Diary of an Abuja Billionaire: Week 20

Jamal is an Abuja-based billionaire bachelor and businessman who works hard and parties hard. Welcome to his world.

Week 20

 

Monday

I was in hot soup again. Zainab had driven off from my wine bar in her Mercedes Benz CLA Class in anger. I’d grabbed the drunk girl by the throat and threw her to the floor before my security removed her from the bar. Zainab remained calm, but after she finished her cocktail, she left without saying goodbye. I fired all my doormen on the spot for disobeying my orders not to let any young woman inside when I was there. I went to Zainab’s office this afternoon, and she told me she’ll never go anywhere with me again.  

Tuesday

Ishaya Gumbo came to my office and said he wants to manage my Kaduna chain of hotels. I laughed. I told him he can start with being chief of staff in one branch and he was insulted. “Look, in Nigeria, nobody knows who you are. If not that you speak through your nose nobody will even look at you,” I said. He left my office in anger. I sent out a notice to all the security and management in all my bars, restaurants, outlets, malls, hotels and offices in Nigeria, that under no circumstance should a woman under 40 be allowed within 50 feet of the establishment when myself or my fiancée were there. 

 Wednesday

Zainab was joining three of her friends on a shopping trip to New York this weekend, and a fourth woman she didn’t know was also joining them last minute. “Hope you haven’t slept with her too,” Zainab quipped. We were seated at a table at an Ambassador’s reception. “Just how many women have you been with Jamal?” She wasn’t joking this time. “I never kept count my love. They’ve all paled into insignificance; they’re all just a hazy, indistinct memory now that I only have eyes for you.” She kissed her teeth and flicked her long, glossy hair in my face. I grabbed her chin, turned it towards me and kissed her. 

 Thursday 

I hosted a state governor at my office, very nice guy, but a terrible businessman: all his overseas investments where failing and he wanted my help. I paid for Ishaya’s mother’s medical bills in America and arranged for her to stay at a high-level hospice. “But my son,” she said weakly, after thanking me profusely for helping her. “Please look after him.” I sighed. “Your son has delusions of grandeur. He doesn’t know he has to start from the bottom. He doesn’t even have a degree!” She said she was also disappointed with his life choices. “He’s been very depressed.” Nonsense.

Friday 

Zainab left for New York for a week today. Her personal shopper Vivien had arranged their flights, hotel, restaurant reservations and transportation around the city, and as I dropped her off at the airport in my new Maserati, she kissed me goodbye. “I’ll miss you so much” I told. Her Louboutin heels were already out of the door and her Louis Vuitton travel bag on the crook of her elbow. “Just keep those women away and I’ll try and keep the men off too,” she smiled. Men? I frowned. If Zainab ever cheated on me I think I might kill her, then kill myself.

Saturday

 Aliyu’s wife’s sister was visiting them in London next week, so I sent one of my drivers to her house with sealed packages of fura and kilishi for him, as my chef Daniel knew where to get the best. Went with Stanley to a newly-opened nightclub in Maitama and drank too many shots. Before I knew it, five women surrounded the VIP area where we sat and one sat on my lap. Women. The public announcement of my engagement made them even more willing to sleep with me. I couldn’t even dance without one putting her hands over all over me. I got home and removed pieces of paper with phone numbers on them from the trouser pocket of my Paul Smith suit trousers.

   

Sunday 

Zainab was having fun in New York, they had dinner at a famous rooftop diner before going to a club. “I can have fun too” she said when we talked on Skype. Then I heard a man’s voice saying “C’mon Zee, let’s go!” I asked her who it was, but she covered her mouth in surprise and hung up. I called back but no answer. I called her phone an hour later and she said sorry they had to rush out. “But who’s the guy I heard?” I asked. “He’s just a friend,” she said. “I’ve known him for years. He lives in New York.” I wasn’t happy at all.

The Abuja National Stadium was lit with fireworks and patriotism on Thursday 27^th February as Nigeria celebrated its 100^th birthday as a nation.

Hundreds of costumed dancers and performers from all over Nigeria participated in the multi-media onstage depictions of the country’s history, with a pre-concert featuring 2Face, Wizkid, Omawumi, Ara, Nazir Ahmed Hausawa aka Ziriums and Threadstone.

Ike Osakioduwa and Funke Akindele were the hosts on a memorable night which also featured nostalgic music from old school artists including Victor Olaiya, Victor Uwaifo, Ikemba Superstars, Nelly Uchendu, Rex Lawson, King Kennytone, Fela and many others.

The grand spectacle culminated in spectacular fireworks display, as President Goodluck Jonathan, First Lady Patience Jonathan and more than 40 world leaders from around the world looked on, including President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, President Hifikepunye Pohamba of Namibia, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Yahya Jammeh of Gambia and Prosper Bazombaza of Burundi.

Also in attendance was the President of Mauritania, Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz, Ethiopian President, Mr Hailemarian Desalegh, and the European Union President, Mr Jose Manuel Barroso.

See pictures from the event below:   

Nigeria's amalgamation is celebrated

---

 

Hundreds of costumed actors danced and acted on stage

---

Actors on stage depicting Nigeria's history

---

 

Montages and pictures of past leaders was projected

---

 

Nigeria's amalgamation is celebrated

---

Impressive lightworks at the Abuja Stadium

---

Spectacular multimedia show

---

Spectacular multimedia show

---

 

Fireworks ended the night

Bishop Kukah Gets His Audience Laughing

“To pass an anti-corruption law in Nigeria you have to bribe somebody,” said Bishop Hassan Matthew Kukah, quoting Mr Segun Adeniyi.

He made the remark halfway through his keynote address at a fundraising event organised by the Parent Teachers Association of Loyola Jesuit College (LJC), Abuja, towards the building of a memorial staff residence in honour of 60 students of the college who died in the 2005 Sosoliso plane crash, and for the first time in many hours, the audience laughed.

This expression of mirth was a significant event, a vivid change of the pervasive mood. The audience had not been in a jolly mood, neither did they merely have the dispassionate, attentive countenance of listeners; they had been mourning. They had been ruffled by a series of depressing images. Pictures of 60 LJC victims of the crash had been shown on the projector, pictures of Kechi Okwuchi, then a student of LJC and one of two survivors of the crash, before and after the accident was shown, and later a video in which she addressed the gathering. And in the hall were people particularly affected by the event, relatives and friends of the victims and LJC staff; people who do not need a formal gathering to be reminded of the tragedy but had gathered all the same to be formally reminded of a tragedy.

The situation demanded that they be sober, but Bishop Kukah was not going to be just another sequence in a dark narrative. He came up stage and removed the cloak of melancholy covering the room, first with a joke about his unfulfilled desire to join the Jesuit order of priesthood. The hilarity was at this early stage tempered with self-control, as they were yet to recover from the poignancy of the preceding stories. Only sounds of chuckling could be heard. But in time there would be full-throated laughter.

He said that the organisers had more or less summoned him for the event, giving him no option to either reject or accept the invitation/command and confessed that he just finished editing his speech in the car on his way to the venue; a warning that he might be rambling a bit till his time was exhausted. But his speech was far from prattle.

He was speaking on the effects of air disasters on national development and had arrived at the Segun Adeniyi quote by way of digression and anecdotes, as is common among men of eloquence. Plane crashes he said, returning to the subject, were not greater than, but equal to seemingly common place tragedies that are paid no attention, for instance the death of an infant from malaria, the death of a rural woman in childbirth, the unnamed victims of numerous road accidents, fatalities from infernos, building collapses, etc. Considering the composition of the audience, it takes some measure of courage and being Bishop Kukah to make such a statement.

Returning to the trivial, he likened pilots to nurses in their use of deceit in calming clients in difficult, even hopeless situations; nurses, for instance, assuring patients just before giving them a jab that everything is fine and pilots telling passengers same in the most turbulent conditions.

Bishop Kukah loves to talk and he knows it. “I decided to take responsibility for speaking because I couldn’t find a speaker,” he said once in Abuja at a roundtable on the implications of freedom of expression. And people love to listen to him. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” he said at the event.

Who wouldn’t listen in awe to a priest that references Leo Tolstoy in the same sentence as he mentions Schindler’s List? Shakespeare is cheap but to quote accurately the first line of Anna Karenina is jaw-dropping, eye-popping awesomeness.

His speech, as it progressed, provided many cues for laughter and it became increasingly difficult to hold back. The options were to join in the amusement or hold in the humour and burst out at an incongruous hour, jerking hysterically. In any case, there is nothing against laughing with eyes still moist with tears. After all, emotions are mutable.

By Ladi Opaluwa

The Rise and Fall of Oga

It is all a game. The demure gaze into the space between both your feet or to your right or left, when he speaks to you. The standing at attention, arms tucked away behind his back. The affected dance of urgency in matters that require none. The receiving things with two hands and the offer to take whatever you are holding when you return.

He doesn’t know yet that apart from a couple of young ladies at the back of the compound, you are the only one who does not own a car in the compound. Despite your reluctance to enlist his help, you need him, because you cannot carry in the fridge you have brought home alone. You give him some money when he does, not because you are a generous person, but because you think his job at the security post does not make him a domestic servant; because you do not understand people who make shared security men do their private chores; because you believe in dignity in and compensation for labour. 

You suddenly remember it is Valentine’s day on your way back to the house. You decide to give him one of the three packs of juice you have bought. He doesn’t expect it and almost tumbles over receiving it. He attempts to take the other things you are holding, to carry it from the gate to your apartment. You refuse and walk away.

He starts referring to you as ‘oga’. He genuflects and greets you with shouts and exaggerated gestures just in case something would, god forbid, make you not hear his greeting. You hope he will not begin to expect things from you. Worse, you hate this unnatural show; you want to tell him that being a security man means only one thing: that he does his job and nothing more. He does not owe you anything else, not even a greeting. 

After many days being oga, the mystery about you is diminished. It is clear now that you have no car. That you do not leave the house in the mornings like most other tenants. Enough time has passed to convince everyone that you are not on leave or anything. Worse still, you have not given any gifts after that pack of juice. You see how people wonder about men who do not leave their homes in the morning. With women they make easy assumptions: she is either a kept woman or a sex worker. With a man the gossip is more complicated. Is he a yahoo boy who works out of a laptop? Is he some other type of fraudster? Is he some madam’s boyfriend? Or is he, god forbid, unemployed?

He could not hide his shock one Monday morning when you emerged at midday in shorts. His eyes asked, ‘oga, why are you not at work?’ It is interesting to you how in a country with such poverty, people are unkindly judgmental about underprivileged or unemployed people. Or people who cannot be defined in familiar terms like formal jobs and businesses. 

On the eve of the second week after the juice when you are heading out in the evening with a friend of yours, having spent all day indoors, he strips you of your unsolicited title, without the ceremony with which he bestowed it upon you. At the gate he performs the christening ceremony. ‘Well done bros,’ he says, sitting on a bench, waving at you.

Somehow you are relieved that perhaps this means things are back to normal, that perhaps he is one step closer to seeing you as an equal human being. Because you would rather be bros, than oga.

Remember her? Ese Walter; the lawyer, writer, and radio personality, but better known as the woman who wrote publicly of her affair with COZA Church’s Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo, or as some (defenders of the gospel) would say, the lady who claims to have had an affair with the Pastor. Either way, you remember now.

Well, I once had an encounter with her but did not realise my fortune until her wedding pictures emerged online some days ago and I thought, darn! She was the lady with the peculiarly short gown and long hair and nails, with whom I shared a table some months ago at the launch of Studio 24’s flagship store.

So while I was fixated on meeting Brandy, the American musician, I missed out on the sideshow right before me and a chance to get an autograph. One never expects to meet people like her who have come to fame unconventionally. If I wanted to see M.I, for instance, I will go to an M.I concert, or to a Last Flight to Abuja premiere to see Omotola. Where does one go to purposely collide with Ese Walter? Besides, I believed that a Nigerian living in Nigeria could never have the aptitude to kiss and tell― there is no polite way of putting it.For that reason I thought that Ese, like Sahara Reporters, existed only in virtual space, uploaded her bombshell from a safe location abroad, shielded from physical reaction and far from the madding crowd. But there she was in Wuse 2.

As an unidentified, random guest, she was interesting enough. She kept reapplying her lip-gloss in the course of her stay at the event. She seemed the centre of a group of three girls. The group enthusiastically participated in the question and answer games the MC invented to make pleasant the wait for Brandy. I remember trying to put them into one of two categories: real home-bred ajebutter and just another-girl-makes-it-big-in-Abuja.

When she stood to leave with her friends in tow, I fell in awe at the height of their shoes. As they stood by her car for last minute chit chat, I took pictures of them from the ankles down just to show what girls put their feet in. Had I known, I would have asked for a photo session instead.

Good thing I didn’t know though. I would have stared at her for far too long. It’s unlikely she would have cautioned me though, having recently retweeted Jon Winkur’s (@AdviceToWriters) tweet: “The writer should never be ashamed of staring.” Assuming retweets are endorsements. 

And after I have recovered myself, I would have launched a series of questions beginning with an inquiry into the authenticity of her story. And though I may believe her, I will never know the truth, because there would be another truth with its set of believers casting a shadow of doubt over mine. As she has succeeded in polarising the public on a private matter, the important task would be to probe her motive for a public confession. Fame? Catharsis?

I have read part of her story and consider her a good story teller, or at least a writer with good material that has entertained people in need of comic relief. The story, after all, has not upset the lives of the characters in any major way. It is a fantastic tale in which both characters seem to be living happily thereafter. The antagonist, Pastor Biodun, has remained married and for his trouble is said to have received from the American televangelist Mike Murdock the gift of a Rolls Royce. And the narrator, Ese Walter, well, she got fame, and then she got married.

By Ladi Opaluwa

Luxuries in the Face of Extreme Poverty

It has nothing to do with how far it is. You just do not like soldiers. Nigerian soldiers. You do not like their addiction to treating people like animals, to bullying on the roads, to assaulting defenseless civilians in broad daylight.

Everyone has spoken about the roasted fish sold in the army barracks. Many have sworn that it is the best in the city. And today that your friends have insisted that they want to go there, you do not want to be a spoils-port. So, you join them.

Inside the barracks, in the square that is the fish market itself, there are hardly any uniforms or weapons. Only thick rising smoke, women wrangling over customers and territory, northern haberdashers and others peddling odds and ends, and opens stalls tightly packed together.

One by one, hawkers come to the table you have chosen to sell you screwdrivers, wallets, purses, caps, watches and sweets. This is the same square where a bomb exploded on the last day of 2010.

A well-groomed woman shows up with white cards carrying appeals for donations to some association of deaf students. You wave to say you do not have any money for her as do the other persons on the table. The woman who claims to be deaf keeps staring at you. She is trying to catch your eye. When she does, her palms and eyes work together to plead. You shake your head. She points at the white woman by your side.

“You and her,” she signs, “you two have fun.”

“She makes you happy.”

“Make me happy.”

“You fly together.”

“Help me.”

She traces 50 on the table in front of you. Just N50. You look at how well dressed she is, how well made her hair is and you are upset. Professional beggars you say to yourself, and look away.

While you do not agree that this is the best roasted fish in Abuja, you are quite impressed by the time you have gotten to the head of the catfish.

“Growing up, the head of fish was reserved for my mother,” you tell the person sitting opposite you. He says in his home it was for his father. You are meticulous about the head, careful not to miss any flesh hidden in the bones.

As you wash your hands, a boy between 10 and 13 emerges with a black polythene bag.

“Please I want the head.”

As he empties the bones from the three plates on the table, you suggest to your friends that perhaps it will be used for dog food. You are quickly corrected. He is gathering food for the family.

“Thank you,” he says, curtsying as he leaves.

If you had known, you might not have crushed the bones of the head so completely. You feel like calling him back, to give him some money. But you question yourself: 'what will that change?' Before you can decide, the boy disappears.

One of the women on the table is visibly distraught by the information. There are tears in her eyes. She is looking away, hiding her reaction. Your eyes meet and the feeling is mutual: how can anyone enjoy these luxuries in the face of such poverty?

What Does Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Bafta Win Mean For Enugu?

To answer the question that serves as title here, it means nothing. Although the Enugu state government, unashamed in its misplaced mendacity, believes otherwise. But more on that shortly.

The BAFTA, short for British Academy of Film and Television Arts, is supposed to be the British equivalent of the Academy Awards (the Oscars).

But the might of American pop culture and, specifically, the worldwide dominance of American cinema means ‘equivalent’ in that sentence can only be used very loosely. Powerless in its diminished position in relation to American hegemony, its appeal is now mostly in terms of its winners’ potential at the big one, the Oscars; a role it has managed to play, in recent years, so admirably it deserves an award for Oscar prescience.

Last year, the Best Film winner, Argo, went on to win at the Oscars. The Best Actor and both supporting acting categories were won by same actors. There is usually some consensus come award season.

This year’s list of winners has hardly settled the question of who becomes victorious at the Oscars: Chiwetel Ejiofor may have won but he is no shoo-in for the Oscars, same as Jennifer Lawrence winning Supporting Actress for her turn in American Hustle. Miss Lawrence stands in the way of the one most Africans are rooting for, Lupita Nyong’o for her 12 Years A Slave role. Last year Europeans rooted for aged Frenchwoman Emmanuelle Riva but Ms Lawrence won Best Actress over her.

J-Law is America’s favourite actress at the moment, and I think she’ll break another continent’s heart this year.

*** 

It is the convention to congratulate one’s countryman or woman in the event they win prestige in another country. In the twenty-first century, with wars routinely condemned, there may be no greater nationalistic act. It is why the Olympics are a big deal. Last month, David Cameron, British PM, congratulated the makers of 12 Years A Slave on their win at the Golden Globes. The Brits are generally happy to win in the US; and Americans are generally happy to give thespians from the UK awards, Colin Firth, Judi Dench, Gwyneth Paltrow, Michael Caine, Helen Mirren having all won Oscars.

The difference between Cameron’s shout out and Enugu State Governor Sullivan Chime’s full page ad, besides the waste of state resources, is that at least major players in the first identify as Brits. (Although the film itself has raised questions about what exactly is a British film.)

While 12 Years A Slave was directed by a Brit and stars a Brit in its lead role, both identifying as same, Enugu state’s— and by extension, our country’s— contribution to Chiwetel Ejiofor’s performance and eventual win is merely chromosomal.

The tribute itself is curious. Here are the words, annotated in the spirit of mischief far less malignant than the fact of the ad’s existence.

First the ridiculous: “I congratulate our brother, Mr Chiwetel Ejiofor (OBE) on his historic and unprecedented feat of winning the 2014 British Academy of Film and Theater Arts (BAFTA) Best Actor Award.”

Then the clueless: “This achievement is indeed a great victory not only for Nigeria but also for Enugu, your home state, in particular.”

Having come this far, with sense running on fumes, the ad delivers Nigeria’s greatest cliché, used by both pastors and the PDP, yes, the one incomplete without a mention of youth: “It will also certainly inspire other young Nigerians to strive for excellence and recognition in their respective endeavours.”

And then the vacuous valediction: “We wish you even greater accomplishments as you continue to push the frontiers of excellence in your career.”

At that last flourish, you can just picture the aide or Governor Chime himself— who in repose, is one of those politicians whose lack of humour is (mis)taken as proof of gravity— flopped into his chair, swivelling to the glory of God and country.

The pedant may wonder at that ‘Theater,’ in the first sentence, the faux pas of using American spelling for a major British award, but we live in a country where that is not a detail aides, special assistants, special proofreaders, or whatever positions created for this purpose, are expected to know. He or she may also query the genius of spreading four sentences into four paragraphs. But apparently, for Governor Chime’s Enugu only a full page would do, and only the naïve can be perplexed.

A public holiday may not be far behind.

Times have changed. In 1996 when for Kiss from A Rose, Seal (Henry Olusegun Olumide Samuel) won three Awards at the Grammys including the coveted Song of the Year, the country was in a different place and it would have been somewhat strange to have a military administrator taking out a full page for that purpose. Or perhaps his use of a pseudonym may have obscured the ‘truth’ of his nationality. We’d never know now.

More recently, the band Sade (fronted by Sade, real name Helen Folasade Adu) won its 4^th Grammy in 2011, by which time any imagined romance between the band’s frontwoman and Nigeria had expired— the band won its first in 1986, barely a year into the Babangida regime.

Since then our democracy has deepened, allowing our leaders to add to buffoonery unabashed brazenness, taking out silly ads for super sums. It is playing to the gallery. As the wording of Governor Chime’s congratulation makes clear, it is not for Mr Ejiofor, almost certainly oblivious to what his win has wrought in the country of his parents’ birth. It reads like a perversion of the last lines of TS Eliot’s A Dedication to My Wife, “But this… is for others to read: these are private words addressed to you in public.”

Governor Chime’s full-bodied, full-page congratulation, besides craving an undeserved association with acclaim, has ignored the efforts of Nigerian cinema. But who hasn’t? Until a Nollywood filmmaker wins an award from elsewhere it would reap only scorn. Our own award shows, rightly ignored, are bedevilled with ineptitude and many times the list of winners appears to be in thrall of federal character.

The Oscars are not so far away, and should Mr Ejiofor win there as well, maybe the governor would give a speech on the absolute genius of the Nigerian blood, the south-eastern blood, particularly the Enugu blood. It is about visibility, about the allure of honour, in some oblique way, it may be about political survival.

I am not sure what music Governor Chime listens to, but he may have been humming the chorus from Seal’s 1990 song  Crazy, as he swivelled in his chair: “No we are never gonna survive, unless we get a little crazy…”

A good song then as it is now, one only wishes the governor didn’t take its message literally.

How Much is an Egg Roll?

There’s an instant pleasure one derives from biting into a warm egg roll, especially when the dark brown pastry surrounding it is both savoury and sweet and crumbles in the mouth. With this yearning in mind, I walked out of the office at lunchtime in search of the eggroll sellers, who carry their cheap but sumptuous wares on their heads to many labourers’ delight.

It was my lucky day: a teenage girl was passing by with a lidded, translucent plastic bucket on her head. I could just about make out the eggrolls inside. As she walked on, skillfully balancing her load on her head, she didn’t even need to use a hand to hold the bucket in place, such was her hawking experience.

One arm hung playfully by her side as the other held a small plastic carrier bag hooked to her wrist, no doubt containing her takings for the day’s sales so far. She walked with an air of confident abandon: “I don’t need to go to school,” she seemed to be saying. “The sun and the breeze and the open road are my education. I know these streets like the back of my hand.”

I made short hissing sounds to get her attention, and when she heard, she turned around and walked towards me. As she reached me, she brought down her bucket and opened it. “Good afternoon madam,” she said in a sing-song voice. I greeted her and looked inside her pail.

There were eggrolls alright, bigger than average and the rough unevenness of the dark-brown dough glistening with grease testified to the fact that the dough will be sufficiently crunchy. But apart from the rounded eggrolls, there were elongated dough of the same colour, moulded into fat, short tubes.

“What are those?”I asked, pointing at one.

“Fish roll,” she replied, her inanimate eyes wondering away and resting on the woman walking by.

They look interesting, I thought. “Give me one eggroll and one fish roll,” I said, looking forward to biting into one of the moist flour-casing and tasting bits of fish instead of a hard-boiled egg.

The girl took out one small black carrier bag from the bag hooked unto her wrist, spread it out on her cupped hand and used it to scoop up the delicacies, wrapping the bag up around them.

“How much?” I asked.

“N200”

I looked back at the snacks in the bag. “Remove the fish one” I said. Knowing that the price of eggrolls ranged from N50 to N80 depending on where you bought them, N200 for two – one of which was a flavour unknown to me – was too much. Plus I couldn’t guarantee that these eggrolls will taste good. Looks can be deceiving. And the freshness of the products, now that it was already 2:30pm and there were only a few left in the bucket was uncertain. Wouldn’t all the oil seep down to the last remaining rolls, making them soggy from the extra grease and the accumulated heat-turned-sweat from the sun?

The doubts raised by the extra N120 was immense. Did the fatness of my purse fool this girl into thinking it was full or money? Or did the wholesale price of flour and eggs suddenly increase in Abuja so that it translated into an extra N20 charge for an eggroll?

But I didn’t say anything. I paid with N500, and saw that I collected all her change: eight N50 notes. I wondered where the rest of her money was. But the abundance of N50s proved to me that indeed the rolls did retail at half the price. The young swindler was smart. “Thank you ma” she said, as she heaved the bucket back unto her head.

Those three words turned my displeasure into a shrug. Back at the office, I bit into the roll. It was still fresh and uncluttered by too much grease. My N100 was well spent.

 

By Kimberly Ward

Religious Leaders and the Burden of Leadership

Many Nigerians used to look up to God for answers to almost every question but these days, most would rather look up to their religious leaders. If Papa says it, God need not even speak again. This unfortunate reality is not the purpose of this piece, it is only to emphasize the fact that, when it comes to the issue of men of God in Nigeria, you’d not be wrong to assume most Nigerians take them as god of men.

This is not to knock on the hustle of these important men. It is just to plead on behalf of the Nigerian people for them to see a few things some of them are likely to have missed out because of their busy schedules, not to mention their disconnect from the unwholesome realities of everyday Nigerians.

As we speak, students of Nigerian polytechnics have been home since the first half of 2013. We are nearing the end of the 1st quarter of a new year and no solution appears in sight. Students of our public universities only just resumed a few weeks ago and with reports the government is already refusing to honour some of the agreements with the university lecturers, it would only be a matter of time before they go on another round of strikes.

The students of the colleges of education are home too. Not on holidays but due to yet another strike. These students are members of churches and mosques across the country. They are church workers and volunteers to the things of God. How many times have we heard any of you pastors and imams demand that the government expedite action on their return to school? How many of you spoke for them during ASUU strike?

If these young people are sold out to your leadership as their religious fathers, would it be too much to use your political capital to demand that the government does something about their situation? Were government to close religious houses for one reason or the other for nine months, would these students be silent on the issue as you are on theirs?

More souls were lost to terrorists in Borno State last week. There is no point pushing it, security has failed in Nigeria. How many meetings have our religious fathers called with the government to demand a more strategic, multilateral response to the insecurity issue across the country?

When you meet with the president, do you praise him and tell him to remain strong in the face of strong political opposition or do you tell him what the people you lead in your churches and mosques would expect you tell him? Do you use your close relationships with Nigerian political leaders for personal gains or for the gains of your religious organisations or do you see it as an opportunity to influence government to serve the people – your members – better?

The 2015 elections are here soon enough. We will see presidential candidates and gubernatorial candidates kneeling before almighty religious leaders for prayers. We know that despite the best rationalizations for those prayers, it would be about the photo ops. We trust you never to tell your members to vote for any candidate. But we also trust your members to see the pictures and know the direction of their thumbs during the elections.

These things will happen. These tactics will work for the politicians that choose that path. It will bring a lot of power-broking influence to religious leaders that play along. Would it be in the interest of your members to continue to play this game that has left most of them as destitutes? Is this what service to God really is? Does service to God include serving the interest of his people?

One must at this time praise the efforts of those religious leaders who continue to speak truth to power. Today may look like the people don’t see your work, but posterity is a better judge. As for the rest, with so much power, influence and responsibility, it will never be too late to let the pains of the people influence your engagement with the political system.

The people may look like they don’t know a thing. They may be like a herd ready to go wherever they are directed. But if one day they wake from their slumber and realize they have nothing to lose, they will not be able to differentiate their political oppressors from their religious ones. It is never too late to think about these things and make amends.

The Blog of Fleeting Good Intentions

Sometime last year I was thinking of starting a blog. But that may be stating it too grandly, considering that it was an obsessive thought to which I was merely a conductor. I was occupied with the idea of blogging to create awareness on the Freedom of Information Act, on the basis of materials from a booklet on the subject that the National Orientation Agency had published and left in stacks in various places.

The Act gives the public such privileges that it felt sad that they should be left undistributed, unread. Everyone, according to the Act, can access any information or record – subject to specific exemptions – in the custody of any public institution or private institution utilising public funds, performing public functions or providing public services, and such person is entitled to receive such information within seven days of request and is not even obliged to state any specific interest in the information being applied for.

It would be an enlightenment campaign blog to analyse and discuss the provisions of the Act; an interactive forum for the documentation of experiences in trying to obtain the report of abuses and all sorts of discontent among Nigerians.

Some months later I was at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre at a roundtable discussion on the implications of freedom of speech within the context of the law. The roundtable was organised by The Kukah Centre, Abuja. Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah noted that hatred could be propagated under the cover of free speech, saying that what constitutes a person’s freedom of expression as provided by the constitution might sometimes incite hatred and violence in the masses and opened the floor for one of those conversations that keep going in circles and never move forward.

As people of varying ethnic and religious backgrounds were present, discussants were suspicious of one another and comments seemed to just blatantly address a previous speaker’s supposed regional or religious bias, with finger pointing on each side going back and forth.

As the meeting came to an end, someone suggested that ‘indigenship’ and the practice of federal character should be deleted from the constitution. That struck me as the panacea to all of Nigeria’s problems. There I thought I had found my life’s mission: pushing for the amendment of the constitution to that effect. Only it seemed like a mission impossible.

Since then, I have boarded a cab with a boy no more than ten years old going home at about 9 p.m. from the city centre where he had come to hawk. I thought of taking my journey further to Suleja where he was headed to ascertain his living conditions and then report his parents or guardians to the social welfare board. But then I thought, saving little boys from wicked stepmothers is the duty of superheroes. I paid his fare and prayed he got home safely.

I have thought of donating some of my books to an orphanage, books that have been read and will never be reread and books that I am certain I will never get round to reading. Living in such an isolated environment as these children do, they need books to feed them with exotic experiences. But orphanages have more urgent needs than books.

The launch of Studio 24 Red Card to Rape foundation was another occasion to think of championing the campaign against rape, but that course has many advocates already.

One December many years ago, my sister and I had concluded plans to take HIV/AIDS campaign to our hometown. It was a very complex plan. We would bring experts from the city to lecture the community on all aspects of the disease, there would be free counselling and testing and so on. As Christmas neared I thought, well, NACA is doing a great job of that already.

And most recently, listening to Mrs Ibukun Awosika speak passionately at the Harvard Business School Association of Nigeria's lecture on the need for engaged citizenship aroused in me the anger needed to fight corruption, but my rage was doused shortly after by a glass of wine.

It’s hard to admit that perhaps all the good I am capable of is giving N20 to the roadside beggar with an obvious disability. So now I am thinking, maybe it is time to really start the blog. There is no framework for it as yet, but an aggregate blog that would be a platform for all fleeting good intentions, and perhaps be subtitled An Activist of General Courses. It would be an interactive platform for the report of abuses and all sorts of discontent among Nigerians. Knowing my irreverence for tasks that have no deadline, I am aware that this blog will exist only in the fantasy realm. But the intention should count for something.

By Ladi Opaluwa

Jemima Angulu: The First Lady of Krump

Jemima Angulu, the Founder and Managing Director of the Krump Dance Studios in Abuja shares her thoughts on pursuing your passions and mastering your craft with Chika Oduah

Where did the idea for Krump Dance Studios come from?

The idea came from the need to fulfill dreams. I grew up knowing what I wanted to do even as a kid, but I never thought it was possible because of my environment. I wanted to help other people dance. That’s basically my driving force; being able to influence and make change and make dance available for other people. I have my own dreams. I’m still dreaming. I want to establish dance as a profession here in this country. Also, I want to perform.

 

So you want to be a world-class performer?

Yes, definitely I do. I don’t like confining myself to one single act. Yes, there are parts of me where I have to be solo, but I would love to perform with my team as well. I love theater. That’s where the idea of the Grease production came from. I love everything about dance theater. I don’t want to call it Broadway because we’re not on Broadway, but Broadway is a term that is used to describe that type of production. I’m passionate about telling stories with dance.

Where did you get your dance training?

It started off by what we can say ‘the streets’, from one dance team to another, and also on my own. I wouldn’t say that I knew that I was training myself at the time. As I grew up and I decided that I wanted to pursue dance, I started connecting with dancers in workshops. As I did, I began to learn myself.

Can you tell us more about the street training?

When I was a kid I had a dance clique. We would just meet in different people’s houses. When I got to secondary school it was the same thing. We would train and rehearse. We also had idols. I was also part of the Redeemed, that was gospel. I also got to choreograph a lot. I don’t think there was any town I went to where I didn’t meet dance lovers.

So do you refer to yourself as a professional dancer?

Yes I do because I’m paid to dance, but I still try to obtain other levels. I’m not just thinking about Nigeria, I’m thinking about the world so we’re trying to see how dancers here can connect with world-class dancers and follow the ropes. We have lay people, we have raw dancers and amateur dancers and they get here and are not sure how dance works. We organize workshops for them to learn. Some of the instructors that I work with are coming from Lagos and they’re always trained in different levels.

Who are your dance idols?

Well, MC Hammer used to be one of them but there are so many of them now. There are many that have inspired me. I’d say Mia Michaels, she’s not just a dancer, she’s actually a choreographer. I’d say Popin’ Pete. He’s one of the pioneers of hip-hop. I love Cirque du Soleil as well. Pop artists like Usher was someone I really looked up to at a point in time. Right now, someone I definitely like when it comes to dancing is Chris Brown. It’s not that he is so fantastic but I know he’s really passionate about dance. He has that connection. You can see someone who is passionate about dance. You can tell.

What about the Nigerian pop artists?

I like P-Square’s choreographer. I think his personal work is actually awesome.  But I wouldn’t say I connect with Nigerian artists. There are some parts of their performances that I don’t agree with. Some of them are too vulgar. If it’s not vulgar or seductive, it’s not popular. I don’t think Nigerian artists challenge their creativity.

How many dance instructors do you have at Krump Dance Studios?

I have nine instructors here. Three of them are part time and the rest of them are full-time. They’ve been trained at different levels. Some of them have gone to the schools here like Corporate Dance World and Mobile Dance Academy in Jos. Most of them have competed in competitions like Maltina Dance All. We have a lot of creative people who have been trained in Latin, salsa, contemporary and hip-hop. For the life of a dancer, training never stops because it’s creativity. You might learn the principles but you have to keep on learning. So, we’re all training and we’re dancers at the same time. We’ve been doing training on a very casual level for a while, but we actually just started a faculty for training using a curriculum.  

Last year, Krump Dance Studios presented the musical dance production, Grease Naija Mix. What were the challenges of putting that on?

It was something that was new. I had challenges to get the dancers to understand what we were doing. On one side they enjoyed what they were doing, but we had to train them. We had to do auditions and they came and didn’t know what they were doing. They’re all raw. It was quite a challenge and we weren’t able to sell the vision to the people. We didn’t have financiers. They were interested and thought it was exciting but they wanted to see us pull it off. You know, probably because it was new and it was dance and live, so they weren’t sure if it was a viable production. Will people come? Have you done this before? It was challenging but I think it was worth it. Because of that, we had to improvise with costuming. We had to also work with time. We funded the production ourselves.

What advice would you offer to people here in Abuja who are not sure where to start?

 

I’d say come to the studio, as training is inevitable. You have to train as a dancer. It’s not just a gift so go to anywhere you can to train, but come here to start with.

 

Dressing to Kill

You are conscious of how insidious the city is, how its many parts can creep up on you, good and bad and ugly. You have not allowed the city to snatch questions from your lips, or at least you know how to pick your respondents. You make sure to carry about the words, ‘I am not sure’, in your front pocket. No one says they don’t know in Abuja. When you ask, they just make up the stuff they don’t know in the most assured tone they can manage, carried on the wings of the most distant accent they can conjure.

“Do you know what a life partner is?” you ask, reading from an article she just drew your attention to on the internet.

She doesn’t give you that I-can’t-believe-you-don’t-know-this look. She just pauses for the few seconds it takes her to turn her wisdom into English which is her third language.

“Well, I think it means people who live together but are not married. Not like just boyfriend. It means someone you share your life with.”

Suddenly you realize you should just have googled the thing. Your eyes pretend to continue reading but instead you are counting how many weeks you have spent together in the same house, sharing your lives and cooking and washing in turns. You would have advised anyone else to go slow, but in this matter you seem lost, almost impervious to your own natural instincts. You find ways to seek assurances that you are not choking her out of love. And she says to you in as many ways as you ask, there is nowhere else she would rather be.

On your way to the swimming pool you warn her that you will be wearing flip-flops, the kind some people refer to as bathroom slippers. You find the reference, especially by pretentious Abuja people who declare you a sinner for wearing them anywhere outside your bedroom, irritating. Growing up in Kaduna, everyone wore flip-flops, to walk around, to the shops, to the market. And no one called them bathroom slippers. Just slippers.

She smiles and slips her pretty miniature feet- the most proportionate feet you have ever seen- into her yellow flip-flops for the fifteen minute walk to the pool. You are used to being invisible by her side when you walk- she is the attractive pale-skinned one, and you are just the big black man by her side. The eyes today all follow the same sequence: they stare at her, then look at her clothes and when they get to her feet, they suddenly look at you. The horror in their eyes is so clear you can reduce it to words:

OK, maybe she is a foreigner and doesn’t know that in Abuja you don’t wear bathroom slippers to walk in the streets of posh Abuja, but you? What is your excuse? How could you do this to her, bring her into permanent disrepute? How could you, you miserable cretin!

You smile and explain why, for a change people are looking at both your feet instead of her face. It comes to you as odd that in a country with so much poverty, people are so unforgiving of ‘badly dressed’ people- people would rather drive themselves deeper into poverty than give off any sign that they are poor. Which you think, is probably why you find scores of expensive second-hand SUVs creeping in and out of every backwater slum in Abuja.

On your way back, the growing darkness gives your feet cover. Not that you need it but you can now return to being the invisible black man. You stop to buy some items at a busy pharmacy on Adetokunbo Ademola Way. A well dressed woman in a bright orange boubou, headtie and veil stops you. She looks like any of the posh shoppers trying to find her way to her car. You smile the half, tentative smile preceding a legitimate inquiry.

The woman leans in and whispers from her shiny lips: “Please can I get like N1, 000 from you, I need to…”

You lose the smile and walk off angrily, dragging your partner with you. This woman knows the script. Dress to kill, even when you’re a professional beggar outside a supermarket.

The Abuja Cricket Club is Better than People Realise – Chris Newsom

The Cricket Club of Abuja (CCA) has been given the thumbs up for ensuring that the game of cricket remains active in the nation’s capital.

Chris Newsom, speaking on behalf of the British community after a friendly cricket match between the UK, Australasia and CCA members, said they were initially unaware that there was such a club in Abuja.

“We didn’t even know the cricket club was here and the (Abuja) cricket club is better than people realise”, he said.

The match, which was won by the Australians, was played to mark Waitangi Day, a New Zealand national holiday and witnessed some great bowling and batting, notably from Saad Butt, the captain of the Abuja Club.

“If you were watching carefully, you would see a couple of good players from the Abuja Cricket Club who are regulars here. Most players here have been playing for 20 years,” said Newsom.   
 

Speaking on the Nigeria cricket team’s chances at next month’s Cricket World Division Five Championship in Malaysia, where Nigeria will hope to qualify to the money-spinning division four, Butt believes the team has the talent to deliver.

“They are preparing well. I have been watching them and just like the last time they got promoted to division five, they play really well and they have huge confidence. But if they believe in themselves to at least stay in the same division then they definitely have a good chance of qualifying. They have the players and skills of a division five, at least.”

Chris agrees that cricket is developing in Nigeria, especially with the team’s promotion last year to division five, “which sounds like a tier way down but for a small cricket community and country, that’s doing pretty well.”

The Nigeria Cricket Federation President, who also doubles as the President of the Abuja club, Emeka Onyeama, says matches like this will definitely increase relations between Nigeria and other countries.

“We’re using cricket as a platform to improve our relationship with other countries and I can assure you that what is going on today will bring more for cricket in Nigeria,” he said.

Emeka also discussed the impact the match has on Nigerian cricket. “Using platforms like this to promote and improve cricket in Nigeria, they (other countries) can bring us equipment and come on playing tours. As a matter of fact, one of the Australian guys has already promised to bring his team over here, which is a good thing for us.”

The 2014 ICC World Cricket League Division Five will take place from 6–13 March 2014 and Nigeria will battle with host Malaysia, Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Tanzania, and Jersey for the first and second positions, which secure qualification to Division Four. Third and fourth placed teams will remain in Division Five 2016, while fifth and sixth will be relegated to Division Six 2015.

More pictures below:

Chris Newsom (right and in glasses) and the rest of the team

President of the Cricket Club of Abuja Emeka Onyeama (in red and black T shirt) thanking the players

President of the Cricket Club of Abuja Emeka Onyeama (in red and black T shirt) thanking the players

The ongoing match

 

The UK, Australasia and CCA compete

The UK, Australasia and CCA compete

A plaque commemorating the match