to be from there before Ekiti was formed),<br />
Kwara (my mom lives there), Oyo, Ogun,<br />
Kaduna, Kano (just visiting), Abuja (my<br />
dad lives there), Katsina and Plateau<br />
(I was born in Jos). I’m pretty sure I’ve<br />
been to more but I just can’t recall at<br />
the moment. So by my count, that’s 11<br />
(eleven) states.<br />
If you were President of Nigeria for a<br />
day, what would you do?<br />
Realistically, there isn’t much I’d be able<br />
to do in just a day. But for one thing, I’d<br />
fire everyone. Don’t know how much<br />
good that would do but it would at least<br />
change the course of the nation. The way<br />
I figure, it can only get better, right?<br />
Name 3 Nigerians that inspire you?<br />
Abake Durotoye (my mother), Femi Kuti<br />
and I’ll get back to you on the third name.<br />
Shame 2 Nigerians that make you want<br />
to migrate?<br />
That’s a tough one but I’d have to say<br />
that Muttallab fellow.<br />
Describe, in one word, how Nigeria will<br />
be in the year 2060?<br />
Better.<br />
Who are you?<br />
Dudutoonz Studioz is a group of young,<br />
creative and competent Nigerians with<br />
years of experience in different areas of<br />
digital arts—animation, characterization,<br />
graphic design, motion graphics, music<br />
production, sound recording and design.<br />
Dudu means black in Yoruba. The<br />
name Dudutoonz goes beyond just a<br />
name, it’s a mission statement. We<br />
promote and contribute to what can be<br />
called Black-toons, or better yet Africancartoons,<br />
a platform that educates,<br />
celebrates and promotes the lifestyle<br />
and the rich cultures of Africans. We<br />
are working towards the creation of a<br />
network of African cartoons.<br />
What do you do?<br />
What we do can be classified into two<br />
categories. First, services for corporate<br />
bodies or individuals which include<br />
all areas of digital arts. Second, our<br />
products, one of which is a TV animated<br />
series called “Baba Imuleru”. It’s a story<br />
about the wisdom of the Yoruba tribe.<br />
We also have a comedy magazine<br />
called Crazy.<br />
How would you define identity?<br />
The individual characteristics by which a<br />
thing or person is recognized or known.<br />
What is the first question a foreigner<br />
would ask about Nigeria?<br />
The foreigner will ask about the people<br />
of Nigeria, about their lifestyle, culture,<br />
arts, their values and belief systems.<br />
This defines a nation and without it a<br />
nation is just another piece of land.<br />
Are you comfortable writing about non-<br />
Nigerian characters?<br />
Promoting Africans and their works to<br />
the world comes first. We still uphold the<br />
value and respect that we have for other<br />
non-Africans characters.<br />
How many states in Nigeria have you<br />
visited? More than 7 states.<br />
If you were President of Nigeria for a<br />
day, what would you do?<br />
Dudutoonz is an organization, so it cannot<br />
be president.<br />
Name 3 Nigerians that inspire you?<br />
Philips Emeagwali, Chinua Achebe, and<br />
Chris Ofili.<br />
“Shame” 2 Nigerians that make you<br />
want to migrate?<br />
None.<br />
Describe, in one word, how Nigeria will<br />
be in the year 2060?<br />
Robust.<br />
Who are you?<br />
My name is Josephine Dorgu.<br />
What do you do?<br />
I’m a bit of a Jack-of-all-trades. I’m a<br />
management consultant for small-scale<br />
industries, particularly in the O & G<br />
industry. I also do web development<br />
for some of my clients. It’s basically a<br />
one-man outfit so my client load is not<br />
KPMG-size but it keeps a roof over my<br />
head. Currently I’m doing a part-time<br />
gig with a new client, which requires<br />
that I come in 2–3 days a week and<br />
oversee their IT network and I’m also<br />
their Admin Supervisor. I also have<br />
a number of artists who want me to<br />
manage them and I’m contemplating<br />
looking at expanding my consulting area<br />
of concentration. See . . . I did tell you . .<br />
. I juggle many balls!<br />
How would you define identity?<br />
Identity for me is fundamentally who<br />
you are. That thing that defines you and<br />
gives you definition and purpose as a<br />
person.<br />
What is the first question a foreigner<br />
would ask about Nigeria?<br />
Is it true you are all fraudsters?<br />
How many states in Nigeria have you<br />
visited?<br />
I’ve been to 11 states so far.<br />
If you were President of Nigeria for a<br />
day, what would you do?<br />
If I were the President of the FRN I’d<br />
first and foremost decree that all bills<br />
and edicts passed would be irrevocable<br />
for at least four years. Thereafter I’d<br />
give states autonomy as is implied by<br />
the word “federal”, forcing each state<br />
to generate their own income streams<br />
and diversify the economy. 30–40% of<br />
all revenue would be directed to the<br />
Central government for social capital<br />
development projects. Infrastructural<br />
development would be the responsibility<br />
of the state governments, as it is<br />
believed that the states have a better<br />
understanding of their requirements.<br />
I would also set up a short-term (limited<br />
to 6–18 months). Social welfare<br />
system that included entrepreneurial<br />
development training and a grant to<br />
start business after the benefit program<br />
ends. Also, I would privatise the power<br />
production sector, as business cannot<br />
thrive without power. These are the<br />
basic things I’d do.<br />
Name 3 Nigerians that inspire you?<br />
Fela Kuti, Abike Dabiri and Queen<br />
Elizabeth Bens (my mother).<br />
“Shame” 2 Nigerians that make you<br />
want to migrate.<br />
IBB and (does it have to be just two?<br />
Can’t I select a group and call it one?)<br />
“the Super Eagles and NFF”.<br />
Describe, in one word, how Nigeria<br />
will be in the year 2060.<br />
Divided.<br />
13<br />
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16<br />
By Eghosa Imasuen<br />
While admitting that I have (as a writer) milked<br />
Warri’s reputation as a wild town for all it’s worth,<br />
while acknowledging that most comedians exaggerate the<br />
crassness of the oil city, while smiling at myself—knowing<br />
that this is one of the most boringly middle-class cities<br />
in Nigeria—I cannot help but put down here that yes,<br />
Warri isn’t an ordinary town. But if you live there you<br />
still wonder at the wide-mouthed gasps that greet your<br />
accent when you visit Lagos. You smile to yourself at the<br />
ridiculous questions:<br />
“Is it true that you see machinegun-toting teenagers<br />
walking the streets?”<br />
“What is it really like at Enerhen Junction?”<br />
“How una dey sleep at night with all the explosions?”<br />
“We hear say pick-pockets for Enerhen Junction fit naked<br />
you for broad daylight. Na true?”<br />
Such questions remind me of the ones we accuse<br />
Americans of asking; the do-you-live-in-trees-and-playsoccer-with-lions-and-baboons<br />
variety. We complain<br />
and discuss the issues above at family gatherings, at beer<br />
parlours, and wonder at the madness of it all. My Aunty<br />
Phina—who’s lived in Warri all her life—says she now<br />
fears the city more after she returned from a journey to<br />
Lagos. She tells me that what she hears in other places<br />
about a city she knows like the back of her hand makes<br />
her think twice about going out late, about walking past<br />
Enerhen Junction.<br />
The gist she hears in Lagos makes her wonder why she<br />
finds Warri comedians unfunny. I tell her that this is<br />
because everybody in Warri is a comedian. She agrees,<br />
saying that she now understands why everyone she meets<br />
in Lagos laughs whenever she speaks, even when she is<br />
saying something serious.<br />
“It’s the accent,” I tell her.<br />
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My uncle’s wife, Aunty Phina, lives at Igbudu Estate.<br />
Igbudu Estate used to be called Bendel Estate II, before<br />
the old state was divided in two. Bendel Estate I, presently<br />
Ugborikoko Estate, was on Airport Road (a road with no<br />
airport on it. There’s a heliport though, but that’s not the<br />
same thing, is it?) She teaches pro bono at a secondary<br />
school inside Igbudu Market. She can afford to teach pro<br />
bono because she is employed by DESOPADEC, which<br />
is the acronym for the Delta State Oil-producing Areas’<br />
Development Commission.<br />
DESOPADEC is Warri’s version of a state welfare system.<br />
All you need to do is hustle to place your name on the<br />
salary list. You do not need to go to work everyday; just<br />
appear on payday and collect your slip; and keep your ear<br />
to the ground in case the commission’s executive board<br />
decides to carry out a staff-screening to weed out “ghost<br />
workers”. The only problem is that with its bloated payroll<br />
DESOPADEC can only afford to pay salaries once every<br />
three months, when its quarterly subvention from the State<br />
Government is received.<br />
Aunty Phina wakes up every morning, greets her politician<br />
husband with a kiss, takes her bath, and rushes off her<br />
children to school. She has three. The first is a genius<br />
with a tested IQ of 160. Tsewo is fourteen and is an<br />
embarrassment to his mother. Being a genius doesn’t<br />
guarantee good manners. He contradicts his elders at<br />
every turn, has done so since he turned five and developed<br />
‘good judgement’. I do not talk to the boy—I fear him. I<br />
remember when he explained the workings of the “global<br />
positioning geo-stationary satellite system” to me. He was<br />
seven at the time.<br />
After Aunty Phina drops her children at school she<br />
“branches” at her mother’s hotel and sits there for a while.<br />
Every day, like clockwork. She doesn’t have to hurry to<br />
the job at WCC. It is pro-bono, so she keeps her own<br />
time. Aunty Phina works two double-periods teaching<br />
Economics and Business Studies to the SSC2 and JSC3<br />
classes.<br />
By now the time should be eight-thirty. She isn’t due in<br />
school for another hour.<br />
Aunty Phina’s mother’s hotel has just recently been<br />
painted. The front has a fresh coat of whitewash. The walls<br />
give off a white powder that turns a stubborn yellow when<br />
you try to rub it off dark clothes. Nobody leans against the<br />
walls. Mama Phina had the hotel painted because she felt<br />
that events had overtaken the old sign she put up, in bold<br />
red oil paint, on the facade of the hotel ten years ago. It<br />
read, “Calabar Woman Hotel.” One sees these signs all<br />
over the old Bendel State. In Benin City they usually read,<br />
“This house is no (sic) for sale, by order family,” to deter<br />
desperate children, and nephews, and nieces, who are<br />
looking for money to travel abroad; or, “This house is the<br />
property of so-and-so family,” to dissuade everyone else<br />
from selling the house for money to travel abroad.<br />
But in Warri the signs read, “Agbor Man Hotel,” “Ishan<br />
Man Hotel,” “Port Harcourt Woman Hotel.” These<br />
signs became popular in the late nineties and early twothousands,<br />
at the time when fighting raged between the<br />
three main Warri tribes, when people were burning houses<br />
and blowing up buildings, and so nobody painted Urhobo,<br />
Itsekiri, or Ijaw on their houses.<br />
Mama Phina has wiped the Calabar Woman sign off her<br />
hotel. She is Urhobo; but she has a right, by law, to claim<br />
Calabar. She was married to an Efik man for thirty years.<br />
Her children, Phina and the others, are all Efik. And the<br />
fight has shifted from Warri since the Ijaws recognised that<br />
the real enemies were the government people in Abuja<br />
who chopped the oil money and not their fellow state<br />
indigenes who just wanted to survive.<br />
Mama Phina is an old woman with a bad mouth. Each<br />
time her daughter—Phina—visits her shop she spends<br />
her time cursing the “fake militants” corralled in a former<br />
hospital on the Warri–Port Harcourt expressway. She says<br />
they are all looking for money; that the real militants are<br />
still in the creeks; that the real guns are buried somewhere<br />
in Ijawland.<br />
Phina goes to see her mother to complain about her<br />
husband’s sisters, one of whom is my mom. Her husband,<br />
Uncle Jeyisan, is an only boy. Uncle Jeyisan is a politician.
“The gist she hears in<br />
Lagos makes her wonder<br />
why she finds Warri<br />
comedians unfunny. I tell<br />
her that this is because<br />
everybody in Warri is a<br />
comedian.”<br />
Things have started looking up now that he has been<br />
appointed the local government chairman of a major<br />
political party. But the sisters: they do not let her rest.<br />
Phina, this is how they cook Edi Ka Ikong, not like that. Don’t<br />
you know we grew up in Calabar?<br />
Phina, why don’t you keep your pampers stacked in the drawer.<br />
They get bent out of shape if you stuff them in a carry-all bag.<br />
Phina, abeg, look after our brother well o. I hope you’re making<br />
him stop cigar?<br />
Phina, Phina, Phina, Phina, phina, phin, phi, phi . . .<br />
Mama Phina laughs and sends for two bottles of beer.<br />
Ice cold. For breakfast. Mama Phina knows about her<br />
daughter’s stutter. She knows that the beer will help loosen<br />
the tight crank ratcheted up to maximum between her<br />
daughter’s shoulders. They drink, and laugh, and Mama<br />
Phina with her badmouth and acerbic wit lambasts Phina’s<br />
in-laws.<br />
It has been three months since the last salary from<br />
DESOPADEC. The pantry is almost empty. Aunty Phina<br />
calls me from the school where she does her pro bono<br />
work.<br />
“Eghosa, dem don pay?”<br />
“No aunty, they haven’t paid the salary yet o. Although I<br />
heard that the MD signed the cheques today. Check your<br />
bank account tomorrow,” I tell her.<br />
#<br />
She rings off, thanking me before she does so; saying that<br />
she will check the bank tomorrow. We laugh at a joke she<br />
cracks. Something about Warri having a DESOPADECdependent<br />
economy. This is true. After the salary is paid<br />
tomorrow, the town will awaken again. The beer parlours<br />
would have already heard that the payment schedule is on<br />
its way to the banks. The market women already know the<br />
timetable for clearance of cheques: Bank PHB, three days;<br />
Oceanic Bank, two days; Ecobank, two days; UBA, two<br />
days; ETB, that same day. Aunty Phina banks with ETB.<br />
She will go to market tomorrow.<br />
In Aunty Phina’s Economics class contains a slice of<br />
Warri’s demographic. Urhobo students chat with Itekiris;<br />
Ijaw boys and girls try and complete class assignments<br />
while pretending to listen to what she’s saying—they know<br />
that she doesn’t acknowledge NEPA as a valid excuse for<br />
not doing your home work; Hausa students pass notes to<br />
Igbos. All speak in the sing-song of Warri English. All Ls<br />
confused with Ns, all sentences and questions ending with<br />
the exclamation mark, “O”. The noise of trucks bringing<br />
goods to Igbudu market ignores the walls and shuttered<br />
windows of her class, she can barely hear herself above<br />
the din. She gives up and backs the class to write the gist<br />
of the lesson on the I-was-formerly-black blackboard. Before<br />
the end of the day she will ask for the list of noisemakers.<br />
She will wonder why the truck drivers’ names are not on<br />
the list, and the annoying voice of the hawker passing her<br />
window screaming, “Buy your sweeeeeet tomatoes here!”<br />
#<br />
Uncle Jeyisan and Aunty Phina have a date tonight. She<br />
muses on what she’ll wear on the drive back home from<br />
her children’s school. Tsewo sits in front beside her, his<br />
thick glasses down to the tip of his nose, while he peruses<br />
a tome on “Ezra Pound and Literary Patronage in the<br />
Nineteenth Century”. The twins, a boy and girl, make a<br />
game of naming the taxi drivers and tuke-tuke drivers who<br />
overtake them. They tell her to drive slower so they do not<br />
lose track of the game.<br />
Phina forces them to take their siesta. With Tsewo she has<br />
to confiscate the book he is reading. Then she sits outside<br />
in the veranda and has a smoke. She prefers menthols, and<br />
has to hide them from her husband because he believes<br />
she hasn’t had a drag in five years. He smokes Benson and<br />
Hedges but doesn’t seem to know the difference in smell.<br />
He should be back from work in two hours. It will be two<br />
hours of marking assignments, annotating homework,<br />
filling up the washing machine in the garage and preparing<br />
dinner. She remembers to call her niece, Ekaette, who will<br />
have to babysit tonight. She will warn her not to invite that<br />
her Ijaw boyfriend over. Aunty Phina smiles, there will be<br />
no need to police her niece with phone calls; tatafo Tsewo<br />
will take care of the policing.<br />
#<br />
Aunty Phina tries not to drive the car from the passenger<br />
seat. She grips her right thigh, silently telling it to stop<br />
pressing on an imaginary brake pedal. She says to Jeyisan,<br />
“Slow down. We no dey hurry.” When he laughs at her<br />
she remembers why she married him. It is a loud guffaw,<br />
it echoes and seeps out of the wound-up car windows.<br />
They are going to The Pub, a beer parlour and night club<br />
in the compound of The Palm Grove Motel. The Palm<br />
Grove Motel used to be the staff quarters for Hussey<br />
College, a grammar-school owned by Alfred Rewane.<br />
After all schools in the country were seized by the Federal<br />
Government in the seventies, he hurriedly walled off the<br />
staff quarters and, viola!<br />
The Pub is a popular bar because it is inside a walled<br />
compound. Thieves do not come in. And anyone staying<br />
behind for the night club can pay for a room to sleep off<br />
the drink. It is a nice place. My employer, DESOPADEC,<br />
keeps rooms there. I have the keys to one, and am twirling<br />
the bunch on my right middle finger when I see my uncle<br />
and his wife walk in. I join them and we are immediately<br />
joined by about four others, all Uncle Jeyisan’s mates, all<br />
looking for patronage from the chairman of a political<br />
party.<br />
“Hail Chair!” they chorus.<br />
He nods at them and shouts out his party’s slogan.<br />
The DJ acknowledges his presence with a dedication. It<br />
is an old disco track by the Bee Gees. Staying Alive. The<br />
dance floor erupts and Uncle Jeyisan is dragged to his feet<br />
by the gaggle of friends.<br />
“How work?” Aunty Phina shouts above the music.<br />
“Boring,” I reply. She is wearing a body-hugging spaghetti<br />
top. Her paunch, which she blames on the twins and<br />
Gulder lager, is barely noticeable because of the girdle.<br />
“How your book? It is selling well?”<br />
“If by selling you mean I buy it to give to friends, then it’s<br />
not doing too badly.”<br />
“No worry. When you win award, e go begin sell,” she<br />
soothes, but not in a soothing voice—the DJ and his loud<br />
music will not allow for a soothing voice.<br />
#<br />
“I know.” I do not tell her that the awards’ season is almost<br />
over; that I haven’t got as much as a nomination; that I<br />
will have to write another, a less genre-specific novel, to be<br />
recognised as what my mother thinks I am: a great novelist.<br />
She smiles when she sees her husband beckoning from the<br />
dance floor. She drags me and we join him.<br />
We dance. To syncopated beats of Naija hiphop, we dance.<br />
To the reggae of Jimmy Cliff, to oldies from the Bini-bus<br />
staple, Chaka Demus and Pliers, we dance. I am happy.<br />
Uncle Jeyisan will provide free beer. And tomorrow is<br />
payday.<br />
Eghosa Imasuen is the author “To Saint Patrick”<br />
17<br />
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18<br />
A Chat<br />
with the<br />
Radio<br />
Amazon<br />
By Anwuli Ojogwu<br />
It was almost impossible to pin down Wazobia FM radio<br />
star, Matse Uwatse, for an interview. Several text messages<br />
and many phone calls remained unreturned for days. But<br />
just as this interviewer was getting ready to give up, a<br />
message arrived. Apologies were offered, accepted, a date<br />
was set.<br />
On the day of the interview, after waiting in the reception<br />
of the Wazobia FM radio station for over an hour, Matse<br />
finally appears. We head to her office, which is a cosy little<br />
space, furnished with quaint bits of furniture designed by<br />
her. The most conspicuous item in view is a shelf lined<br />
with books and numerous award plaques. The 5 feet 9<br />
inches broadcaster is slender and attractive, with probing<br />
brown eyes. She is quite at ease—she drops onto the rug<br />
and stretches out her legs. During the interview, she chats<br />
articulately, without hesitation, and—unlike her radio<br />
persona—in faultless English.<br />
Tell us about a bit about your background?<br />
My parents were young people. My mum gave birth to<br />
me at the age of nineteen and my dad was in his twenties,<br />
and so they had me and they parted ways. I have a large<br />
family. My parents remarried. From my mum’s side I have<br />
two brothers and from my dad’s side I have four brothers<br />
and three sisters. I attended Abraka State University and<br />
Village du Belle, Togo for my first degree in French.<br />
Describe yourself in one word?<br />
I am a lioness. I am a strong woman. I am very talented. I<br />
am assertive. I am intelligent. If you look at the symbolic<br />
lioness, the figurative lioness, the literal lioness, you will<br />
see all these virtues I just mentioned. The lioness will roar;<br />
she is intelligent because she has to go forward to feed her<br />
pride; she is creative because she chases after prey, knows<br />
how to observe and catch different prey. A lioness is what<br />
I am.<br />
How did you get started as a radio presenter?<br />
Through a friend. I had a call about this new radio station<br />
coming up and [the person] was like, why don’t you go<br />
there and audition? I am from Delta State and I can speak<br />
pidgin, so there was no big deal. I came in for the audition<br />
and was later invited for an interview. Even before the<br />
interview, I had programmes that I had written down<br />
because I am very creative. During my interview we talked<br />
and I kept them laughing; they taunted me and I teased<br />
them back. And when I was leaving, I sort of knew I was<br />
going to get the job. At that time I was an administrative<br />
www.switchedonnaija.com - re’load<br />
executive with Bangs & Olufsen. I always knew I wanted<br />
to let my hair down, I am not the proper-proper office<br />
person . . . I am imaginative and creative. I always wanted<br />
a way to channel out my energy, my extra passion, and I<br />
found it in broadcasting.<br />
How do you remain proficient in Pidgin English? Do you<br />
keep up-to-date with slangs?<br />
Yes, I do . . . when you talk with people in Delta State. The<br />
Lagos pidgin is not really slangy. When you talk about the<br />
real pidgin slang, you get it from the Niger Delta. You get<br />
it from the Edos, the Benin people, the Warri people. That<br />
is where you hear the current language. The Warris speak<br />
the best pidgin; they are the main pidgin people. I have<br />
cousins from there and I talk to them and chat and I get<br />
one or two things. I keep updating.<br />
Has broadcasting redefined your personality?<br />
I was somewhat confident in the past, but right now I call<br />
myself a very confident woman. I can walk into anyplace,<br />
any day, anytime, and I can talk. Before, I used to be shy<br />
in public. Maybe I would want to ask a question, but<br />
would keep quiet because of nerves—but right now I find<br />
that I can manage it. The more you grow, the more you<br />
are acknowledged, the more awards you win, the more<br />
people recognise you. It keeps you confident. It makes you<br />
believe in yourself. The confidence builds up and you have<br />
a clearer perspective where you are going. You know what<br />
you want, you think of what to do, how to better yourself.<br />
With broadcasting, you have the chance to go to so many<br />
places. You meet like minds and it makes you a better<br />
person.<br />
On radio, you are dubbed a “virtuous woman”. Does<br />
that carry any responsibility?<br />
It does. For example, I love fashion. I am a reserved<br />
person, but I love to experiment with clothes. But because<br />
of the way people see you, it affects the way you dress. I<br />
love to wear short skirts sometimes, I love to be fashionable<br />
. . . but because of what people would say, you have to be<br />
more conservative, mind how you dress because you are a<br />
role model and people are watching. It affects a lot about<br />
me. So you have to live up to what people want you to<br />
be, but that doesn’t mean that you have lost your sense of<br />
identity. But you have to know what you like. You have to<br />
keep a balance; you have to learn to keep a balance. As for<br />
being called a virtuous woman, all those “virtues” being<br />
mentioned . . . there were people that studied me and came<br />
up with the label, I didn’t come up with it myself.<br />
Describe what being a “Waffarian” means?<br />
Waffarian is a term used for people from Warri. Waffarians<br />
are born in Warri, or they grew up in Warri, or migrated<br />
there and lived with the people and learnt the culture<br />
of the people. But it is not so easy because most people<br />
who come there, they are already grown, they already<br />
have ideologies and cultures from other places. But the<br />
Waffarian child, the full-blooded Waffarian, is that person<br />
grew up in Warri from childhood—you have everything<br />
in your head. You know their way of life, you speak their<br />
way. That is what makes you a Waffarian. We Waffy<br />
people are strong people . . . we are assertive people, we<br />
don’t keep words in our minds, we are bold people and<br />
very energetic. So these are all the embodiments of a<br />
Waffarian. Some people say that we are militants and all<br />
that, but we are not. If you study people from Delta State,<br />
if you study their way of life, you will notice how they<br />
dance, you will notice a lot of energy. And if you notice<br />
how they speak, the pronunciation—consonants, vowels,<br />
clusters—you would notice the energy. So we are people<br />
of energy and so when we are oppressed, we still talk with<br />
energy. It doesn’t mean that we are militants. We just<br />
know what we want.<br />
Who is the one person you admire most?<br />
My mother. She is strong. She had me at the age of 19,<br />
and she had to leave me when I was 7 months old, but she<br />
always kept in touch. She still made her mark even though<br />
she was far away from me. She contributed a lot to my life<br />
and has kept me strong, even in the face of difficulties;<br />
she gives me advice and tells me what to do. She doesn’t<br />
enforce it on me, she guides me. Most of the traits my<br />
mother exhibits are similar traits that I have.<br />
What is your guilty pleasure?<br />
I love perfumes and chocolate and bathing salts. I am a<br />
creature of comfort. I love comfort.<br />
Your programme gives people a platform to air their<br />
views. What type of phone solicitation messages are you<br />
likely to listen to on a typical day?<br />
I get that all the time. People come up to me and say,<br />
Matse, do this for me, do that for me. If it something that I<br />
can, I give advice, but if it something I need many people<br />
to think about, I take it up on radio. Especially if I know<br />
it is something that people can benefit from. It has to be<br />
something people will learn from—if it is unbeneficial,<br />
I will not handle it. I have also helped some people<br />
moneywise—I help in my own little way. I have spent a lot<br />
of money and I do not regret it.<br />
What drives you to succeed?<br />
My driving force is passion. I am a very passionate person.<br />
Seeing people suffer, seeing people abused, coming from<br />
a broken home myself, watching the young ones growing,<br />
knowing the things I lacked as a child . . . all these things<br />
are my driving forces. To make a better life for myself, to<br />
make a better life for people—basically it’s people, people<br />
are my driving force.<br />
How would you like to be remembered?<br />
As a woman of the people.<br />
Many Nigerian radio presenters speak Americanised<br />
English on air. How do you compete—how do you think<br />
you come across?<br />
As a presenter who speaks Pidgin English, some people<br />
think you are classless—some think you are a street person.<br />
When you go into the entertainment world and meet<br />
people, they are like, what? Pidgin broadcasting? I used to tell<br />
my colleagues, don’t let this people behave this way to you.<br />
I had to tell them, you are beyond what they think. Tell them<br />
you are strong; tell them you are so many things in one.<br />
I always tell them that if you bring an English presenter,<br />
I, Matse will beat her at her game because I don’t see<br />
limitations in anything. Many of them are cocooned,<br />
but I have to burst out of it—and I won the 2010 Future<br />
Awards [for best radio personality]. I beat Tosyn Bucknor<br />
and Gbemileke of Inspiration FM. These are all English<br />
language presenters, and I am a pidgin presenter. Some<br />
egotistical people think you are classless because pidgin<br />
is the language for the man on the street. But you know<br />
what, Wazobia has made people understand that you<br />
don’t have to think that way—it’s a way we can teach from<br />
the grassroots. If everyone is speaking Queen’s English,<br />
how will the man on the street learn when he didn’t have<br />
the opportunities and education you had? One way or<br />
the other, you teach. With pidgin, we have changed the<br />
perception. People find it hard to match my real and radio<br />
personality. We have brought the sexy back into pidgin.<br />
What is the best and worst part of being a radio<br />
presenter?<br />
The best part is that I get to talk to people every day. The<br />
worst part? I don’t think there’s any.<br />
Any advice for aspiring radio presenters?<br />
Be yourself. Don’t try to be somebody else.
At the #EnoughisEnough rally in Lagos, young Nigerians<br />
gathered at the Archbishop Church. The event was led by<br />
former Campaign for Democracy leader, Joe Odumakin.<br />
Various prominent young people were also present, including<br />
Audu Maikori, Ali Baba, Tolu Ogunlesi, Banky W, Timi<br />
Dakolo, Rita Dominic, Sound Sultan, Denrele Edun, GT,<br />
Kola Osinowo, Djinee, and Segun Demuren. Students came<br />
from OAU, UI, LASU, UNILAG and LASPOTECH. The<br />
international press and local media were present to cover the<br />
event.<br />
#EnoughisEnough belongs to all young Nigerians who are concerned<br />
about positive change in our country and want to make sure that in<br />
the 2011 elections, this change comes to Nigeria.<br />
www.enoughisenoughnigeria.com<br />
PICTURES from the Abuja Rally...<br />
19<br />
re’load - www.switchedonnaija.com
20<br />
anything is possible<br />
by Simidele Dosekun<br />
moved back to Nigeria after almost 12 years abroad.<br />
I At the age of 25, I was once again under my mother’s<br />
roof. Although relatively liberal, she remained unswayed<br />
by the proposition to take me in less as a daughter than a<br />
housemate, especially as I had plenty need as the former<br />
and no budget for the latter. She moved instead to reassert<br />
her authority. Minor conflict ensued. Other challenges<br />
of my move, requiring adaptation and negotiation, were<br />
the mosquitoes and NEPA, the lack of privacy, the okada<br />
riders and potholes, police checkpoints and overzealous<br />
LASTMA officials. I learned these things new or afresh,<br />
mostly the hard way, scarring body, soul and car.<br />
Most difficult, I found, was the conservatism and<br />
materialism of the lifestyle options and values on offer.<br />
I had at the time dreadlocks falling midway between<br />
my shoulders and waist. Virtually everyday I was forced<br />
to explain and defend this and within two months had<br />
partially succumbed to the pressure (and the weather)<br />
and hacked off two-thirds of the length. But no, I still did<br />
not want to work in a bank, oil or telecoms company, nor<br />
did I care for the status and accessories that such would<br />
afford me. I refused all invitations, admonitions and even<br />
emotional blackmailing to attend church. Not seeking God,<br />
I was not looking for a husband either, though I apparently<br />
should have been. And so it went, conversations with<br />
family and old friends, too, leaving me feeling somewhat<br />
alienated in those early days.<br />
Even before such feelings, my plan had been to stay in<br />
Nigeria for only a year and then leave again for more<br />
school. I saw myself as something of a tourist then: having<br />
an experience, only passing through, noncommittal.<br />
However, life got in the way—life of a distinctly Nigerian<br />
and admittedly privileged sort—and I find myself here<br />
going on three years later. This life was one of possibility,<br />
ironically enough. I felt, and still feel, that Nigeria is the<br />
kind of place where anything can happen. Of course,<br />
it is precisely this unpredictability which makes it such<br />
a difficult and frustrating place for many of its citizens,<br />
and altogether too uncertain for some, who choose to<br />
remain ‘safely’ cocooned abroad. Yet fresh off the boat,<br />
with a particular blend of naiveté and realism, and with<br />
the cushioning my family provided, their concerns and<br />
comments notwithstanding, Nigeria also seemed the kind<br />
of place where I could do almost anything. And there<br />
appeared so much to do, in a way that was not true in New<br />
York or London, say.<br />
Switch A Future<br />
The aim of the campaign is to touch the lives of<br />
children who would otherwise never have access to<br />
education. Specifically, each time an InterSwitch<br />
cardholder uses their Interswitch ATM or Verve<br />
debit card on another bank’s ATM, InterSwitch<br />
will make a donation to Freedom Foundation,<br />
and by doing so “Switch A Future” for a Nigerian<br />
Child.<br />
http://www.switchafuture.org/<br />
www.switchedonnaija.com - re’load<br />
Note2Note<br />
I do not mean that I thought I could get any job or that<br />
I could ‘save’ or change Nigeria. Rather, or for the time<br />
being, I had more modest ideas for projects, for spaces, for<br />
cultural life—a book, a documentary, a park, building an<br />
arthouse movie scene, amongst others—for which there<br />
seemed to be chance, simply because they did not already<br />
exist. In retrospect these ideas were still informed by a<br />
touristic mentality. They would have amounted to dabbling,<br />
to experiences, not a life here. None came to fruition.<br />
Instead the particular possibility that kept me in Nigeria<br />
was the unexpected offer to run a small business aiming<br />
and just maybe able, in my view, to make at least some<br />
meaningful impact. I was now about to turn 26. This would<br />
have never happened elsewhere, I reasoned, not least for<br />
my lack of formal preparation for it. My foreign friends,<br />
only just climbing career ladders, confirmed as much. They<br />
did not quite understand how it was possible. Did I not<br />
worry I had already “hit the ceiling”, one asked? I didn’t.<br />
Quite the contrary; more would be possible from this new<br />
position. So I stayed.<br />
Time and the experience thus far have tempered my initial<br />
excitement. I appreciate now how I could have benefitted<br />
from a manual or course on ‘how to manage Nigerians,’<br />
as so-called universal management principles seem to<br />
rarely apply. There is no principle for knowing when one<br />
employee, looking you in the eye and swearing otherwise<br />
on his mother’s life, is in fact stealing the company’s<br />
money. Nor do I know of a formula to explain why<br />
another who earns barely enough to survive is first to arrive<br />
and last to leave the office, and making the most effort,<br />
however small or large his task, in the intervening time. It<br />
is the people who daily make and break this country. The<br />
people in all their variety. They have an amazing capacity<br />
to inspire and to aggravate, to pull up and to pull down.<br />
NLI believes that one step to getting the country<br />
back on track is to reach out to young people<br />
during their formative years, with the aim of<br />
reinforcing values necessary to rebuilding a good<br />
society. This was the driving impetus for the<br />
conception and formation of Notes2Notes.<br />
http://www.thefuturenigeria.com/introducing-thenotes2note-campaignolik/<br />
Heal Jos Wallpapers<br />
http://www.switchedonnaija.com<br />
“In fact I<br />
think it a little<br />
ludicrous and<br />
indulgent to<br />
even pose<br />
the question.<br />
For, am I not<br />
Nigerian?<br />
Where else<br />
would I be?<br />
Apart from<br />
any sense of<br />
opportunity or<br />
duty, or any<br />
moralising,<br />
this is my<br />
country. It is<br />
my home.”<br />
They create the great possibility and energy of Nigeria but<br />
it is they who also sap and corrupt it. One result, for me<br />
personally, is lingering uncertainty over whether I am really<br />
back to stay or not, on this seesaw. Most days I think I am.<br />
In fact I think it a little ludicrous and indulgent to even pose<br />
the question. For, am I not Nigerian? Where else would I<br />
be? Apart from any sense of opportunity or duty, or any<br />
moralising, this is my country. It is my home.<br />
Yet most days are not everyday. I also flirt with the notion<br />
of leaving very often. I do so for many reasons, mostly for a<br />
sense of normalcy and balance, in which, yes, not so much<br />
may be possible, but then again, not so much would be<br />
impossible.<br />
Cool2Vote<br />
Cool2Vote Nigeria is a non-partisan platform<br />
aimed at informing and giving a voice to young<br />
Nigerians about their civic responsibility in the<br />
electoral process. It is a platform for mobilising all<br />
Nigerians to register to vote—and also to defend<br />
their votes—at the 2011 elections and beyond.<br />
http://cool2vote.org/
LET THE TRUTH BE TOLD 2 by Lati<br />
So many videos to critique but only few made the list because some are just not worthy to<br />
write about. If we want change in Nigeria we have to learn to tell the truth in order to help<br />
ourselves grow. If not, we will remain stagnant. Mediocre and appalling materials are not<br />
acceptable. It’s high time we demand for quality and excellence, in music videos as well as<br />
governance!<br />
Naija Music Videos<br />
Terry G’s “Troway”: Without the<br />
video, the song doesn’t hack it. The<br />
video highlights the failures of the song,<br />
especially its lack of depth. The only part<br />
of the song that makes some sense is the<br />
chorus: “Bad belle troway troway/wooroo<br />
wooroo troway troway/oshi oda troway troway .<br />
. .” Everything else in the song is gibberish.<br />
But the video, for me, offered a bit of<br />
redemption—it painted pictures and told a<br />
story.<br />
Jim Iyke’s “Born to do this”: Where<br />
do I start from? Mr. Iyke, you are not the<br />
sun and rapping isn’t made for you. You<br />
are simply, absolutely, not born to rap.<br />
Truth hurts but face it, in years to come<br />
no one will remember any of your songs.<br />
Not one. Wudi Awa shot an interesting<br />
video; still, I must admit the video doesn’t<br />
help the song in any way. The song is not<br />
redeemable. The lyrics are a big turn off.<br />
I guess Jim has money to blow—after all,<br />
he’s a Glo ambassador. I just wish he’d<br />
spent the money on his charity foundation<br />
instead and saved us the pain of listening<br />
to rap lyrics like “Sceptics were born to doubt<br />
this/critics were born to break this/cynics were<br />
born to diss this/chicks were born to love this . .<br />
.” Etc etc.<br />
Naija Music<br />
Jesse Jagz’ “Pussy Cat” song is hilarious; in<br />
fact, it’s the joke of the month. It prompted<br />
some people to ask some questions, such as<br />
“how can a grown man go around singing<br />
‘pussy cat, pussy cat’?” Jesse, you are really<br />
creative but you need a songwriter. How can<br />
you provide us with a melodious tune that<br />
has WACK lyrics? If I was still in preschool<br />
I might sing along, but I doubt my mum will<br />
approve! Your lyrics are weak. Your other<br />
song, “Pump it up”, also had a groovy tune<br />
but the lyrics were not memorable. At least the<br />
lyrics for “Pussy Cat” is memorable . . . how<br />
can anyone forget “meow meow cat, meow<br />
meow cat”? Please, get a songwriter!<br />
Pincode’s “Your Pincode” song is stupid. If<br />
any lad uses that to approach a sensible girl,<br />
he’s definitely not going to get her number. I<br />
came across this song on Truspot and I was<br />
repulsed when I listened to it. What were they<br />
thinking about when they made this song? The<br />
song is definitely nonsense and not sexy at<br />
all. If you going to sing about love, do it right.<br />
Make it sound intriguing instead of cheap and<br />
lame. “I dey beg u like bambi’allah . . . wetin be<br />
your pincode o? But you say access deny o . . .”<br />
Kefee’s “Karoyovwe”: This video is<br />
absolutely beautiful. It’s so surreal and<br />
captivating. I see the celebration of nature<br />
and it captivates my attention. Wudi<br />
Awa is definitely paying attention to his<br />
environment—to the shapes, colours, light,<br />
movement and rhythm. Although I don’t<br />
understand the language of the song, the<br />
music is soothing. It touches my soul. Can<br />
Kefee do any wrong? Nope. Not with God<br />
on her side!<br />
Jaywon’s “Gbon gbon gbon”: The song<br />
has a melodious beat and the lyrics are<br />
not too bad. It’s a fun song—but I found<br />
the video uninspiring. The video got a bit<br />
playful towards the end, just before Terry G<br />
surfaced and did his bit. DJ Tee must have<br />
used a Canon 7D to shoot this video—the<br />
depth and quality of the picture was<br />
refreshing. But the concept was boring.<br />
Very boring.<br />
Illbliss & Tha Suspect’s “Capital<br />
Anthem”: The song and the video are<br />
quite aggressive. That’s not a bad thing! I<br />
see attitude, lots of it. The video is dark<br />
but also colourful, and there was some<br />
interesting play with light—pretty. The<br />
wordplay in the song is also quite good. But<br />
Capital, why were there so many bottles?<br />
The bottle that was placed on the little<br />
girl’s neck was not appealing at all; it took<br />
aggressive all the way to the other side.<br />
Careful . . .<br />
Kaha’s Caro song is definitely Osuofia meets<br />
Sidon P—it’s a blend of high-life and fuji. He<br />
featured a fuji singer called LKT on the song.<br />
The fuji gave the song some flavour. The lyrics<br />
of the song were stereotypical: the whole<br />
message of the song is that light-skinned<br />
chicks run off with richer men or foreigners<br />
and they are heartless. There is nothing special<br />
about the song. The video for this song made<br />
me listen to it. The video gave the song a story.<br />
There was a lesson in it; it showed that all that<br />
glitters is not gold. So Kaha, thank your stars<br />
that you have a solid video to promote your<br />
song. Nevertheless, please stop stereotyping<br />
and offer us good music!<br />
music<br />
21<br />
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22<br />
my representation of<br />
heaven : an interview<br />
with Wanuri Kahiu<br />
by Tala Leratadima<br />
Wonder woman storyteller, Wanuri Kahiu, agreed<br />
to talk to your royal ambivalence, and after it was<br />
done, I felt as though I should read more books and find<br />
ways of making myself more useful to humankind.<br />
When I called her the connection was bust. There<br />
were some unique things happening in cyberspace that<br />
were hard at play to mess us up. But the algorithm<br />
of cyberspace got nothing on “black chic” vibe—we<br />
eventually got it locked down. She had just woken up,<br />
like we all would be if we were in New York. And brace<br />
yourselves for this bit of coincidence: I asked her—out<br />
of the blue (I mean, it’s not every day that you ask an<br />
interviewee this question)—what was in her sound system,<br />
and she said Bantu Biko Street. I just about had a fit<br />
because that was exactly what I was bumping just before I<br />
called her!<br />
Wanuri is smart, sharp, intuitive, reverent, funny and<br />
really cool about her genius. This Kenyan UCLA-master’sin-film<br />
graduate has created poignant and powerful work<br />
that will go a long way in how we see ourselves—our<br />
glory and ingloriousness. I forgot to mention that she is<br />
humble, too, and sees her participation and success on<br />
the international film circuit—African Film Academy<br />
Awards, Zanzibar International Film Festival, Berlin Film<br />
Festival and Sundance, to name a few—simply as a way of<br />
furthering her work.<br />
www.switchedonnaija.com - re’load<br />
I love how her deep spirituality does not cloud her<br />
exuberance and youthfulness. She is vegetarian, and<br />
she feels that it is her daily sacrifice. Power to that—I<br />
do believe that vegetarians shall inherit the kingdom of<br />
heaven. Her vegetarianism is not all we have in common;<br />
she agrees with me about wives following their presidents<br />
around being a waste of taxpayers’ money. And she<br />
has fantasies about dead political icons, and is actually<br />
working on a film about the Mau Mau: a “braveheart”<br />
version told from a woman’s point of view, by a woman in<br />
love with Dedan Kimathi. Finally, she also struggles with<br />
family members thinking her craft is a whimsical hobby.<br />
“Storytellers, singers and dancers are not taken seriously<br />
within the context of our society and [are not] given<br />
the proper respect in our society . . . because we are the<br />
forecasters, the seers and the memory-keepers and without<br />
those things we are doomed, and people just don’t see<br />
that.”<br />
I agree, totally. We are like two peas in a pod, me and<br />
Wanuri—but I fell out of the pod at the point where she<br />
said she would not marry for money!<br />
I asked her about a trillion questions (speak to “my<br />
people” while holding your wallets and maybe we can<br />
make the transcripts available). For now, here’s a glimpse<br />
into this phenomenal woman’s mind.<br />
Tala: What gets you excited on an average day?<br />
Wanuri: New scripts, new ideas, listening to people,<br />
watching people. I like to watch how people hold their<br />
bodies; I think it tells a story in itself. I can watch<br />
somebody’s expression and I have a whole story around it.<br />
Tala: Do you think you are beautiful?<br />
Wanuri: I think it comes from inside.<br />
Tala: What is our answer—as African women who come<br />
in all shades and colours—to the West’s insistence that we<br />
conform to their “straight hair and skinny” ideal?<br />
Wanuri: I don’t think body size can ever define beauty.<br />
I don’t think it can ever be contained in what we wear<br />
on our skin—it is something that goes much deeper and<br />
once we tap into that I think we tap into God because it<br />
transcends race, height, weight . . . because we’re all God<br />
inside and once we realise that, we’ll see true beauty.<br />
Tala: You should make a film on beauty, an African<br />
perspective.<br />
Wanuri: I think I do in different ways, because the people<br />
I cast are not what some people think are beautiful. The<br />
people I cast are really dark-skinned, because I think<br />
they’re so gorgeous, but everybody has a different reaction.<br />
Tala: Do all Kenyan girls dream of becoming filmmakers?<br />
Wanuri: Not at all. Most people dream of becoming<br />
lawyers and doctors. I know that when I was sixteen I<br />
walked into a film editing suite and I fell in love and up<br />
until that point I never thought that people made TV or<br />
film and when I realised I could, it made perfect sense,<br />
because I am a bookworm and a telly addict.<br />
Tala: Do you remember any Swahili nursery rhymes?<br />
Wanuri: More nursery stories than nursery rhymes. My<br />
mother used to tell me stories all the time. I think that is<br />
one of the reasons I became a filmmaker—she used to tell<br />
me stories so I would eat, sleep, anything. She used to<br />
tell me to eat pumpkin so that my hair would grow. My<br />
mother is extraordinary. The things she told me—it took<br />
me until my early twenties to realise that some of them<br />
were lies!<br />
Tala: Why does Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the first woman<br />
president in Africa, not get as much coverage as Michelle<br />
Obama?<br />
Wanuri: I think she is protecting herself. But I love that<br />
woman—I think she is so phenomenal. It’s so crazy<br />
because in Kenya we are told that African women don’t<br />
vote for African women. Sometimes as women we are selfhating<br />
and self-loathing and that is a sad thing to watch.<br />
Also, politics is deteriorating into this demonstration of<br />
testosterone.<br />
Tala: Do you think the terror being spread across Africa is<br />
indicative of something sinister happening on the psyche<br />
of the African male?<br />
Wanuri: I wrote a whole article about how we as mothers,<br />
sisters, wives, lovers, have to be blamed as well because<br />
we are the people that raise those men, we created these<br />
monsters, we created these egos, [so] we are also to blame.<br />
I think the family is my nation. If I can’t raise my family<br />
right then how do I expect my nation to work?<br />
Tala: What is Africa’s most glorious achievement?<br />
Wanuri: Its people. It doesn’t matter whether we are
“It pisses me off<br />
that I need a visa<br />
to move within<br />
the continent. It’s<br />
ridiculous that<br />
sometimes we<br />
use Europe as a<br />
transient point to<br />
go back into Africa.<br />
And it vexes me that<br />
we are so far from a<br />
pan-African union.”<br />
poor, hungry, sick, and war-weary, we’re just so resilient.<br />
It doesn’t matter where we come from: in Mogadishu<br />
they still crack jokes! In Sudan it’s the same! We are so<br />
beautiful and humorous and glorious and hospitable. I<br />
think our asset is our people.<br />
Tala: What is every African youth’s duty to the continent?<br />
Wanuri: To be themselves and not question who they are<br />
or try to imitate other people. I’ve seen people lose that;<br />
lose their identity, their culture, their respect for people.<br />
African youth have to be authentically who they are and<br />
not emulate others.<br />
Tala: “Ras Star”, “From a Whisperer”, “Pumzi” . . . with<br />
what spirit did you make each film?<br />
Wanuri: All my films have strong female leads. And<br />
all of them exercise an aspect of myself. And I know,<br />
it’s complete vanity, but that’s the best way I know how<br />
to write. I always say that I try to make my films my<br />
representation of heaven because it has to have a spirit of<br />
somebody who I want to be around and who I want to be<br />
in essence. And not only for the female characters . . . it’s<br />
people, male and female, that I want to know. That is how<br />
we are going to build our countries—that is, by knowing<br />
the right people in a real way. Knowing the good, honest<br />
and truthful people.<br />
Tala: What does the film fraternity think of you?<br />
Wanuri: I think I’m so below the radar that the film<br />
fraternity does not think of me, not in a bad way. I like<br />
to be an independent filmmaker. Sometimes independent<br />
filmmakers don’t get recognised; that doesn’t mean they<br />
are not prolific. I would like to make a film every year<br />
or every other year, but I also know that my audience is<br />
not the type that will pack an “Avatar” stadium. That’s<br />
cool too because I like the stories I tell and I like to have<br />
control over them. Don’t get me wrong—one day I’ll<br />
probably do a really bubblegum film just to pay for my<br />
next few films!<br />
Tala: Do you think there is an expectation that, as a black<br />
African female filmmaker, you have to make a specific<br />
type of film?<br />
Wanuri: When I made a science fiction film, people didn’t<br />
expect it. I remember giving an interview in Cape Town<br />
and the reporter asked that, with so many other stories to<br />
tell, why did I choose to tell a science fiction story? What<br />
does that mean? Should my imagination be limited—<br />
should I only tell stories about women carving pots? That<br />
does not make any sense to me and that’s not who I am.<br />
I make films about women that I love, women that have<br />
brought me up, and those women are so dynamic and so<br />
cosmopolitan that I challenge anybody not to recognise<br />
them in their own families and worlds.<br />
Tala: Do you understand the logic of intra-continental<br />
travel being more expensive than intercontinental travel?<br />
Wanuri: Not at all! It pisses me off that I need a visa to<br />
move within the continent. It’s ridiculous that sometimes<br />
we use Europe as a transient point to go back into Africa.<br />
And it vexes me that we are so far from a pan-African<br />
union. Maybe we’ll just have to define it differently . . .<br />
perhaps a pan-African union of spirituality, because a<br />
political union could be dangerous considering some of<br />
the men that are in power.<br />
Tala: When travelling abroad, do you find the need to<br />
assert yourself as an African woman?<br />
Wanuri: I think it’s so within me that I don’t need to<br />
question it . . . I can’t not assert myself as an African<br />
woman. It’s so innate: it’s in the decisions I make, the way<br />
I serve people, the way I greet people and speak to people.<br />
It comes naturally. It took me a while to recognise what it<br />
was, but it’s who I am.<br />
Tala: What is the biggest gift that film can give Africa?<br />
Wanuri: Identity. I think we are so outward-looking that<br />
we forget we have everything we need right here, inside<br />
Africa.<br />
23<br />
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24<br />
www.switchedonnaija.com - re’load<br />
the case of the<br />
two police officers<br />
detained indefinitely<br />
on charges of rape<br />
By JD Everimanu<br />
How it began<br />
The names of the principal characters in this tale<br />
are DO [aged 22] and OC[aged 21]. In 2008, they<br />
were new graduates from the police academy.<br />
They were deployed to Port Harcourt and posted<br />
to the Mini Okoro Divisional Police Station for<br />
their first duty.<br />
On the night of 15 September , 2009, the two<br />
men were part of a police contingent that was<br />
on stop-and-search duty at Genesis Junction in<br />
Port Harcourt. At about 2 am, a car approached<br />
the checkpoint at high speed. The policemen<br />
flagged down the vehicle with their torches but<br />
the driver sped past them and in the process<br />
grazed the checkpoint barrier. The two policemen<br />
and some of their colleagues were ordered by<br />
their senior officer to give chase and arrest the<br />
offending driver. They jumped into their patrol<br />
car and trailed the vehicle to Okporo Road, Woji,<br />
where, on account of the heavy traffic caused in<br />
that area by a popular nightclub, they lost their<br />
quarry.
As they prepared to return from this failed<br />
mission, they spotted a group of people engaged<br />
in sexual activity, in public. These persons, on<br />
seeing the police, tried to run. The policemen<br />
gave chase and succeeded in arresting four of the<br />
girls.<br />
[When I ask the principal characters about the<br />
men—because there must have been men, it takes<br />
two to “engage in sexual activity” after all—they<br />
reply that the men, all of them, escaped.]<br />
A twist in the tale<br />
On arriving at the police station, OC was shocked<br />
to discover that one of the detained girls was<br />
Miss FB, his fiancé. He began to consider<br />
many things: he became afraid that he may<br />
have contracted HIV since he had been having<br />
unprotected sex with his fiancé, who he now<br />
found out to be a prostitute. Furthermore, as he<br />
had plans to marry Miss FB, the realisation that<br />
she had been cheating on him with every stranger<br />
who had the money to afford her favours, got<br />
him mad. At this juncture (according to him) he<br />
proceeded to physically assault Miss FB—to beat<br />
her up. When this happened, the other policemen<br />
decided to release the other girls who had been<br />
arrested. OC admits that he insisted on detaining<br />
Miss FB, but argues that he took this action<br />
in order to question her closely with a view to<br />
determining why she was engaged in prostitution.<br />
While OC—with the help of his colleague and<br />
friend, DO—was still interrogating Miss FB, she<br />
began to scream and fight back. The commotion<br />
drew the attention of the night duty officer.<br />
He took one look at the situation—the two<br />
officers were alone with the weeping girl in the<br />
detention room—and concluded that something<br />
criminal had transpired. The officer took the two<br />
policemen aside for questioning, and when their<br />
explanation did not satisfy him, he concluded that<br />
a rape must have occurred. The young woman,<br />
who must have been desperate to regain her<br />
freedom, agreed with the officer’s interpretation<br />
of events. The two policemen were detained.<br />
[The principal characters disclose to me that, as<br />
they were being led into jail, they heard the night<br />
duty officer make the following comment: “Una<br />
wan’ chop wetin big man dey chop, enh.” They<br />
interpreted this statement as confirmation that<br />
the four girls they arrested were high-priced call<br />
girls who usually paid the police for protection<br />
and in some cases even slept with the police<br />
bosses.]<br />
A turn for the worse<br />
The next morning, a superintendent of police<br />
was detailed to investigate the matter. At his<br />
very first meeting with the detained policemen,<br />
the superintendent brought along a prepared<br />
statement for them to sign. They refused. Later<br />
on, Miss FB was approached by a police officer,<br />
one Mrs. H, who Miss FB says gave her 4000<br />
naira to obtain a doctor’s report, which would<br />
attest to the fact that she had been sexually<br />
assaulted. On realising the direction the matter<br />
was taking, the young lady recanted. The reaction<br />
of the investigating officers to this development<br />
was to threaten Miss FB with arrest if she did not<br />
immediately leave the station. She left, but later<br />
returned with a lawyer to protest the innocence of<br />
the two policemen who had arrested her. But it<br />
was too late: the police station had already filed<br />
the case against two of its own.<br />
[According to the principal characters, their<br />
tribulation has an ethnic coloration. They say<br />
that there are plans to have a particular ethnic<br />
group dominate the station so that “chopping”<br />
will be easier.]<br />
Following the refusal of the two policemen to<br />
sign the prepared statement, they were transferred<br />
to the state police headquarters on Moscow Road.<br />
At the headquarters they were detained at the<br />
behest of the provost marshal for 7 weeks. The<br />
principal characters claim that they were later<br />
asked by some policemen to bring a 100,000 naira<br />
bribe in order to be set free. They refused, as they<br />
felt they had not committed any crime; more so,<br />
they did not have that kind of money. At the time<br />
of their arrest they had been police officers for<br />
only a month and had not yet received any salary.<br />
Finally, on September 22, 2009, they were<br />
brought before a Port Harcourt magistrate<br />
court on a two-count charge of “conspiracy to<br />
rape” and “rape”. They could not be arraigned<br />
because magistrate courts in Rivers State lack the<br />
jurisdiction to try rape cases. Thus, the magistrate<br />
ordered that they be remanded at the Federal<br />
Prisons, Port Harcourt, pending the decision of<br />
the Director of Public Prosecution on whether the<br />
state would prosecute or decline the case.<br />
The detainees are still awaiting the DPP’s advice.<br />
[I should mention here that for a large number<br />
of cases, the advice will never come. The<br />
consequence of this bureaucratic snafu is that<br />
awaiting-trial inmates are detained indefinitely,<br />
sometimes for decades.]<br />
How I got to know of the case<br />
I am a solicitor. I was in the same court for<br />
another matter on the day the case was called.<br />
What first drew my attention was the fact that<br />
there was no counsel for the accused persons.<br />
Then the clerk of court announced that the matter<br />
was with the DPP. With no counsel, and a DPP<br />
matter, I knew the accused were as good as dead.<br />
I made inquiries from the clerk of court who gave<br />
me all the information I needed. He informed<br />
me that the accused persons had been coming to<br />
court since September 22, 2009, without legal<br />
representation.<br />
I decided to assist the law on its course. I<br />
first obtained a copy of the accused persons’<br />
charge sheet, and then I visited them in prison<br />
and interviewed them for their story. When I<br />
asked about whom to contact on their behalf,<br />
they informed me that their relatives had all<br />
abandoned them.<br />
My next step was to consult with a law firm<br />
specializing in criminal law practice. The need<br />
for this was necessitated by the fact that the<br />
case was a matter of life and death, as rape<br />
convictions, in Nigeria, carry a life sentence. I<br />
was advised to speak with the accused, to impress<br />
on them the importance of developing a logical<br />
and believable story, one which fits the facts.<br />
The next stage was to raise some money for the<br />
legal process. The budget for both applications,<br />
despite all efforts to keep it to a minimum, came<br />
to 60,000 naira. After much running around and<br />
many pleas for help, I managed to raise part of<br />
the amount from various sources.<br />
Then I had to prepare the originating processes.<br />
These include: a “motion of notice” asking the<br />
court to admit the applicants to bail, an affidavit<br />
of urgency, an exhibit and a written address.<br />
After I had prepared the papers, the application<br />
was then filed at the state high court in the first<br />
week of March 2010.<br />
And now begins the waiting game. The case<br />
file has to first be taken to the chief judge, for<br />
assignment, hearing and determination. These<br />
processes—when carried out without delay—<br />
usually take 4 months.<br />
The consequence of indefinite detention<br />
The unfettered liberty of the citizen was one of<br />
the important rights secured from the hereditary<br />
monarchs of medieval Europe prior to the age<br />
of enlightenment. The right to liberty has been<br />
defined in jurisprudence as the right “not to be<br />
subjected to any form of imprisonment, arrest<br />
and any other physical coercion in any manner<br />
that does not admit to legal jurisdiction”. Yet<br />
the law realizes that no human right is absolute.<br />
Indeed, the right of an individual may amount to<br />
little if lawless members of the society prey upon<br />
him. Derogations from the right to liberty may<br />
only be occasioned where a citizen has fallen foul<br />
of the law. In such a case, the state may invoke a<br />
sanction commensurate with the offence.<br />
Where this is not the case, then it is taken that<br />
there has been a systemic breakdown of laiddown<br />
rules.<br />
Detaining individuals without trial and even<br />
beyond the period permitted by law causes<br />
the public to lose faith in the system. The<br />
consequence? They rebel against the system or<br />
become active in reaching a compromise with the<br />
agency involved.<br />
I hope, for the sake of the truth—which I am<br />
still seeking, and which I hope will come to light<br />
in the course of the judicial process—that this<br />
“consequence” will not be the final lesson that<br />
we take away from the case of constables OC and<br />
DO.<br />
Postscript: During a recent visit I paid the<br />
accused in prison, I was informed by them<br />
that one of the alleged “masterminds” behind<br />
their ordeal, Mrs. H, has died from unknown<br />
causes. They attributed her untimely demise to<br />
a violation of Kalabari native law and custom,<br />
which forbids one from bearing false witness.<br />
Furthermore, it has been confirmed that it is a<br />
female judge that will hear and determine the bail<br />
application.<br />
JD Everimanu is a lawyer based in Port Harcourt.<br />
25<br />
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26<br />
Catching Up With Tosyn Bucknor and #THESEGENES<br />
You just hosted “Jeans for Genes 2”.<br />
What are your views on the show?<br />
I think the show went well. We achieved<br />
our three main objectives, and the fact that<br />
more people now want to get on board<br />
and support us is an extra plus! Also, this<br />
was the second edition. While the first<br />
edition was quite successful, there was no<br />
telling if it was a flash in the pan. Putting<br />
up a second ensures we test the model,<br />
sort out glitches and work harder on the<br />
third!<br />
Is there a follow up to this event?<br />
Yes o! There’s more! “These Genes”<br />
has annual events: two years ago we had<br />
“Jeans for Genes”, a celeb auction and a<br />
red-and-blue day. Last year was partnered<br />
events and a radio doc. This year, we aim<br />
to make a secondary school run, plus<br />
some TV and radio ads. We also intend<br />
to keep our blog fully functional and<br />
informative.<br />
What areas do you think people could<br />
get involved in?<br />
Mehn! Areas boku o! Lol! The good thing<br />
is we will soon put up a post on the blog<br />
with details of areas where paid or unpaid<br />
volunteers are needed. For now, I will<br />
say “These Genes” is always looking for<br />
people who can help raise funds, people<br />
with experience in PR, website and online<br />
content developers, “legmen” and general<br />
volunteers!<br />
What’s the reaction and support being<br />
like?<br />
The response has been good! When we<br />
first started, there was massive support,<br />
and even though it dipped a bit, its always<br />
been there. We have constant supporters<br />
like Zapphaire events and s.h.a.r.e, and of<br />
course, support from all the volunteers,<br />
artistes, designers and participants since<br />
we began. We haven’t managed to garner<br />
any corporate support though and we are<br />
hoping this will happen.<br />
We noticed a lot of celebrities turned up<br />
for the event. How did you make that<br />
happen?<br />
Truth is, everyone wants to give back!<br />
Celeb or no, everyone wants a way<br />
of volunteering their time and getting<br />
something meaningful out of it. Besides,<br />
with the “These Genes Celeb” trend,<br />
everyone is a celebrity, just by turning up!<br />
You managed to create a balance<br />
between fun, music, fashion and<br />
an important topic like sickle cell.<br />
I noticed there were several<br />
serious moments during the show. Do<br />
you think the message was passed?<br />
Yes o! It was definitely passed. From<br />
my personal experience, people are more<br />
willing to learn when their minds are<br />
engaged in a social manner. So, while<br />
people get dressed up and prepare to party,<br />
they also remember it’s for a cause. And<br />
once there’s music and beauty, then people<br />
are ready to listen to something more<br />
serious. If you notice, we had the serious<br />
bits as interludes; not longer than the<br />
music or fashion intervals!<br />
We also gave out informational material<br />
so people could read while they were<br />
there, or when they get home. More<br />
importantly, seeds have been planted so<br />
people can now go about asking questions<br />
and doing some research!<br />
Where would you like to see yourself<br />
and this project in the next 5 years?<br />
These Genes Sickle-Cell Project will<br />
hopefully continue its annual awareness<br />
fundraisers, and school runs, while putting<br />
out material like books and films. We will<br />
also have a website that I like to call the<br />
Google of sickle cell!<br />
And hopefully, we will keep being a voice<br />
where words are short!<br />
www.switchedonnaija.com - re’load<br />
Don’t you often<br />
wonder why James<br />
Bond never dies?<br />
After all, he is<br />
human, isn’t he?<br />
What is his secret and<br />
how come all girls<br />
are in love with him,<br />
even the evil ones?
LICENSED TO SURVIVE By Chris Ugo-Jones<br />
In spite of all the unanswerable questions<br />
I posed above, the one thing that I can’t<br />
understand is the complicated method a<br />
villain employs when he tries to kill Bond<br />
after he captures him. You would imagine<br />
that the bad guy would put a slug through<br />
James’ head the minute he is captured. But,<br />
no! instead he knocks Bond unconscious and<br />
straps him to the pilot’s chair in a helicopter.<br />
Then he rigs the helicopter’s armed missiles<br />
to, after a three-minute countdown, shoot<br />
into the air and come around to landing on<br />
the same helicopter they just issued from.<br />
He also leaves a pretty woman in the back<br />
seat, just in case, well, James Bond escapes<br />
and would like to have female company. His<br />
reward for a job well done.<br />
Another villian programs a weapon in space<br />
to shoot a laser at Bond, who is driving a<br />
sophisticated and technologically advanced<br />
Aston Martin. It is almost the same thing as<br />
tying a cockroach to a grenade launcher and<br />
firing into a nuclear reactor. Why go through<br />
all that trouble with a guy who has mastered<br />
the knack of escaping impossible situations?<br />
And how come Q. always has the right<br />
gadgets to get Bond out of trouble? Does<br />
Q. see the future? Is Q. actually the master<br />
villain, igniting trouble while helping James<br />
at the same time, in a twisted game of<br />
opposites?<br />
Two more questions. Why is the den/<br />
laboratory/hideout of the villain always<br />
destroyed in an explosion at the end of the<br />
movie while James Bond barely gets away?<br />
Must they always explode?<br />
All these questions and more I pondered on<br />
as I left the office to buy some food. It was<br />
about half past one in the afternoon and the<br />
scorching sun was drying the sweat off my<br />
face as fast as my body produced it. Try as<br />
the glands may, they could not keep up and<br />
I ran under the umbrella of a recharge card<br />
retailer to escape the heat. A young man in<br />
his twenties looked up at me through a pair<br />
of sunglasses.<br />
“Sorry, I’m not buying anything. I just want<br />
to rest from the heat,” I said. He shrugged<br />
his shoulders like he did not care whether<br />
I was alive or dead. I decided that I would<br />
wait five minutes before going back out into<br />
the blazing sun.<br />
Four minutes passed and I was getting ready<br />
to leave when I heard gunshots. I felt my<br />
heart beating in my mouth and feared the<br />
worst as I turned in the direction of the<br />
noise.<br />
A black BMW 6 series was being peppered<br />
with shots from machine guns. Three men<br />
with sunglasses hung out of a white Toyota<br />
pick-up truck, firing at the BMW. Even<br />
though the BMW swerved left and right, it<br />
was obvious to me that it was bullet-proof<br />
because the attackers fired point blank at the<br />
sleek car with no more damage than slight<br />
dents on its paintwork.<br />
As the cars neared where I stood, the BMW<br />
braked sharply and turned one hundred and<br />
eighty degrees. The driver of the Toyota<br />
did not anticipate this and at the speed he<br />
was going, swerved around the BMW to<br />
avoid a head on collision. The window of<br />
the driver’s side of the BMW rolled down<br />
and the driver brought out a Walther PPK<br />
handgun, firing several shots into the fuel<br />
tank and the tires of the pick-up truck as it<br />
passed by.<br />
Still in the same fluid motion, the window<br />
of the BMW went up and the car turned<br />
another one hundred and eighty degrees to<br />
face the right way while the Toyota exploded<br />
in a fireball, killing all the hapless occupants<br />
of the vehicle except one, who had jumped<br />
out when shots were fired into the fuel tank.<br />
At that moment I realized I was still standing<br />
and I hit the dirt face-first.<br />
The BMW screeched to a stop right beside<br />
me and the driver got out. He was a white<br />
man, about six feet two inches tall, with dark<br />
hair and a chiseled chin. His suit looked like<br />
it was made on Saville Row and his shoes<br />
glinted in the sunlight. He was close enough<br />
for me to see his watch and it was a Rolex.<br />
There was something about the man that<br />
was familiar but I could not place it. I stood<br />
up suddenly and he noticed me. He began to<br />
walk towards me and I was petrified. He still<br />
held the gun in his hand; I started praying.<br />
“Excuse me, do you know where Shearville<br />
Hotel is?” He had a smooth British accent<br />
and a smirk on his face. “I can’t seem to find<br />
the place, not with all the excitement I’ve<br />
had today.”<br />
Realization dawned on me. The rugged<br />
handsomeness; the gun; the voice; the<br />
clothes. Only one person had the panache<br />
that exuded from the man at that moment.<br />
“James Bond!” I said in a loud whisper. I<br />
could hardly control my excitement.<br />
“Oh, you know my name? How, if I may<br />
ask?” He responded, his eyes shining.<br />
“I know your MO. I’ve watched you since<br />
I was a kid and I know there is no move<br />
you execute without chivalry and major<br />
explosions.”<br />
“I try my best.” He suddenly seemed<br />
distracted. “See, do you know the hotel I<br />
asked about earlier?”<br />
“Sure, I do. In fact, I’ll take you there.”<br />
He paused, and I felt he was contemplating<br />
whether to take me with him or not. I<br />
was giddy with excitement at meeting my<br />
childhood hero; my face was locked in a<br />
wide grin<br />
Please, take me on an adventure.<br />
“Okay. But you must promise to keep my<br />
identity secret or I will be forced to . . .”<br />
“Kill me? I promise, I won’t say I word to<br />
anyone.”<br />
“Kill you? No, I was about to say resign<br />
from double O status.”<br />
“Okay.” I said, relieved. This meant that I<br />
had gist for some of my friends later—if they<br />
would believe me.<br />
“Get in, quickly.” We heard the sirens of the<br />
mobile police as we sprinted to the car. I had<br />
barely sat down before he pushed a button<br />
and the car zoomed off.<br />
I’m sure you don’t believe me when I say I<br />
sat next to James Bond. I can almost hear<br />
you say,<br />
“Ah ah, what is that supposed to mean?”<br />
I knew you would not believe but then, I<br />
have not finished my story, have I?<br />
The BMW had more controls than the panel<br />
of an aircraft and they were labeled with<br />
abbreviations. I was sure people went to<br />
school for the sole purpose of studying the<br />
car.<br />
“How do you know which buttons to press?”<br />
I asked, to make conversation.<br />
“I’m James Bond,” he answered. “I just keep<br />
pressing till the right one comes on.”<br />
“Ah,” I said, mesmerized.<br />
“Besides, most of the controls are meant to<br />
activate or fire weapons. As long as I have<br />
figured out where the big guns are, I’m<br />
good.” He turned, soaking up the admiration<br />
coming from me.<br />
I directed him to the hotel and he invited me<br />
to the bar for a drink. How could I say no<br />
when I just had to hear him say the words:<br />
“A martini, dry, shaken not stirred.” I almost<br />
screamed with delight. He looked at me and<br />
asked,<br />
“What would you have?”<br />
“Oh, just Fanta on the rocks, shaken not<br />
stirred.”<br />
“That’s my man.” James tapped me on the<br />
back. The barman looked at us like we were<br />
a couple of nutcases. “All drinks are meant<br />
to be shaken, not stirred,” he said.<br />
A woman in a white dress walked up to the<br />
seat beside James and sat down. The slit in<br />
the dress revealed her long legs when she<br />
crossed them. She had that appeal that drove<br />
men nuts and I knew James was in trouble.<br />
He promptly forgot me. “Hi sweetheart,” he<br />
said, turning to her with a flirty smile, “what<br />
do you say we leave this place and I show<br />
you what life is all about?”<br />
She turned, smiled and leaned close to him.<br />
“I think I’d prefer to show you what death is<br />
about. I have a gun pointing at your heart.<br />
Remove your gun and pass it to me.”<br />
Oh, James Bond. You and women! Can’t<br />
you control yourself?<br />
“Who’s your boss? I’d very much like to see<br />
my captor in case I don’t survive this.” He<br />
removed his gun and placed it within her<br />
reach. She took it.<br />
“Turn around,” she said. James and I looked<br />
at the man wearing a leather jacket and<br />
standing in the doorway.<br />
“Q.!” James said.<br />
I knew it. I was right all along.<br />
“Don’t try anything fancy James, I know<br />
all your moves.” He walked toward us,<br />
sweating profusely. “I do say, it’s pretty hot<br />
in Nigeria.”<br />
“Why, Q.?” James asked.<br />
“Why? Money, what else? You can’t expect<br />
me to retire on the pitiful pension MI6 pays<br />
ex-spies, do you? And you had to stumble on<br />
my uranium mining operation in Nigeria. I<br />
tried to keep you from finding out, diverting<br />
your attention to hotspots in Asia, but you<br />
couldn’t keep away, could you? You are<br />
attracted to trouble like flies to a heap of<br />
dung.”<br />
“That depends on how attractive the dung<br />
heap is.”<br />
We all looked at him. I voiced the question<br />
that was on everyone’s mind.<br />
“And how in the world can you make a dung<br />
heap attractive?”<br />
“I don’t know, but the line sounded good,”<br />
he said.<br />
“Typical,” the woman in the white dress<br />
said. She moved over to Q. and stood beside<br />
him, the gun still trained on James Bond. I<br />
had shifted away from him in the event that<br />
they began blasting away. He has survived<br />
for almost fifty years in the movie industry<br />
and still looked thirty-five. I, on the other<br />
hand was just starting life.<br />
“There is a bomb under your seat, James,”<br />
Q. said. “You have exactly two minutes to<br />
disarm it. However, if you stand up, it will<br />
detonate, killing everyone in here. You don’t<br />
want that, do you?” He smiled.<br />
I looked at James, always the picture of<br />
calm. But I had watched all his films and<br />
I knew he was seething, just waiting for a<br />
chance to get his hands on Q. Then he did<br />
the most spectacular thing I have ever seen.<br />
He brought out the bomb and held it in his<br />
right hand.<br />
“You mean this bomb, Q.? I disarmed it the<br />
minute you started talking.”<br />
Q. was stunned. “Chivalrous dog, you can’t<br />
best me like you did the other villains.” He<br />
looked at the woman in the white dress and<br />
ordered. “Iyabo, shoot him.” She pulled the<br />
trigger but nothing happened.<br />
“I also took the liberty of removing the<br />
magazine from her gun when she was close<br />
to me,” James said.<br />
Ah, James Bond, you are too much.<br />
“That leaves one in the chamber,” he<br />
continued. “The question is, would you be<br />
able to shoot me before I get to you?”<br />
Her eyes opened wide and I saw her finger<br />
move to pull the trigger. Quick as a flash, a<br />
knife appeared in James’ hand and he hurled<br />
it at Iyabo. The knife pierced her heart.<br />
Just before she fell, she turned to Q. and<br />
involuntarily squeezed the trigger. The bullet<br />
blew a hole in Q.’s head and they both fell<br />
down, dead.<br />
“Amateurs. They should know not to engage<br />
me in a conversation when they want to kill<br />
me.” He turned to me. “Have a great day<br />
and thanks for the help. I’ve got a date and a<br />
plane to catch. Bye.”<br />
And with that he ran for the BMW, jumped<br />
in and drove away.<br />
Do you believe me now?<br />
Chris Ugo-Jones is the pseudonym of a banker<br />
who is also, in his spare time, a writer with a flair<br />
for the comic.<br />
27<br />
“I know your<br />
MO. I’ve watched<br />
you since I was<br />
a kid and I know<br />
there is no move<br />
you execute<br />
without chivalry<br />
and major<br />
explosions.”<br />
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