Letter to My Nigerian Friend: Don’t mind your Business

Dear Friend,
Like a leaden weight, I have have borne this message for many months now. Only recently have I had the opportunity to commit these words to paper.
I know that your country will be having its elections next year. I know that expectations are high and low at same time. I know emotions in your country now oscillate often between despondency and hope. I do not blame you even outsiders think of Nigeria in such ambivalent terms. A land at once full of potential and yet perennially underachieving

You have seen three elections in this republic. They have been total charades. Ballot boxes stolen and stuffed, people maimed, electorates robbed of their mandates, inept leaders finding their way into office lacking a plan. All these has left you cynical. You no longer care. You have left the dirty game to the marauders. Even in power these highway men continue to insult your intelligence, your pride and your rights. They bleed your country dry and leave you raped, relieved of a living, relieved of your hope.

But still, in that indefatigable optimism that is undoubtedly Nigerian, you have begun to hope again. “Perhaps in 2011 my vote will count” you say. Perhaps a leader with a strategy to bring Nigeria from the brink will get elected. Perhaps our law enforcement agents will tackle the forces that will try to seize the ballot box. Maybe this time election riggers will be prosecuted. Maybe for once your politicians will stop playing ethno-religious cards which are actually just selfish cards. You fantasize; perhaps in 2011, kidnappings will cease, agitation will become non-violent, simple infrastructure will put in place. There will be power, you dare to imagine.

I know your hope is constantly being assaulted. Some Direct Capture machines for the elections were whisked away under the nose of airport security, leaving them bewildered. A state party chairman was murdered only three days ago, a presidential aspirant has threatened violent change if elections don’t go as planned. The doomsday strategists of the West suspect Nigeria might not survive till 2035 or even these elections.

But I charge you to remain resolute in your defiant hope. You must hold on stubbornly to your demands for a saner nation. You cannot allow the lethargy of the last decade to continue. For, if you do, it will be fatal. I am glad you roused yourself when a cabal started to rule Nigeria by proxy earlier this year.

I am however disappointed you appear unbothered that your national assembly alone consumes 25% of the government’s recurrent expenditure. I am surprised you have not taken to the streets. You appear to have many other priorities. Where are your student colleagues; the student unions that hounded and harangued Babaginda and Abacha? Did you see UK students protesting their increased fees? Where is your NLC and TUC that constantly questioned and stalemated Obasanjo’s fuel price increases? Why do you slumber, my friend?

I hope you will be awake next year. I hope you will protect your votes. I know the thugs and 'area boys' will be armed. I do not ask you to be violent or engage armed men. But I ask that you be curious and united. Register, vote, wait around to hear the results of your street’s polling booth, record the announced results on your phones, record happenings around you, document everything, send text messages to media houses, upload videos to YouTube, use Facebook and twitter if you wish. It will be dangerous but it is your future that is at stake here. You will be the ones that will have to look for those non-existent jobs, it will be your businesses that will be crippled by lack of credit, epileptic power and bad roads. Your wives, your children will have to visit those ill-equipped hospitals. Your siblings will have to struggle with several other millions to get one of the odd 350,000 spaces in Nigerian universities. You will then flock in your tens of thousands to the democracies that bother to care. You will then man their industries, guard their gates and clean their dead. You will lose the most if you choose to go back to sleep, look the other way and mind your business.
I must stop now and leave you with this one message. Don’t just be full of prayerful hope; be practical in your believing. I know you are deeply religious but I ask you to take your fate in your hands and not just leave it in the hand of the supernatural. Rouse yourself, rise and mind Nigeria’s business. Your country needs you!

Till we meet again.
P.E

The Internet, My friend

At the risk of sounding opinionated, I believe four things are crucial to any writer’s success. They are knowledge or content whether correct or otherwise, inspiration, an audience no matter how sparse and an inner voice.


Content or simply put; having something to say about something and inspiration are intertwined and the most important of the lot.

Through the ages, writers have found content and inspiration from wars, love, deposed queens, disease, murder, and light. Those inspirations have certainly morphed from the hide-donning Neanderthals, to the crusades of the Plantagenets, the world wars to the birth of Industrialisation and explosion of technology.

Today human knowledge and experience exists and is propagated on a whole new plane; the virtual colossus known as the internet. Here, in this intangible place mankind does everything it has always done; live, buy, sell, love and kill. It is to this place writers must look for content, inspiration and audience. To ignore the internet is perhaps to wither as a writer. Pen-wielders of this age must understand and maximise the internet

The technique of optimising the Internet might pose a different kind of challenge for many a writer but also the promise it offers is unbelievable; no more demanding publishers, dusty libraries, crippling deadlines and inadequate reward?

Write what you want, under what name you want, when you want, where you want, how you want, for how much you want and for whom you want. Let loose your inner voice. Get on the internet.

SK 2010

Asejire LGA: Goldfish in a Global Pond.

The world is bored. People are looking for something fresh, untested and thrilling. The destinations in Greece, Rome, the Americas have lost their magic...no thanks to the economic recession and falling exchange rates. But there is a new bride around the corner. She is Africa and in extension…her most populous nation – Nigeria


Tucked away in South-Western Nigeria is a little miracle. Asejire is a small local government area of no more than 60,000 but it boasts of becoming the next Florida of the developing world. This week, Asejire’s Chairman announced plans to provide Spanish, Russian and Chinese translations to the LGA’s website that already existed in English and French. This is in addition its strong presence on Facebook and Twitter.


But what does Asejire have that the world needs? The answer is simple…Asejire has itself! Asejire has a rich history that dates back to the mid 13th century. Folklore handed down the generations resulting in a rich oral culture. Tableland, hills, beautiful scenery, colorful art and dye crafts, pottery, all these contribute to making Asejire, a safari delight. Wisely the local government decided to graphically document and protect these resources while entering into a public/private partnership with a culture management company.


However visitors to any travel location require certain things; lodging, security, transportation and a local economy to do business with. On the LGA’s website you will find links that will lead you to the websites of Asejire’s finest 3-, 4- and 5-star hotels. To meet up with global standards, these hotels undergo biannual regulatory and certification checks. This has made Asejire a perfect hideaway for company retreats, vacations, family holidays.


Last week Asejire marked a decade of its Community policing scheme that has become a national success and a model for the sub-region. The hallmark of this scheme has been the near zero crime rate the LGA has enjoyed. This has been partly due to the many youth entrepreneurship initiatives of government and its ability to attract investment into its tie and dye industry.


Asejire is a community that works. It is not afraid to tell the world that it does. It invites the world to come and see. This week Asejire began to advertise on Satellite TV paid for with exclusive rights to film some ancient and protected landmarks.


Google “Asejire” and you will find a goldfish playing in a global pond.




*All names used are a figment of my imagnation

FREEDOM

I can feel you
I know you're here
I sense you running
zig-zagging in my head
come to me
I can't wait no more
set me free
loose these bonds
quench my dryness


let me hold you
possess your substance
employing you to my diverse devices
Let me capture your randomness
and contain your liberty
Harnessing your energy
let me lead you by the hand
and show you where to go
Let me show you the rocks
the obstacles we must crush together
Let me send you an errand
Be my messenger

Heal this lameness
give me a crutch
erase my uncertainty
Explain to the winds
Tell the waters
describe to the grains
mark the annals
let it be written
let it be said
that you passed this place
and said my piece