I've written often in the past few months of the feeling of deja vu that I experience each time I read about what's going on in Abuja with regard to pushing through a third term for Obasanjo. I have drawn direct parallels to my experience in Abuja in 1997 when many of the same pundits pointed to the increase in Nigeria's foreign reserves under Abacha and the "stability" that the country had enjoyed to advocate why no one else but Abacha could or should continue as President. Today, many of these same pundits are rolling out similar arguments in support of Obasanjo. The truth is that no-one holds a monopoly on wisdom or good governance and if Obasanjo and his supporters put in half the effort they are putting into this ill-advised manouevre, to finding and preparing a credible successor, they would be a lot better off.....
But there is deja vu elsewhere, with Blair's current situation in the Labour Party being compared to the last days of Margaret Thatcher in the Conservative Party....
Meanwhile across the pond, the neo-con hawks are marshalling many of the same arguments they used a few years ago to justify going to Iraq against Iran...
It's amazing how we human beings fail to learn from history-even fairly recent history......
Today's news from Abuja suggests that because the Senate President has insisted that the legislators must vote openly in favour or against the constitutional amendment, all contracts awarded since he became Senate President are being investigated by the "Independent" Corrupt Practices Commission. It is this use of the anti-corruption agencies as a weapon of blackmail that breeds doubts in the minds of people like me about the sincerity of Obasanjo when he insists that he is committed to tackling corruption...
Personally, I think the idea of having all the legislators publicly stating their position on the 3rd term issue is fantastic. Each morning, since the debate started, I read through the list of Nigerian legislators who have spoken and see what line they have toed. I have had a few shocks- Tokunbo Ogunbanjo, an erudite and urbane lawyer who is now a Senator has spoken in favour of the constitutional changes....It's good that the debate is public so that the Nigerian people and future generations know exactly who has betrayed them.......
By the way, Nigeriaworld is still down for the 3rd day running....and there's no word on why...if anyone has got a clue, drop me a line and let me know
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Missing Nigeriaworld, and musing on terrorist piss-taking
For the second day running, Nigeriaworld, arguably the most popular and comprehensive Nigerian news and current affairs website is down. It's strange how easily you become attached to a website. I'm used to going there first thing to read all the Nigerian newspapers. As it's down, I've had to go the individual papers' websites which is a whole lot less efficient. I wonder what the problem is. Initially when I tried getting into Nigeriaworld and failed and then tried the Thisday and Guardian websites without any luck, I wondered if it was some conspiracy related to the third term manoeuvrings in Abuja....but then I was able to get into the Guardian and Thisday websites and realized that nothing earthshaking had happened as yet. The inability to get any sort of information about why the site is down, is frustrating, as I'm sure it is for thousands of others. Plus, the owners of the site must be losing money judging from the inordinate number of pop-ups that littered the site when it was still up.....in any case I hope they're back online soon....(sans pop-ups)
On the radio this morning, lawyers for a man found guilty of terrorist acts in Jordan, but currently living in the United Kingdom, are reported to be fighting to prevent his being deported to Jordan as they say he is likely to be tortured or killed there. Even though the Jordanian government has assured the UK government that this will not be the case, his lawyers insist that the agreement between the two countries is not worth the paper it's been written on.
I kind of understand the sentiments behind the lawyers' arguments and the importance of upholding the rule of law and civil liberties, but even my best liberal instincts can't help but feel that someone, as the English so eloquently put it "is taking the piss"....
On the radio this morning, lawyers for a man found guilty of terrorist acts in Jordan, but currently living in the United Kingdom, are reported to be fighting to prevent his being deported to Jordan as they say he is likely to be tortured or killed there. Even though the Jordanian government has assured the UK government that this will not be the case, his lawyers insist that the agreement between the two countries is not worth the paper it's been written on.
I kind of understand the sentiments behind the lawyers' arguments and the importance of upholding the rule of law and civil liberties, but even my best liberal instincts can't help but feel that someone, as the English so eloquently put it "is taking the piss"....
Monday, May 08, 2006
Weekend FT, current reading,dreaming of an ipod phone, and Blair's arrogance
I read the Financial Times this weekend- lots of my friends and colleagues recommend it as the UK paper to read for unbiased news- the other major papers take decidedly ideological viewpoints. I'm not sure I agree that the FT is unbiased if such a thing as an unbiased newspaper exists, but I do enjoy their Saturday edition especially the magazine and weekend sections. Good then to see in this week's Saturday FT two Nigeria- related stories, one describing a fashion show organized in Lagos in aid of the World Food Programme which featured Deola Sagoe of Odua Creations. In the article it said Will Smith and Oprah Winfrey are fans of her clothes.....I remember when she started designing not so many years ago and how she always made clear that her vision was global, not local- looks like her doggedness and commitment are paying off- more power to her....
The other was a not entirely-unsympathetic review of the latest volume of Wole Soyinka's memoirs- You Must Set Forth at Dawn http://snipurl.com/q6es . Having enjoyed his Ibadan the Penkelemesi Years, I'm looking forward to this....
At the moment I'm reading City of Falling Angels, the new book about Venice written by John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. As I'm due in Venice for work later in the week, I thought it'd be a good time to read it..so far so good. His earlier book partly inspired me to visit Savannah in Georgia a few years ago where I was stunned to discover that the book and the film together had led to a multi-million dollar boost in tourist business for the city..... Maybe I should write a book about Abuja....
At the conference I attended in the US not too long ago, I spotted lots of people with Apple laptops designed along the same lines as the iPod- that sleek white curviness....that has set me wondering- how come no-one's designed an iphone yet? A mobile phone designed along the lines of an ipod would be a market hit and would I suspect leave the Motorola V3 lying in the dust...but perhaps it exists already and I just haven't stumbled across it yet......
Blair continues to battle for his political life...... a friend asked me yesterday why I was so anti- Blair and I said it was summed up in one word- arrogance. I am under no illusions that David- I'll stand for whatever you want me to- Cameron will be any better, but Blair and his New Labourite chums cannot just continue taking the electorate for granted..... I hope they come to their senses soon...
Meanwhile Mark Oaten blames going bald at thirty and a mid life crisis for cheating on his wife with a rent-boy- honestly, what does he take the good people of Winchester, his constituency for?
The other was a not entirely-unsympathetic review of the latest volume of Wole Soyinka's memoirs- You Must Set Forth at Dawn http://snipurl.com/q6es . Having enjoyed his Ibadan the Penkelemesi Years, I'm looking forward to this....
At the moment I'm reading City of Falling Angels, the new book about Venice written by John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. As I'm due in Venice for work later in the week, I thought it'd be a good time to read it..so far so good. His earlier book partly inspired me to visit Savannah in Georgia a few years ago where I was stunned to discover that the book and the film together had led to a multi-million dollar boost in tourist business for the city..... Maybe I should write a book about Abuja....
At the conference I attended in the US not too long ago, I spotted lots of people with Apple laptops designed along the same lines as the iPod- that sleek white curviness....that has set me wondering- how come no-one's designed an iphone yet? A mobile phone designed along the lines of an ipod would be a market hit and would I suspect leave the Motorola V3 lying in the dust...but perhaps it exists already and I just haven't stumbled across it yet......
Blair continues to battle for his political life...... a friend asked me yesterday why I was so anti- Blair and I said it was summed up in one word- arrogance. I am under no illusions that David- I'll stand for whatever you want me to- Cameron will be any better, but Blair and his New Labourite chums cannot just continue taking the electorate for granted..... I hope they come to their senses soon...
Meanwhile Mark Oaten blames going bald at thirty and a mid life crisis for cheating on his wife with a rent-boy- honestly, what does he take the good people of Winchester, his constituency for?
Friday, May 05, 2006
Lost phones, coincidences and local elections
Two days ago I lost my phone. I had just got out of a taxi and as it drove off, I realized my phone had slipped out of my trouser pocket. Unfortunately I was too late to get the taxi details. I had been having an interesting conversation with the cab driver who was "of Asian heritage" and so I was pretty sure he would bring it back- if only he knew how. It's amazing how lost and disconcerted losing your mobile can make you. I'm far from addicted to my phone and yet I who as a child could reel off all the numbers of my nearest and dearest (plus a few more) now only have a few numbers in my memory- they are all in my phone memory- so I could call my parent's landline in Nigeria, but not their mobiles, I could call the office and one or two other people and that was it. To make matters worse I was involved in work that meant moving around a lot and so had to keep ringing the office to make sure I wasn't missing anythings while I obsessed about all the messages that were disappearing into the ether. I tried ringing my phone, but since it's permanently on "Vibrate", I was sure the taxi driver wouldn't notice....so reluctantly I rang up the police and my phone company to report the loss. I wasn't going to let the insurers weasel out this time.... a couple of years ago, I lost my phone and the insurance refused to pay saying I had reported it more than 24 hours after the event. It drove me mad, especially as I had tried cancelling the insurance and was told I was locked in for a year. Trust me,as a Naijaman, I made noise up to ringing the office of the Chief Exec of the phone company (found the number on the internet) and generally made life very unpleasant as aresult of which I was given a new phone gratis (as a gesture of goodwill) but it still rankled that the phone had not come from the insurers....call me obsessive but I hate rip-offs.....
Anyway all's well that ends well- had a call tyesterday morning from the phone company, the cab driver had handed the phone in at one of their shops and so I'll go and pick it up. Meanwhile the replacement handset from the insurers is on it's way- I've agreed to send it back once I receive it.... Funnily enough yesterday afternoon at the tube station I saw a mobile phone drop out of someone's pocket- I dashed after her and drew her attention, and returned the phone to the young lady who nearly kissed me in her relief...I said to her I know how it feels- It seemed like an odd coincidence...
Exciting times yesterday with the UK local elections. One of the "privileges" I've always appreciated is the fact that virtually as soon as I arrived in the UK, I was eligible to vote, courtesy of being a citizen of the "Commonwealth"... I voted nice and early for the Lib Dems, largely because I could not bring myself to vote Tory,no matter how charming and cuddly David Cameron appears and because I was disgusted with Labour's arrogance, insensitivity, and stubbornness. From Patricia Hewitt patronizing the NHS and members of the public to Tony Blair stubbornly clinging to policies that everyone is against and sweeping away all complaints,or requests to reconsider under the carpet of thoughtless opposition to reforms....Glad to see the massacre, perhaps it'll make the Labour party sit up and think. I think the Lib Dems did badly because Ming Campbell isn't on the radar at all- at least Charles Kennedy had a distinctive and constant media presence.....perhaps they'd have been better off with someone younger and more dynamic.....Talking of which, the photographs of the Camerons and the Blairs going to vote were a knockout blow- There's charming Dave and Samantha, laid back wearing shirtsleeves and a summery shift dress, looking like the ordinary Londoner (even if the average Londoner hasn't been to Eton and isn't the step daughter of a Lord) and there were Tony and Cherie all dolled up to the nines in corporate gear- and Tony wearing a BLUE tie- I'd noticed that the convention here is that on election day, politicians tend to wear their party colours- blue for the Tories, yellow for the Lib Dems and red for Labour. Cameron wore a blue shirt with folded sleeves, Blair, a blue tie with red spots- perhaps that's the real colour of new Labour- Blue with flecks of red.....
Anyway all's well that ends well- had a call tyesterday morning from the phone company, the cab driver had handed the phone in at one of their shops and so I'll go and pick it up. Meanwhile the replacement handset from the insurers is on it's way- I've agreed to send it back once I receive it.... Funnily enough yesterday afternoon at the tube station I saw a mobile phone drop out of someone's pocket- I dashed after her and drew her attention, and returned the phone to the young lady who nearly kissed me in her relief...I said to her I know how it feels- It seemed like an odd coincidence...
Exciting times yesterday with the UK local elections. One of the "privileges" I've always appreciated is the fact that virtually as soon as I arrived in the UK, I was eligible to vote, courtesy of being a citizen of the "Commonwealth"... I voted nice and early for the Lib Dems, largely because I could not bring myself to vote Tory,no matter how charming and cuddly David Cameron appears and because I was disgusted with Labour's arrogance, insensitivity, and stubbornness. From Patricia Hewitt patronizing the NHS and members of the public to Tony Blair stubbornly clinging to policies that everyone is against and sweeping away all complaints,or requests to reconsider under the carpet of thoughtless opposition to reforms....Glad to see the massacre, perhaps it'll make the Labour party sit up and think. I think the Lib Dems did badly because Ming Campbell isn't on the radar at all- at least Charles Kennedy had a distinctive and constant media presence.....perhaps they'd have been better off with someone younger and more dynamic.....Talking of which, the photographs of the Camerons and the Blairs going to vote were a knockout blow- There's charming Dave and Samantha, laid back wearing shirtsleeves and a summery shift dress, looking like the ordinary Londoner (even if the average Londoner hasn't been to Eton and isn't the step daughter of a Lord) and there were Tony and Cherie all dolled up to the nines in corporate gear- and Tony wearing a BLUE tie- I'd noticed that the convention here is that on election day, politicians tend to wear their party colours- blue for the Tories, yellow for the Lib Dems and red for Labour. Cameron wore a blue shirt with folded sleeves, Blair, a blue tie with red spots- perhaps that's the real colour of new Labour- Blue with flecks of red.....
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Black Wednesday for Blair, sensing deja vu
Just sitting in a quiet room at the end of the day- everyone else has left the office and I'm just finishing off when I am drawn to open this blog up and again drop a few lines....
Yesterday is being reported in the media as Tony Blair's black day, what with his Deputy (the linguistically challenged John Prescott) admitting to an affair with one of his secretaries.....just goes to show New Labour is just as capable of sleaze as the Tories....to Charles Clarke the Home Secretary being asked to resign because about a thousand foreign criminals have been released from prison over the last year without being deported as they ought to have.....to Patricia Hewitt....she of the hectoring, deluded "This is the NHS' best year ever" being booed and slow hand clapped out of the Nurses' conference in Bournemouth....
With the local elections coming up next week, it's not a good time for Blair or New Labour....Nor is it for his warmongering ally Dubya whose opinion poll ratings seem to have gone into free fall...perhaps there is some justice after all.....
Just finished The Next Gulf- a book about Oil, London, Washington and Nigeria, which makes pretty scary reading (if you're Nigerian). It could have been better written but the questions it raises about the US' strategic interests in Nigerian (and West African) oil merely suggests that all our agitation as Nigerians over third term is besides the point- the real script is being written elsewhere....
And we know that for the US, and the UK ...as long as the oil keeps flowing, they will shut their eyes to everything else....
I've never forgotten the Abacha days when even the "sainted" Bill Clinton announced in South Africa that the US would recognize any Nigerian leader who had emerged through a democratic process, even if they shed their military uniform to do so...I remember how depressed I was that day.....
There is much these days in Nigerian happenings to remind me of the Abacha days- amazing how human beings can literally repeat the mistakes of history step by slow, mind numbing step..... Segun Adeniyi's article today in Thisday and Chief Awoniyi's letter to Obasanjo remind me of the final last minute warnings to Abacha....
Yesterday is being reported in the media as Tony Blair's black day, what with his Deputy (the linguistically challenged John Prescott) admitting to an affair with one of his secretaries.....just goes to show New Labour is just as capable of sleaze as the Tories....to Charles Clarke the Home Secretary being asked to resign because about a thousand foreign criminals have been released from prison over the last year without being deported as they ought to have.....to Patricia Hewitt....she of the hectoring, deluded "This is the NHS' best year ever" being booed and slow hand clapped out of the Nurses' conference in Bournemouth....
With the local elections coming up next week, it's not a good time for Blair or New Labour....Nor is it for his warmongering ally Dubya whose opinion poll ratings seem to have gone into free fall...perhaps there is some justice after all.....
Just finished The Next Gulf- a book about Oil, London, Washington and Nigeria, which makes pretty scary reading (if you're Nigerian). It could have been better written but the questions it raises about the US' strategic interests in Nigerian (and West African) oil merely suggests that all our agitation as Nigerians over third term is besides the point- the real script is being written elsewhere....
And we know that for the US, and the UK ...as long as the oil keeps flowing, they will shut their eyes to everything else....
I've never forgotten the Abacha days when even the "sainted" Bill Clinton announced in South Africa that the US would recognize any Nigerian leader who had emerged through a democratic process, even if they shed their military uniform to do so...I remember how depressed I was that day.....
There is much these days in Nigerian happenings to remind me of the Abacha days- amazing how human beings can literally repeat the mistakes of history step by slow, mind numbing step..... Segun Adeniyi's article today in Thisday and Chief Awoniyi's letter to Obasanjo remind me of the final last minute warnings to Abacha....
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Springtime, Place of Reeds, a clutch of new Nigerian writing & Nigerwives
Watching the trees in the square opposite blossom into frothy whiteness, combined with the warmth I feel in my winter coat(time to consign it to the wardrobe soon), together with my sneezing in the morning,all confirm that spring is here....Now I know why the English worship the sun so much- you have to live through a dank dreary winter with darkness falling at 4 to understand the exhilaration.....
Off to Spain tomorrow for a well-deserved (even if I say so) Easter break....I'm reading Caitlin Davies' Place of Reeds- she's the daughter of English novelists Margaret Foster and Hunter Davies- and the book is her account of her marriage living with her Botswanan ex-husband in rural Botswana. It's a good but not great read so far, slightly dry and somehow it seems lacking in colour and seems to skirt round issues. It's also fairly critical of her husband and his family, and I slightly wonder- what did you expect- for instance not understanding why her husband who she met in the US as an Afro-haired hippy cuts his hair the day before he goes home to Botswana because "people will talk". I suppose for someone like me living between two cultures, it isn't so surprising, but am slightly irritated by what appears to be her naivete. She refers often to racism in Botswana but does not explore these deeply enough, especially considering that her husband is the son of an Afrikaner South African and a poor rural farmer Botswana woman....anyway I'll see if it gets better as I go on...
Going back to Nigerian writing, I notice that Nigerian novelist Chris Abani, he of Graceland fame has a new novella Becoming Abigail
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/nigeria/abanic1.htm out, as does Segun Afolabi, Nigerian winner of the Caine Prize last year. Afolabi's A Life Elsewhere, a collection of short stories makes its debut this month http://snipurl.com/p4ps. Wole Soyinka treats us to another volume of his delectable memoirs, You Must Set Forth at Dawn follows the acclaimed Ake, Isara and Ibadan this month http://snipurl.com/p4pv. And Chimamanda Adichie is set to follow the success of Purple Hibiscus with Half of a Yellow Sun http://snipurl.com/p4q4 later this summer. Early next year we can expect Helon Habila's Measuring Time http://snipurl.com/p4qd.... It's good to see new Nigerian authors moving beyond the one book stage, and wait with bated breath to see if they live up to their earlier promise....
Stumbled across this website for Nigerwives, http://www.nigerwivesnigeria.com/ an organization of foreign women married to Nigerians....growing up they always appeared slightly elitist- in that odd pathetic way in which in Nigeria, anything "white" or Western had a slight cachet attached to it...Nevertheless they did lots of great charity work especially with the blind and provided an extended family network for their members in Nigeria. Good to see they're still going strong....
Off to Spain tomorrow for a well-deserved (even if I say so) Easter break....I'm reading Caitlin Davies' Place of Reeds- she's the daughter of English novelists Margaret Foster and Hunter Davies- and the book is her account of her marriage living with her Botswanan ex-husband in rural Botswana. It's a good but not great read so far, slightly dry and somehow it seems lacking in colour and seems to skirt round issues. It's also fairly critical of her husband and his family, and I slightly wonder- what did you expect- for instance not understanding why her husband who she met in the US as an Afro-haired hippy cuts his hair the day before he goes home to Botswana because "people will talk". I suppose for someone like me living between two cultures, it isn't so surprising, but am slightly irritated by what appears to be her naivete. She refers often to racism in Botswana but does not explore these deeply enough, especially considering that her husband is the son of an Afrikaner South African and a poor rural farmer Botswana woman....anyway I'll see if it gets better as I go on...
Going back to Nigerian writing, I notice that Nigerian novelist Chris Abani, he of Graceland fame has a new novella Becoming Abigail
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/nigeria/abanic1.htm out, as does Segun Afolabi, Nigerian winner of the Caine Prize last year. Afolabi's A Life Elsewhere, a collection of short stories makes its debut this month http://snipurl.com/p4ps. Wole Soyinka treats us to another volume of his delectable memoirs, You Must Set Forth at Dawn follows the acclaimed Ake, Isara and Ibadan this month http://snipurl.com/p4pv. And Chimamanda Adichie is set to follow the success of Purple Hibiscus with Half of a Yellow Sun http://snipurl.com/p4q4 later this summer. Early next year we can expect Helon Habila's Measuring Time http://snipurl.com/p4qd.... It's good to see new Nigerian authors moving beyond the one book stage, and wait with bated breath to see if they live up to their earlier promise....
Stumbled across this website for Nigerwives, http://www.nigerwivesnigeria.com/ an organization of foreign women married to Nigerians....growing up they always appeared slightly elitist- in that odd pathetic way in which in Nigeria, anything "white" or Western had a slight cachet attached to it...Nevertheless they did lots of great charity work especially with the blind and provided an extended family network for their members in Nigeria. Good to see they're still going strong....
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Thinking of stopping, memory sticks and Tony Allen
Back again after another period away. I keep wondering whether these now infrequent visits mean I should give up on blogging entirely. There just does not seem to be enough hours in the day. I remember I used to say to people "You will always make time out for what really matters to you", and so I wonder if my inability to find time to blog (in my increasingly busy day) means that at some subconscious level, blogging's lost its appeal for me. On a conscious level I certainly miss it and wish I did it more often....
Dashing about on work, my memory stick has come in very handy. I can start a presentation or a report at work, save it to my memory stick, continue working on it on a laptop on the train, take it home and continue on the desktop, take it to a friend's and continue on their desktop.....the opportunities are seemingly endless. And to think that these small things can pack so much power.....perhaps one day we will just have minuscule memory sticks implanted into our fingers and we can take our stuff wherever we go......
Just finished Andrew Miller's The Optimists, an excellent book which I finished in one sitting. It's about a British photographer who witnesses a Rwanda-like massacre in an unnamed place and is haunted by it after returning to England.....he goes to some length to state that the story is NOT set in Rwanda and I'm not entirely sure why. In any case, I've been inspired to get his Booker Prize shortlisted first book, Oxygen which I start this week.....
This morning, quite a long segment of BBC Radio 4 Today's programme was devoted to Tony Allen, Fela's former percussionist, and the number of Western musicians who said their work had been inspired by him. Granted, I had never heard of half of them (including someone (Brian Eno? who invented something called ambient music) but they certainly seemed very well regarded by the Today programme.....it was good to wake up to some Afrobeat on a grey English April morning though.....and they plugged the Tony Allen Lagos No Shaking CD http://snipurl.com/p1bo
Dashing about on work, my memory stick has come in very handy. I can start a presentation or a report at work, save it to my memory stick, continue working on it on a laptop on the train, take it home and continue on the desktop, take it to a friend's and continue on their desktop.....the opportunities are seemingly endless. And to think that these small things can pack so much power.....perhaps one day we will just have minuscule memory sticks implanted into our fingers and we can take our stuff wherever we go......
Just finished Andrew Miller's The Optimists, an excellent book which I finished in one sitting. It's about a British photographer who witnesses a Rwanda-like massacre in an unnamed place and is haunted by it after returning to England.....he goes to some length to state that the story is NOT set in Rwanda and I'm not entirely sure why. In any case, I've been inspired to get his Booker Prize shortlisted first book, Oxygen which I start this week.....
This morning, quite a long segment of BBC Radio 4 Today's programme was devoted to Tony Allen, Fela's former percussionist, and the number of Western musicians who said their work had been inspired by him. Granted, I had never heard of half of them (including someone (Brian Eno? who invented something called ambient music) but they certainly seemed very well regarded by the Today programme.....it was good to wake up to some Afrobeat on a grey English April morning though.....and they plugged the Tony Allen Lagos No Shaking CD http://snipurl.com/p1bo
Friday, March 31, 2006
Conversation with my friend
On one of the days while I was away from here, I took the opportunity of being in the West End for work to have lunch with an old Nigerian friend of mine who also lives in the UK. He's recently finished a professional postgraduate degree, and while I wouldn't necessarily describe him as intellectual, he isn't dumb either. So we're having lunch in this nice restaurant, and it's pudding time and I'm swirling the wine in my glass and scooping the last of the ice cream from the dessert bowl when he drops the bombshell
"Did I tell you I'm changing my name?"
Okaaaayy! Right! And what are you changing your name to?
I love his current name, it's replete with the heritage of the part of Nigeria he comes from and it isn't even one of thosee supposedly jawbreaking Nigerian ones that Westerners who have no problem with pronouncing Cholmondeley-Smythson or Condoleezza or even Freud complain about....
And so I ask again? What are you changing your name to?
"Well I'm changing my first name to use my English middle name..."
"Okaayy and..???"
And I'm taking my mother's maiden name for my surname. Now his mother is from a part of Nigeria where they commonly have Anglicized or English surnames, and so my friend is going to transform himself from "Nigerian first name and Nigerian surname" to "English first name and English surname".
But why would you want to do this? I mean it's such a drastic step.....
Well, I think it will improve my chances with getting shortlisted for jobs in my professional area. I'm really struggling at the moment and I need all the help I can get.
But I point out- you will still have to go for interviews and they will still see that you're black and Nigerian.
Yes, but by then I'll have a foot in the door. What's happening now is I don't even get to interview.
But, but people have got jobs in your profession without changing their African names?
"I don't know how they did it, but I can only speak for myself. I've discussed it with my mother and she says I should do whatever will help me breakthrough in the UK."
He then went on to tell me a story about a friend of his from the Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria whose surname was something like "Nyong". Apparently this friend was shortlisted by a firm for a job under the impression that he was Chinese. I suppose the firm wanted to tap into the burgeoning China investment market. Anyways on discovering he wasn't Chinese, he was promptly given marching orders....
While the anecdote was vaguely amusing, I was more disturbed by the entire conversation and throughout the last month I've found myself reflecting often on it. I cannot imagine changing my name for any reason. It seems too integral to me being me and my sense of identity.....but perhaps I'm being too harsh....perhaps if I walked a mile in my friend's shoes I'd understand it better....but right now I'm really really struggling.... I've tried to dissuade him but his mind is made up and he's setting the process for the name change in motion....
"Did I tell you I'm changing my name?"
Okaaaayy! Right! And what are you changing your name to?
I love his current name, it's replete with the heritage of the part of Nigeria he comes from and it isn't even one of thosee supposedly jawbreaking Nigerian ones that Westerners who have no problem with pronouncing Cholmondeley-Smythson or Condoleezza or even Freud complain about....
And so I ask again? What are you changing your name to?
"Well I'm changing my first name to use my English middle name..."
"Okaayy and..???"
And I'm taking my mother's maiden name for my surname. Now his mother is from a part of Nigeria where they commonly have Anglicized or English surnames, and so my friend is going to transform himself from "Nigerian first name and Nigerian surname" to "English first name and English surname".
But why would you want to do this? I mean it's such a drastic step.....
Well, I think it will improve my chances with getting shortlisted for jobs in my professional area. I'm really struggling at the moment and I need all the help I can get.
But I point out- you will still have to go for interviews and they will still see that you're black and Nigerian.
Yes, but by then I'll have a foot in the door. What's happening now is I don't even get to interview.
But, but people have got jobs in your profession without changing their African names?
"I don't know how they did it, but I can only speak for myself. I've discussed it with my mother and she says I should do whatever will help me breakthrough in the UK."
He then went on to tell me a story about a friend of his from the Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria whose surname was something like "Nyong". Apparently this friend was shortlisted by a firm for a job under the impression that he was Chinese. I suppose the firm wanted to tap into the burgeoning China investment market. Anyways on discovering he wasn't Chinese, he was promptly given marching orders....
While the anecdote was vaguely amusing, I was more disturbed by the entire conversation and throughout the last month I've found myself reflecting often on it. I cannot imagine changing my name for any reason. It seems too integral to me being me and my sense of identity.....but perhaps I'm being too harsh....perhaps if I walked a mile in my friend's shoes I'd understand it better....but right now I'm really really struggling.... I've tried to dissuade him but his mind is made up and he's setting the process for the name change in motion....
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Changing time, usual suspects and hoping for grace
The clocks here changed while I was in the US and I am still struggling to cope with the suddenly longer days. Two weeks ago before I left I was used to darkness falling quite early.I tend to work till about 6 and I often gauge the time from how bright it is, looking through my office windows. Imagine my shock then yesterday, my first day back at work when I kept at it till darkness fell only to realize that it was nearly 8 pm.....which reminded me of my first encounter with changing the clocks. It was soon after I arrived in the UK and it was a Sunday morning.I made my way to church only to find the doors still firmly locked and no sign of life anywhere about. The streets too seemed oddly emptier than I had noticed on previous Sundays- as I stumbled through the streets wondering what had happened- some nuclear accident that I hadn't been told about-I decided to buy a newspaper, and the kindly news agent noticing my perplexed expression explained that the clocks had gone back the night before....and so while I thought it was 10 am, it was only actually 9 am. Later a friend taught me the handy mnemonic of spring forward and fall back, (probably imported from the US) to keep track of when you added an hour and when you subtracted an hour. The whole business of changing the clocks just underlines how subjective the concept of time is- it is whatever time we say and agree that it is.......
Meanwhile I was reading Thisday's analysis of where the various legislators stood on the question of amending the constitution to allow a third term for the President. What struck me was how you could almost predict which way a certain legislator would fall and in most cases it had nothing to do with principle. You could see those who had benefitted from the President smoothly falling into the "Yes" camp, those who had clashed with the President falling into the No camp together with the IBB boys and girls and the Atiku boys and girls. And then there were the ethnic blocs- all the legislators from Ogun, the President's home state solidly in favour, most of the Northern states their legislators solidly against.....
Why can't the president see how divisive an issue this is, and the potential dangers and nip all this nonsense in the bud?
In the same issue of Thisday I glimpsed what seems to be the official line of the Presidency on this- which goes along the lines of if the Nigerian people beg Obasanjo to stay, then he has no choice. That argument is, to use an indelicate English phrase -utter bollocks- Nelson Mandela was begged to stay, he wisely ignored the begging and retired gracefully. I know grace is not a word one usually associates with our often ungainly President....but we live in hope.
Meanwhile I was reading Thisday's analysis of where the various legislators stood on the question of amending the constitution to allow a third term for the President. What struck me was how you could almost predict which way a certain legislator would fall and in most cases it had nothing to do with principle. You could see those who had benefitted from the President smoothly falling into the "Yes" camp, those who had clashed with the President falling into the No camp together with the IBB boys and girls and the Atiku boys and girls. And then there were the ethnic blocs- all the legislators from Ogun, the President's home state solidly in favour, most of the Northern states their legislators solidly against.....
Why can't the president see how divisive an issue this is, and the potential dangers and nip all this nonsense in the bud?
In the same issue of Thisday I glimpsed what seems to be the official line of the Presidency on this- which goes along the lines of if the Nigerian people beg Obasanjo to stay, then he has no choice. That argument is, to use an indelicate English phrase -utter bollocks- Nelson Mandela was begged to stay, he wisely ignored the begging and retired gracefully. I know grace is not a word one usually associates with our often ungainly President....but we live in hope.
Monday, March 27, 2006
Checking in, after a long absence
The problem with any sort of sustained break in blogging is that it's then difficult to pick up where you left off. So much happens and you are unsure where to start, and then it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.....
Just got back from the US where I went for work- I am still reeling at the number of highly qualified Nigerian professionals I met on my travelling in different parts of the US, particularly the academics- many of them with not just one, but two PhDs......their opinions and visions on their long term plans varied but most of still had very strong links with Nigeria and were often involved in some sort of collaboration with colleagues in Nigeria ranging from collaborative research to just regularly sending books and funding opportunities. They were all unanimously condemnatory of the proposed third term bids.....but I came across two initiatives which if properly manged could help tap into this resource. One was an advert from the National Universities Commission inviting academics abroad interested in sabbaticals or collaboration with Nigerian universities to apply. Unfortunately the advert is not available on the NUC website http://www.nuc.edu.ng/index.htm ......meanwhile the NUC has apparently ordered that all academics in Nigerian universities who do not have Phds should get one within the next two years or be sacked. The paradox is that because of a lot of systemic problems, it is virtually impossible to complete research for a Master's degree, let alone a PhD in most Nigerian universities within that time.....
The other initiative was an advert from the Central Bank in The Economist magazine which again invited Nigerian economists and finance experts abroad interested in collaborative research to apply....again, I've tried finding the advert on the CBN website http://www.cenbank.org/ with little success...
If these schemes are to work, they need to be communicated to as wide an audience as possible....and not making use of the internet seems a loss of opportunity....
Coming back to London yesterday I was struck by how different the UK is from the US- it is indeed another country. For one thing it was quite difficult from the TV news bulletins on the channels available in the US to get a sense of what was happening internationally- even CNN had a decidedly US centric focus in a way that the BBC for all our criticisms of it does not, PBS which would probably the equivalent is not readily available in most hotels........although it was interesting to watch the hundreds of thousands marching in Los Angeles against the proposed new immigration laws which would make being an illegal immigrant in the US a felony . As one angry and articulate Hispanic American young woman said- This country was built on the blood and sweat of immigrants- wanting to improve your chances in life should not be a crime.....
In spite of my busy schedule, I've managed to keep up with some reading. I've just finished A is for Ancestors, the collection of short stories by the authors on the 2003 Caine Prize shortlist and I enjoyed. It confirmed my belief that there is a lot of African talent out there. I've since realized that there's a whole series of collections of each year's nominees work available on the African Book Centre website http://snipurl.com/ng6t ...I'm going to order myself the rest when I can.....
Just got back from the US where I went for work- I am still reeling at the number of highly qualified Nigerian professionals I met on my travelling in different parts of the US, particularly the academics- many of them with not just one, but two PhDs......their opinions and visions on their long term plans varied but most of still had very strong links with Nigeria and were often involved in some sort of collaboration with colleagues in Nigeria ranging from collaborative research to just regularly sending books and funding opportunities. They were all unanimously condemnatory of the proposed third term bids.....but I came across two initiatives which if properly manged could help tap into this resource. One was an advert from the National Universities Commission inviting academics abroad interested in sabbaticals or collaboration with Nigerian universities to apply. Unfortunately the advert is not available on the NUC website http://www.nuc.edu.ng/index.htm ......meanwhile the NUC has apparently ordered that all academics in Nigerian universities who do not have Phds should get one within the next two years or be sacked. The paradox is that because of a lot of systemic problems, it is virtually impossible to complete research for a Master's degree, let alone a PhD in most Nigerian universities within that time.....
The other initiative was an advert from the Central Bank in The Economist magazine which again invited Nigerian economists and finance experts abroad interested in collaborative research to apply....again, I've tried finding the advert on the CBN website http://www.cenbank.org/ with little success...
If these schemes are to work, they need to be communicated to as wide an audience as possible....and not making use of the internet seems a loss of opportunity....
Coming back to London yesterday I was struck by how different the UK is from the US- it is indeed another country. For one thing it was quite difficult from the TV news bulletins on the channels available in the US to get a sense of what was happening internationally- even CNN had a decidedly US centric focus in a way that the BBC for all our criticisms of it does not, PBS which would probably the equivalent is not readily available in most hotels........although it was interesting to watch the hundreds of thousands marching in Los Angeles against the proposed new immigration laws which would make being an illegal immigrant in the US a felony . As one angry and articulate Hispanic American young woman said- This country was built on the blood and sweat of immigrants- wanting to improve your chances in life should not be a crime.....
In spite of my busy schedule, I've managed to keep up with some reading. I've just finished A is for Ancestors, the collection of short stories by the authors on the 2003 Caine Prize shortlist and I enjoyed. It confirmed my belief that there is a lot of African talent out there. I've since realized that there's a whole series of collections of each year's nominees work available on the African Book Centre website http://snipurl.com/ng6t ...I'm going to order myself the rest when I can.....
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Third term shenanigans,Big Brother Nigeria, changing spots of the US leopard and Lagos at the South Bank Centre
Can't believe it's been nearly two weeks since I've been on here- day job pressures have meant that I have hardly had time for myself, let alone blog. And yet so much has happened and continues to happen......
In Nigeria, the third term shenanigans continue apace, the latest development being the recent passing by voice vote of the proposed constitutional amendments by the infamous Mantu committee of the National Assembly......on a different front, Big Brother Nigeria has opened with the various housemates vying for a 100 000 dollar prize. I've never understood the fascination with Big Brother, having not watched any of the series shown in the UK since I arrived here. I tried once, but sitting for ten minutes watching a group of people lying on sunloungers and not saying or doing very much soon had me bored out of my skull. It's interesting how here, although everyone condemns the show as mindnumbingly dull and voyeuristic, you can't avoid the hype- in the newspapers (and not just the tabloids), on the radio, everywhere you go, people keep talking about it, and so whether you watch it or not, you get sucked into the drama. Perhaps, the good thing about Big Brother Nigeria might be that it might provide some of the anthropological insights into contemporary Nigerian youth culture which sadly aren't really being documente elsewhere. Sex has always played a big role in Big Brother and so it will be interesting to see what happens in the Nigeria house and how the self-avowedly religious Nigerian public will react.......
A few days ago I had to go to the US Embassy to get a visa as I should be travelling there for work in a few weeks. The last time I had been there was in 2003 and much had changed- for the better. The staff were more humane, the time spent queuing outside in the cold had been reduced, free tea and coffee were on offer as well as a sandwich bar and more toilets. While I was having my index finger prints taken, I placed my finger on the wrong slot and was almost shocked when the officer gently asked me "Please, sir could you move your finger upwards?" In 2003, one tended to be barked at in quasi-military tones. Could it possibly be that the anti-American sentiment sweeping the world has wrought these changes? Who says all hope is lost.......Now I'll have to wait and see how the Homeland Security treat me when I actually arrive there in a few weeks, as an unimpressed English friend argues that my positive experience is probably as a result of the London Embassy staff absorbing European courtesy...... I refrained from retorting that my encounters with the British Home Office and immigration haven't exactly been marked with courtesy, barring the few occasions when I flew business class (courtesy of an upgrade) and was then whisked through the fast-track channel and treated with great courtesy....amazing the things money can buy.......
The South Bank Centre in London has two Lagos events coming up soon as part of the London African Music Festival- the Lagos Massive contemporary revue show on the 25th of March http://www.rfh.org.uk/main/series/52.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/africaonyourstreet/event.shtml?eid=232621
and Gbenga Adelaja's Lagos City Orchestra and Queen Salawa Abeni on the 28th of May......
In Nigeria, the third term shenanigans continue apace, the latest development being the recent passing by voice vote of the proposed constitutional amendments by the infamous Mantu committee of the National Assembly......on a different front, Big Brother Nigeria has opened with the various housemates vying for a 100 000 dollar prize. I've never understood the fascination with Big Brother, having not watched any of the series shown in the UK since I arrived here. I tried once, but sitting for ten minutes watching a group of people lying on sunloungers and not saying or doing very much soon had me bored out of my skull. It's interesting how here, although everyone condemns the show as mindnumbingly dull and voyeuristic, you can't avoid the hype- in the newspapers (and not just the tabloids), on the radio, everywhere you go, people keep talking about it, and so whether you watch it or not, you get sucked into the drama. Perhaps, the good thing about Big Brother Nigeria might be that it might provide some of the anthropological insights into contemporary Nigerian youth culture which sadly aren't really being documente elsewhere. Sex has always played a big role in Big Brother and so it will be interesting to see what happens in the Nigeria house and how the self-avowedly religious Nigerian public will react.......
A few days ago I had to go to the US Embassy to get a visa as I should be travelling there for work in a few weeks. The last time I had been there was in 2003 and much had changed- for the better. The staff were more humane, the time spent queuing outside in the cold had been reduced, free tea and coffee were on offer as well as a sandwich bar and more toilets. While I was having my index finger prints taken, I placed my finger on the wrong slot and was almost shocked when the officer gently asked me "Please, sir could you move your finger upwards?" In 2003, one tended to be barked at in quasi-military tones. Could it possibly be that the anti-American sentiment sweeping the world has wrought these changes? Who says all hope is lost.......Now I'll have to wait and see how the Homeland Security treat me when I actually arrive there in a few weeks, as an unimpressed English friend argues that my positive experience is probably as a result of the London Embassy staff absorbing European courtesy...... I refrained from retorting that my encounters with the British Home Office and immigration haven't exactly been marked with courtesy, barring the few occasions when I flew business class (courtesy of an upgrade) and was then whisked through the fast-track channel and treated with great courtesy....amazing the things money can buy.......
The South Bank Centre in London has two Lagos events coming up soon as part of the London African Music Festival- the Lagos Massive contemporary revue show on the 25th of March http://www.rfh.org.uk/main/series/52.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/africaonyourstreet/event.shtml?eid=232621
and Gbenga Adelaja's Lagos City Orchestra and Queen Salawa Abeni on the 28th of May......
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Tagged... just what I need
As I'm still enmeshed in my being so busy at work that I'm finding it difficult to find time to blog, the realization that I have been tagged by Pilgrimage to Self http://pilgrimagetoself.blogspot.com/ is perhaps a welcome break......
I now have to answer the following questions and tag four others. I am afraid I'm not going to tag anyone but will answer the questions-yes I know I'm being a spoilsport- but almost everyone I've thought of tagging's been tagged already. Plus maybe this is the blogging equivalent of those "forward this e mail to 10, 20, 100 people" e mails that I keep getting from my nearest and dearest and keep deleting unread, so I shouldn't really be helping this tagging to proliferate....anyway
1. Black and White or Color; how do you prefer your movies?
I just watched George Clooney's Goodnight and Goodluck in glorious black and white, and it was a great film and I loved it, but still I missed the colour-call me shallow and superficial but much as I like the old world elegance and clarity of black and white, I just love my glorious technicolor............... after all if black and white was so cool, how come they invented colour later :-)
2. What is the one single subject that bores you to near-death?
Dunno, probably something like complicated IT programmes and stuff- I'm beginning to sound really shallow on this, perhaps the real me's escaping......... I remember my exasperation when as an undergraduate in Nigeria, I decided I wanted to learn to use a PC or as we termed it then "become computer literate" There were all manners of training schools springing up everywhere and I struggled to find one that would let me do what I wanted which was to learn how to switch on a computer, use it and turn it off. Each "school" insisted on beginning with lessons that started with "a computer is made up of a central processing unit, a keyboard...etc etc" and attempted to delve into the distinctions between hardware and software and all sorts of technical stuff that I had little interest in. I ended up having to teach myself, largely by playing (once I started working) on the computer that adorned my boss's desk even though he hadn't the foggiest idea how to use it, but all the trendy bosses were getting them (and the company was paying) and so he did.....:
3. MP3s, CDs, Tapes or Records: what is your favorite medium for prerecorded music?
I grew up listening to LPs- from the large 33rpm Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Duke Ellington to the smaller 45 rpm Victor Olaiya and Rex Lawson's highlife records.I can still smell the musty paper inner sleeves.... By the time I was ten or eleven, I was buying blank tapes and taking them to the local record store to have "selections" recorded for me which I then took to show off at school....I remember the fuss about whether you had recorded on Chrome or Normal...the chrome tapes were more expensive and allegedly better listening......Never really got into CDs and am now planning to buy an iPod...In my heart of hearts, I think I'm an LPs man- in spite of the scratchy quality......
4.You are handed one first class trip plane ticket to anywhere in the world and ten million dollars cash. All of this is yours provided that you leave and not tell anyone where you are going … Ever. This includes family, friends, everyone. Would you take the money and ticket and run?:
No way. My family and friends are too important to me- although of course my circle of friends keeps expanding. I'd want my friends and family to share in the windfall and I suspect life wouldn't be worth it with all that money and no one close with a shared history to share it with....... at least that's the theoretical answer...who knows what I'd really do?
5. Seriously, what do you consider the world’s most pressing issue now?
We need to acknowledge our shared humanity and commit, borne out of that acknowledgement, to spread the "goodies" around....
6. How would you rectify the world’s most pressing issue?
Through blogging...hahaha. Seriously, by trying to apply these principles to my life..... Hey I didn't say I was succeeding....
7. You are given the chance to go back and change one thing in your life; what would that be?
Nothing, as Edith Piaf crooned....., je ne regrette rien. The joy, the sorrow, the sadness, the pain, the exhilaration, the laughter, the anger, the frustration....it's all been useful learning and worthwhile
8. You are given the chance to go back and change one event in world history, what would that be?
One event- you can't be serious!
9. A night at the opera, or a night at the Grand Ole’ Opry – Which do you choose?
Can I have both? I love my country- thanks to the numerous uncles and aunts who lived with us growing up and played dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers endlessly...and I love my opera thanks to my "been-to aspirational" parents- Some mornings, I still wake up to the strains of the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco and imagine that I am back in my childhood bedroom listening to my parents' music wafting up the stairs....
10. What is the one great unsolved crime of all time you’d like to solve?
Who managed to get rid of MKO Abiola and Sani Abacha within exactly a month of each other and how did they do it?
11. One famous author can come to dinner with you. Who would that be, and what would you serve for the meal?
James Baldwin. I'd serve him cow tail pepper soup, followed by rice and beans with chicken stew and dodo, washed down with several bottles of Star beer
12. You discover that John Lennon was right, that there is no hell below us, and above us there is only sky — what’s the first immoral thing you might do to celebrate this fact?
You mean there are really people who take life that seriously?
I now have to answer the following questions and tag four others. I am afraid I'm not going to tag anyone but will answer the questions-yes I know I'm being a spoilsport- but almost everyone I've thought of tagging's been tagged already. Plus maybe this is the blogging equivalent of those "forward this e mail to 10, 20, 100 people" e mails that I keep getting from my nearest and dearest and keep deleting unread, so I shouldn't really be helping this tagging to proliferate....anyway
1. Black and White or Color; how do you prefer your movies?
I just watched George Clooney's Goodnight and Goodluck in glorious black and white, and it was a great film and I loved it, but still I missed the colour-call me shallow and superficial but much as I like the old world elegance and clarity of black and white, I just love my glorious technicolor............... after all if black and white was so cool, how come they invented colour later :-)
2. What is the one single subject that bores you to near-death?
Dunno, probably something like complicated IT programmes and stuff- I'm beginning to sound really shallow on this, perhaps the real me's escaping......... I remember my exasperation when as an undergraduate in Nigeria, I decided I wanted to learn to use a PC or as we termed it then "become computer literate" There were all manners of training schools springing up everywhere and I struggled to find one that would let me do what I wanted which was to learn how to switch on a computer, use it and turn it off. Each "school" insisted on beginning with lessons that started with "a computer is made up of a central processing unit, a keyboard...etc etc" and attempted to delve into the distinctions between hardware and software and all sorts of technical stuff that I had little interest in. I ended up having to teach myself, largely by playing (once I started working) on the computer that adorned my boss's desk even though he hadn't the foggiest idea how to use it, but all the trendy bosses were getting them (and the company was paying) and so he did.....:
3. MP3s, CDs, Tapes or Records: what is your favorite medium for prerecorded music?
I grew up listening to LPs- from the large 33rpm Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and Duke Ellington to the smaller 45 rpm Victor Olaiya and Rex Lawson's highlife records.I can still smell the musty paper inner sleeves.... By the time I was ten or eleven, I was buying blank tapes and taking them to the local record store to have "selections" recorded for me which I then took to show off at school....I remember the fuss about whether you had recorded on Chrome or Normal...the chrome tapes were more expensive and allegedly better listening......Never really got into CDs and am now planning to buy an iPod...In my heart of hearts, I think I'm an LPs man- in spite of the scratchy quality......
4.You are handed one first class trip plane ticket to anywhere in the world and ten million dollars cash. All of this is yours provided that you leave and not tell anyone where you are going … Ever. This includes family, friends, everyone. Would you take the money and ticket and run?:
No way. My family and friends are too important to me- although of course my circle of friends keeps expanding. I'd want my friends and family to share in the windfall and I suspect life wouldn't be worth it with all that money and no one close with a shared history to share it with....... at least that's the theoretical answer...who knows what I'd really do?
5. Seriously, what do you consider the world’s most pressing issue now?
We need to acknowledge our shared humanity and commit, borne out of that acknowledgement, to spread the "goodies" around....
6. How would you rectify the world’s most pressing issue?
Through blogging...hahaha. Seriously, by trying to apply these principles to my life..... Hey I didn't say I was succeeding....
7. You are given the chance to go back and change one thing in your life; what would that be?
Nothing, as Edith Piaf crooned....., je ne regrette rien. The joy, the sorrow, the sadness, the pain, the exhilaration, the laughter, the anger, the frustration....it's all been useful learning and worthwhile
8. You are given the chance to go back and change one event in world history, what would that be?
One event- you can't be serious!
9. A night at the opera, or a night at the Grand Ole’ Opry – Which do you choose?
Can I have both? I love my country- thanks to the numerous uncles and aunts who lived with us growing up and played dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers endlessly...and I love my opera thanks to my "been-to aspirational" parents- Some mornings, I still wake up to the strains of the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco and imagine that I am back in my childhood bedroom listening to my parents' music wafting up the stairs....
10. What is the one great unsolved crime of all time you’d like to solve?
Who managed to get rid of MKO Abiola and Sani Abacha within exactly a month of each other and how did they do it?
11. One famous author can come to dinner with you. Who would that be, and what would you serve for the meal?
James Baldwin. I'd serve him cow tail pepper soup, followed by rice and beans with chicken stew and dodo, washed down with several bottles of Star beer
12. You discover that John Lennon was right, that there is no hell below us, and above us there is only sky — what’s the first immoral thing you might do to celebrate this fact?
You mean there are really people who take life that seriously?
Friday, February 24, 2006
Still too busy too blog, sad about Onitsha and some paradoxes to chew on
My hectic week, persists right into the weekend. I'm exhausted but there's a sense of exhilaration as well, from juggling so many balls and meeting so many challenges in such a short period and succeeding. I probably need to catch up on what's been happening,in the UK and in Nigeria but the saddest thing for me has been the reprisal attacks on Muslims in Onitsha which has left so many dead....in addition to the several Christians killed in Northern Nigeria last week as a result of the Danish cartoons. I've blogged before on the pointlessness of vengeance and so won't repeat it here, but I mean, what next- more reprisals in the North and more in the South until we descend into a widening gyre of violence? I cannot even begin to imagine how hurt and angry the families and friends of the killed must feel- I know how angry I felt when I heard of the initial killings- but surely more violence is NOT the answer........ a message that would be well-heeded in Baghdad as well.........
Meanwhile, it's infuriating to see that the president's acolytes third term manoeuverings continue even when they risk inflaming an already volatile situation.....
I briefly overheard an impressive Christian cleric from Nigeria (missed his name) on the BBC, a few days before the reprisal attacks, apparently repudiating a statement from another senior Nigerian Christian cleric- an Archbishop no less- who had suggested that no-one held a monopoly on violence and that Christian leaders might find it impossible to control their flocks in the face of the provocation of the Northern killings. As I rush around on my various tasks, I muse on this paradox- a minister of a gospel of peace-spreading a distinctly unpeaceful message........
Another paradox I've mused long and hard on is the furore in the United States (which has nothing against Arabs, as we are so often reminded) over the fact that a Dubai based company has bought P&O, a UK shipping company that controls some major American ports. Many distinguished Republicans, proponents of the free market all, are now seeking to intervene in the market and reverse the sale on the grounds of national security; President Bush, perhaps for once actually understanding the implications of his actions is insisting that he will veto any bill that attempts to do this.......
In Iraq, Shiites and Sunnis united in their desire to see occupying American forces leave their land, turn on each other in an orgy of violence......which if anything is only likely to extend the stay of the foreign forces......yet another paradox....
Why do we find it so difficult to live up to what we profess to believe? I suspect (even if it's a banal and cliched thought) that if we did, there'd be a lot more happiness about.............
Meanwhile, it's infuriating to see that the president's acolytes third term manoeuverings continue even when they risk inflaming an already volatile situation.....
I briefly overheard an impressive Christian cleric from Nigeria (missed his name) on the BBC, a few days before the reprisal attacks, apparently repudiating a statement from another senior Nigerian Christian cleric- an Archbishop no less- who had suggested that no-one held a monopoly on violence and that Christian leaders might find it impossible to control their flocks in the face of the provocation of the Northern killings. As I rush around on my various tasks, I muse on this paradox- a minister of a gospel of peace-spreading a distinctly unpeaceful message........
Another paradox I've mused long and hard on is the furore in the United States (which has nothing against Arabs, as we are so often reminded) over the fact that a Dubai based company has bought P&O, a UK shipping company that controls some major American ports. Many distinguished Republicans, proponents of the free market all, are now seeking to intervene in the market and reverse the sale on the grounds of national security; President Bush, perhaps for once actually understanding the implications of his actions is insisting that he will veto any bill that attempts to do this.......
In Iraq, Shiites and Sunnis united in their desire to see occupying American forces leave their land, turn on each other in an orgy of violence......which if anything is only likely to extend the stay of the foreign forces......yet another paradox....
Why do we find it so difficult to live up to what we profess to believe? I suspect (even if it's a banal and cliched thought) that if we did, there'd be a lot more happiness about.............
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Sweeping under the carpet, Yinka Davies in London and an almighty blogspat
Another busy week ahead at work, and therefore it’s difficult to find time to post on here. And yet it seems that there is so much to blog on- in Nigeria, the recent riots against the Danish cartoons in Maiduguri that tragically left (depending on whose figures you accept) 16 or 56 Southern Nigerians dead and the taking of 9 foreign oil workers as hostages (no confusion over the figures there) by the militant Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. The tragic and senseless deaths had me, like many asking, “What on earth did Southern Christians in Northern Nigeria have to do with the publication of cartoons in Denmark? What warped logic could justify this orgy of bloodletting, which has become the hallmark of many protests in Muslim Northern Nigeria?” In another Northern Nigerian state, Katsina, riots against the alleged third term ambitions of President Obasanjo also left several wounded and some people killed.
The previous set of hostages taken last month were released following government negotiations with the hostage takers, but then the bombing of a village in the Niger Delta by the Nigerian Air Force angered the militants and led to this fresh round of hostage taking. The thread running through both incidents is the absence of any genuine in depth attempt to address the issues- a sweeping under the carpet that ensures that these issues continue to recur on a fairly regular basis……….
At the weekend, I watched as thousands of Muslims marched through central London, protesting against the cartoons. The tension was palpable and many of the white bystanders failed to meet my gaze, and a couple exchanging disapproving comments, stopped abruptly as they approached me- perhaps conflating my blackness with being Muslim- perhaps signifying that the discomfort was more to do with otherness than anything else……….Is this another issue being swept under the carpet that might rise up to smack us in the face in the future? Jeff Tayler, an American journalist who travelled through the Sahel thinks so and lays out why in his travel book The Lost Kingdoms of Africa which I’m reading at the moment- cognizant of the usual health warning when reading a book written by a Westerner about Africa……
The jailing in Austria yesterday of David Irving, the British historian for Holocaust denial coming on the heels of the debates over freedom of speech revealed again how complicated the issue is. Would an Austrian journalist who published the offending Danish cartoons have been jailed? And if not, are there double standards at work? I think it is important to re-examine these issues as it is these perceptions that fuel much hatred and bitterness……
On a more cheering note, I was delighted to see that the multitalented Nigerian singer Yinka Davies, whose debut CD Emin Lo http://snipurl.com/msbv has been a permanent fixture on my play list, features on the new Lagos No Shaking CD by Tony Allen, Fela’s percussionist http://snipurl.com/msbn which has received fairly good reviews in the UK press http://snipurl.com/msby , http://snipurl.com/msc6 , http://snipurl.com/msc4 . Unfortunately I was unable to be at their concert last night at Cargo in Old Street, but will surely be getting my hands on that CD as soon as I can……..
Meanwhile an almighty blogspat is brewing on Jeremy Weate's excellent naijablog over a post provocatively entitled "It's 2006 abroad but 1956 in Nigeria"http://snipurl.com/mscd
The previous set of hostages taken last month were released following government negotiations with the hostage takers, but then the bombing of a village in the Niger Delta by the Nigerian Air Force angered the militants and led to this fresh round of hostage taking. The thread running through both incidents is the absence of any genuine in depth attempt to address the issues- a sweeping under the carpet that ensures that these issues continue to recur on a fairly regular basis……….
At the weekend, I watched as thousands of Muslims marched through central London, protesting against the cartoons. The tension was palpable and many of the white bystanders failed to meet my gaze, and a couple exchanging disapproving comments, stopped abruptly as they approached me- perhaps conflating my blackness with being Muslim- perhaps signifying that the discomfort was more to do with otherness than anything else……….Is this another issue being swept under the carpet that might rise up to smack us in the face in the future? Jeff Tayler, an American journalist who travelled through the Sahel thinks so and lays out why in his travel book The Lost Kingdoms of Africa which I’m reading at the moment- cognizant of the usual health warning when reading a book written by a Westerner about Africa……
The jailing in Austria yesterday of David Irving, the British historian for Holocaust denial coming on the heels of the debates over freedom of speech revealed again how complicated the issue is. Would an Austrian journalist who published the offending Danish cartoons have been jailed? And if not, are there double standards at work? I think it is important to re-examine these issues as it is these perceptions that fuel much hatred and bitterness……
On a more cheering note, I was delighted to see that the multitalented Nigerian singer Yinka Davies, whose debut CD Emin Lo http://snipurl.com/msbv has been a permanent fixture on my play list, features on the new Lagos No Shaking CD by Tony Allen, Fela’s percussionist http://snipurl.com/msbn which has received fairly good reviews in the UK press http://snipurl.com/msby , http://snipurl.com/msc6 , http://snipurl.com/msc4 . Unfortunately I was unable to be at their concert last night at Cargo in Old Street, but will surely be getting my hands on that CD as soon as I can……..
Meanwhile an almighty blogspat is brewing on Jeremy Weate's excellent naijablog over a post provocatively entitled "It's 2006 abroad but 1956 in Nigeria"http://snipurl.com/mscd
Friday, February 17, 2006
Remembering Beko and the other Kutis
One of the things that my busy week stopped me from doing was to acknowledge the passing of Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti, the last of an extraordinary set of siblings who strode across the Nigerian firmament in the last century. Together with his brothers, Fela, the dazzlingly gifted Afrobeat musician and activist and Olikoye the former health minister and tireless advocate for public health, Beko, a general practitioner and human rights activist provided a compelling alternative to the selfish, greedy and short-sighted mantra that seemed to grip a majority of their Nigerian contemporaries. Unorthodox, visionary and dogged, you could disagree with them or with their methods but you could not help but respect them. Their only sister, Dolu, one of the pioneer Western trained nurses and midwives was equally active and unorthodox as an interview I once read with her in which she described the maternity home she ran for poor women in their village and how she walked away from her marriage in the fifties because she felt she did not have to put up with her "husband's nonsense" revealed.
The Kutis were remarkable in many ways- in the way that Koye the paediatrician continued to drive his little Volkswagen Golf car throughout his period as Minister of Health; in the way that he gave up his 20 a day smoking habit on appointment to that position; in the way that Beko kept fighting injustice and oppression through several dictatorships, in the way that Fela electrified audiences with his Afrobeat with a message- How can I ever forget, dancing to his Beast of No Nation, which included the words "You can't dash me human rights, human rights na my property" in a bar in Abuja during the Abacha years and we all screamed the words throwing them back in the faces of the numerous security agents that swarmed the bar.....
The Kutis of course came from distinguished stock- their father, one of the earliest graduates and no-nonsense principal of Abeokuta Grammar School; their mother Funmilayo- firebrand woman activist- the first Nigerian woman to drive a car. Their cousin Wole Soyinka famous for his own activism and for winning the Nobel Prize in literature.
And the next generation continues- Nike, Beko's lawyer daughter was active in the pro-democracy movement during the Abacha years. The novelist Sefi Atta, whose groundbreaking unabashedly feminist novel Everything Good Will Come has raised eyebrows in Nigeria is married to one of Koye's sons, himself a doctor. Seun Kuti and Femi Kuti, Fela's sons keep the musical legacy going strong.......
There's a huge study waiting to be done exploring the lives of these remarkable people, a world which can be glimpsed in Wole Soyinka's Ake the Years of Childhood and Isara: A Voyage Around Essay but we're more likely to read commisssioned hagiographies of all the useless money-miss-roads that strut across the national stage displaying flamboyantly, their greed and ill gotten wealth........
Nigeria is the poorer this week
The Kutis were remarkable in many ways- in the way that Koye the paediatrician continued to drive his little Volkswagen Golf car throughout his period as Minister of Health; in the way that he gave up his 20 a day smoking habit on appointment to that position; in the way that Beko kept fighting injustice and oppression through several dictatorships, in the way that Fela electrified audiences with his Afrobeat with a message- How can I ever forget, dancing to his Beast of No Nation, which included the words "You can't dash me human rights, human rights na my property" in a bar in Abuja during the Abacha years and we all screamed the words throwing them back in the faces of the numerous security agents that swarmed the bar.....
The Kutis of course came from distinguished stock- their father, one of the earliest graduates and no-nonsense principal of Abeokuta Grammar School; their mother Funmilayo- firebrand woman activist- the first Nigerian woman to drive a car. Their cousin Wole Soyinka famous for his own activism and for winning the Nobel Prize in literature.
And the next generation continues- Nike, Beko's lawyer daughter was active in the pro-democracy movement during the Abacha years. The novelist Sefi Atta, whose groundbreaking unabashedly feminist novel Everything Good Will Come has raised eyebrows in Nigeria is married to one of Koye's sons, himself a doctor. Seun Kuti and Femi Kuti, Fela's sons keep the musical legacy going strong.......
There's a huge study waiting to be done exploring the lives of these remarkable people, a world which can be glimpsed in Wole Soyinka's Ake the Years of Childhood and Isara: A Voyage Around Essay but we're more likely to read commisssioned hagiographies of all the useless money-miss-roads that strut across the national stage displaying flamboyantly, their greed and ill gotten wealth........
Nigeria is the poorer this week
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Too busy to blog,flexiworking, well-heeled begging and The State(or fate) of Africa
I can't believe it's been nearly a week since I was on here. It's been a whirlwind of a week- so much to do at work- many new challenges but most of them met on schedule and with a lot of positive feedback so it's been worth it. Today I actually asked my colleague who said "Have a good weekend"( She doesn't work Fridays) if tomorrow was really Friday....
Which brings me to the subject of flexible working and how it's changing the way people work- I have met people who work three days a week or four days a week, or no fixed number of days a week, but have a specified number of hours a week and it's up to them how they deliver. I had to do a lot of working on the move this last week and my memory stick and laptop were invaluable in letting me do it.....to think that only a few years ago, I'd never even been on the internet. I look back at Nigeria and realize some civil servants back then had already pioneered the art of flexible working- I mean what else do you call signing in in the morning and disappearing to your other businesses for the rest of the day?
Last weekend, at a train station, an elderly woman who looked Nigerian ( funny how you can often tell, isn't it?) stopped me to ask "Are you Nigerian?" Once I replied in the affirmative, she explained that she had lost her purse and needed fare back to where she lived. Having once, at Yaba busstop been the victim of pickpockets and having had to beg the fare home off a generous passerby, I'm quite susceptible to helping out in this sort of predicament. Plus she looked like your typical Nigerian aunt of a certain kind- with her slightly tatty hair and stolid shoes- the epitome of a kind of respectability. It was only after I'd handed over the amount she said would pay her fare and she shuffled off, that it struck me why she had been so familiar- I'd gone through the same charade with her at a different train station about a year ago. I did feel sad that someone of that age would need to resort to this sort of trick and wondered what her real story was......
It's been as busy a week for the British MPs as it has been for me ;-)- with votes on everything from a ban on smoking in public places (which went through) to a vote on ID cards (not quite yet ) and a vote on tightening terror laws to make "glorification of terrorism a crime" The problem with such vagueness is of course around the term "glorification" and how it is interpreted. As a member of a visible minority, and conscious of the potential for miscarriages of justice, I can't help but worry when loopholes are left in laws which can be exploited by the unscrupulous........
I finally finished The State of Africa by Martin Meredith and was intrigued by the two different titles and covers. In the US, it's marketed as The Fate of Africa with a cover picture of a map of Africa with a picture of the stereotypical sorrowful African mother and child http://snipurl.com/mmxa . In the UK, it's marketed as The State of Africa and has a map of Africa as well but as a parched land with a red flower (of hope?) sprouting in one corner http://snipurl.com/mmxc. I must say that I found the latter part of the book less well written than the earlier chapters which dwelt with the pre-independence era. By the time I got to the bits that addressed the time I was familiar with, I began to be less convinced and indeed spotted some errors- such as the author's assertion that Sani Abacha had killed his second in command following a trial for treason. While Diya, the said second in command had indeed been sentenced to death, he was released on the death of Abacha, before the sentence was executed...
Which brings me to the subject of flexible working and how it's changing the way people work- I have met people who work three days a week or four days a week, or no fixed number of days a week, but have a specified number of hours a week and it's up to them how they deliver. I had to do a lot of working on the move this last week and my memory stick and laptop were invaluable in letting me do it.....to think that only a few years ago, I'd never even been on the internet. I look back at Nigeria and realize some civil servants back then had already pioneered the art of flexible working- I mean what else do you call signing in in the morning and disappearing to your other businesses for the rest of the day?
Last weekend, at a train station, an elderly woman who looked Nigerian ( funny how you can often tell, isn't it?) stopped me to ask "Are you Nigerian?" Once I replied in the affirmative, she explained that she had lost her purse and needed fare back to where she lived. Having once, at Yaba busstop been the victim of pickpockets and having had to beg the fare home off a generous passerby, I'm quite susceptible to helping out in this sort of predicament. Plus she looked like your typical Nigerian aunt of a certain kind- with her slightly tatty hair and stolid shoes- the epitome of a kind of respectability. It was only after I'd handed over the amount she said would pay her fare and she shuffled off, that it struck me why she had been so familiar- I'd gone through the same charade with her at a different train station about a year ago. I did feel sad that someone of that age would need to resort to this sort of trick and wondered what her real story was......
It's been as busy a week for the British MPs as it has been for me ;-)- with votes on everything from a ban on smoking in public places (which went through) to a vote on ID cards (not quite yet ) and a vote on tightening terror laws to make "glorification of terrorism a crime" The problem with such vagueness is of course around the term "glorification" and how it is interpreted. As a member of a visible minority, and conscious of the potential for miscarriages of justice, I can't help but worry when loopholes are left in laws which can be exploited by the unscrupulous........
I finally finished The State of Africa by Martin Meredith and was intrigued by the two different titles and covers. In the US, it's marketed as The Fate of Africa with a cover picture of a map of Africa with a picture of the stereotypical sorrowful African mother and child http://snipurl.com/mmxa . In the UK, it's marketed as The State of Africa and has a map of Africa as well but as a parched land with a red flower (of hope?) sprouting in one corner http://snipurl.com/mmxc. I must say that I found the latter part of the book less well written than the earlier chapters which dwelt with the pre-independence era. By the time I got to the bits that addressed the time I was familiar with, I began to be less convinced and indeed spotted some errors- such as the author's assertion that Sani Abacha had killed his second in command following a trial for treason. While Diya, the said second in command had indeed been sentenced to death, he was released on the death of Abacha, before the sentence was executed...
Friday, February 10, 2006
Perpetually closing down sales, a diary discovered & kudos and a plea to Obasanjo
Today it's freezing but bright, sunny, crisp and clear- the kind of day that still fascinates me- I suppose because I grew up in the tropics- associating sunlight with heat....
Last weekend, walking down bustling Oxford Street, I walked past a shop with huge red signs plastered all over its front windows -proclaiming "Closing Down Sale- Everything Must Go" Fantastic bargain you'd think, except that I could have sworn that that shop has been closing down ever since I arrived on these shores a couple of years ago. The owners certainly seem to be taking their time with the closing down- judging by the tackiness of the merchandise, perhaps even with the sale, they're finding it difficult to shift the goods. Or perhaps, as is more likely it's a form of English 419 to hoodwink the gullible tourists searching for a bargain.....
I've stumbled across the online diary of a young Nigerian woman professional living in the US . http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/content/blogcategory/0/135/ It's incredibly frank and honest, if true; and if it's fiction, then that girl better start looking for a publisher.....
On the Nigerian front- since too often people like me are criticized for seeing nothing good in the government- kudos to President Obasanjo on the recent appointment of the eighth female minister into his cabinet. As far as I can remember this is probably the largest number of female ministers in the Nigerian federal cabinet at the same time, and they are certainly making their mark- most of them.......Now if only Mr President would follow Thabo Mbeki's example and announce loud and clear that he's not interested in a third term, instead of this Abacha-like read-my- lips stance that he's adopting at the moment that'd be great; The current situation where the sycophants around ask him to stay on forever and he, like Abacha before him maintains a deafening silence is unhealthy. If only he'd speak out, it would let everyone concentrate on weightier matters, like bird flu.....
Last weekend, walking down bustling Oxford Street, I walked past a shop with huge red signs plastered all over its front windows -proclaiming "Closing Down Sale- Everything Must Go" Fantastic bargain you'd think, except that I could have sworn that that shop has been closing down ever since I arrived on these shores a couple of years ago. The owners certainly seem to be taking their time with the closing down- judging by the tackiness of the merchandise, perhaps even with the sale, they're finding it difficult to shift the goods. Or perhaps, as is more likely it's a form of English 419 to hoodwink the gullible tourists searching for a bargain.....
I've stumbled across the online diary of a young Nigerian woman professional living in the US . http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/content/blogcategory/0/135/ It's incredibly frank and honest, if true; and if it's fiction, then that girl better start looking for a publisher.....
On the Nigerian front- since too often people like me are criticized for seeing nothing good in the government- kudos to President Obasanjo on the recent appointment of the eighth female minister into his cabinet. As far as I can remember this is probably the largest number of female ministers in the Nigerian federal cabinet at the same time, and they are certainly making their mark- most of them.......Now if only Mr President would follow Thabo Mbeki's example and announce loud and clear that he's not interested in a third term, instead of this Abacha-like read-my- lips stance that he's adopting at the moment that'd be great; The current situation where the sycophants around ask him to stay on forever and he, like Abacha before him maintains a deafening silence is unhealthy. If only he'd speak out, it would let everyone concentrate on weightier matters, like bird flu.....
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Bird flu in Nigeria, Tropical Fish's literary prize and Nigerians off the beaten track
Just as we were recovering from our losing to Cote D'Ivoire in the African Cup of Nations and were slowly creeping back to the third term agenda- whether or not to allow President Obasanjo alter the constitution to continue in office- and other sundry matters (like the planned Nigerian police strike), comes news this morning that the H5N1 flu virus has been detected in a poultry farm, in Kaduna, a few hours drive from Kano where legislators yesterday burnt the Danish flag (another instance of taking Panadol for another man's headache). Perhaps this will help focus the minds of the third term agitators and others pursuing trivia on what is really important.....
I've blogged elsewhere about how much I enjoyed Doreen Baingana's Tropical Fish:Tales Out of Entebbe http://snipurl.com/mcjd, so was delighted to hear that it had won the African regional Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book. It beat Uzodimma Iweala's Beast of No Nation ( I know I should have been rooting for my fellow Nigerian;-)) and Repeat Performance by South African Angie Herrmann and will now go up for the overal Best First Book Prize. The Africa regional prize for Best Book went to Ghanaian Benjamin Kwakye for his The Sun by Night and he'll be up against Zadie Smith's On Beauty for the overall Best Book Prize. Nigerian-Brits, Helen Oyeyemi and Diana Evans- (see my list of contemporary Nigerian writing http://snipurl.com/mci5) lost out on the Eurasian Regional prize for best first book to Lazy Eye....
I've been meaning to do a blog on Nigerians off the beaten track- Nigerians abroad working not as lawyers or bankers or doctors or nurses or engineers or academics, but in slightly quirkier roles- the writers, the artists, the musicians. I first thought about it last summer when I went to a classical music concert and was pleasantly surprised to see in the programme, a distinctly Nigerian name playing one of the major instruments which was my introduction to Chichi Nwanoku http://snipurl.com/mciu. A year earlier at the Smithsonian in DC, I had enjoyed the Church Ede metalwork sculpture of Sokari Douglas- Camp http://www.sokari.co.uk/ , a representation of her father's funeral bed which took me straight back to my grandfather's funeral years ago. There's also Khafila Abiola (daughter of the late MKO and Kudirat) who's training as an opera singer in Vienna http://snipurl.com/mcj5 And only yesterday courtesy of the blogworld I was introduced to Frances Uku, http://francesuku.blogspot.com/ "a theatre trained union actor working in New York and LA" Strangely enough, they all seem to be women...... To balance it up a bit, I'll now have to catch that Nigerian chef I found working at the trendy London eatery Les Trois Garcons a while back....
I've blogged elsewhere about how much I enjoyed Doreen Baingana's Tropical Fish:Tales Out of Entebbe http://snipurl.com/mcjd, so was delighted to hear that it had won the African regional Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book. It beat Uzodimma Iweala's Beast of No Nation ( I know I should have been rooting for my fellow Nigerian;-)) and Repeat Performance by South African Angie Herrmann and will now go up for the overal Best First Book Prize. The Africa regional prize for Best Book went to Ghanaian Benjamin Kwakye for his The Sun by Night and he'll be up against Zadie Smith's On Beauty for the overall Best Book Prize. Nigerian-Brits, Helen Oyeyemi and Diana Evans- (see my list of contemporary Nigerian writing http://snipurl.com/mci5) lost out on the Eurasian Regional prize for best first book to Lazy Eye....
I've been meaning to do a blog on Nigerians off the beaten track- Nigerians abroad working not as lawyers or bankers or doctors or nurses or engineers or academics, but in slightly quirkier roles- the writers, the artists, the musicians. I first thought about it last summer when I went to a classical music concert and was pleasantly surprised to see in the programme, a distinctly Nigerian name playing one of the major instruments which was my introduction to Chichi Nwanoku http://snipurl.com/mciu. A year earlier at the Smithsonian in DC, I had enjoyed the Church Ede metalwork sculpture of Sokari Douglas- Camp http://www.sokari.co.uk/ , a representation of her father's funeral bed which took me straight back to my grandfather's funeral years ago. There's also Khafila Abiola (daughter of the late MKO and Kudirat) who's training as an opera singer in Vienna http://snipurl.com/mcj5 And only yesterday courtesy of the blogworld I was introduced to Frances Uku, http://francesuku.blogspot.com/ "a theatre trained union actor working in New York and LA" Strangely enough, they all seem to be women...... To balance it up a bit, I'll now have to catch that Nigerian chef I found working at the trendy London eatery Les Trois Garcons a while back....
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Dodgy,other English turns of phrase & the transformational power of sport
Thinking about language, perhaps because the theme of free speech still hovers somewhere in my unconscious, what with cartoons and protests, and the right and the left and the centre all speaking out vociferously for and against free speech and about sensitivity and responsible reporting and convicted drug dealers dressing up as terrorists in defence of piety and on and on.....
So I'm round to thinking about those peculiarly English turns of phrase that I have acquired in the few years I've lived in the UK- things like dodgy, ish, iffy- words that I knew when I lived in Nigeria but would not consciously use.
Now I call out in response to the query from my colleague- "What time will you get in, nine? And I respond "ish", calmly easily as if I have used it all my life.
A friend asks if I'd like some meat pies on slash price sale at the supermarket-"Hmm, they look a bit dodgy" is my pat response
And to another friend who asks if we are definitely going to the exhibition at the new gallery next week, I respond- It's looking a bit iffy at the moment, I may have to work.... and so on
In Nigeria, all is on hold at the moment as we follow the Eagles' giddy progress through the African Cup of Nations- impeachments, third term agendas, oil troubles, all fade into insignificance before the dazzle of our footballers. Musing on the power of sport to unite, I remember dancing with policemen at a check point on Lagos Island on the night we won the football gold medal at the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996- they waved us through, not bothering to ask for our "particulars" or the customary "wetin you carry". I suppose it was the same spirit that led the New Zealanders I saw massed on a London street at the weekend to turn out in such great waves to support the All-Blacks, the rugby team. Amidst the cans of beer and bottles of alcopops making the rounds that morning, I couldn't help but marvel at the number of young NZ men who were dressed in short sleeved shirts, shorts and flip-flops (that's bathroom slippers to you) in near sub-zero temperatures........talk about the magic passion of sport
So I'm round to thinking about those peculiarly English turns of phrase that I have acquired in the few years I've lived in the UK- things like dodgy, ish, iffy- words that I knew when I lived in Nigeria but would not consciously use.
Now I call out in response to the query from my colleague- "What time will you get in, nine? And I respond "ish", calmly easily as if I have used it all my life.
A friend asks if I'd like some meat pies on slash price sale at the supermarket-"Hmm, they look a bit dodgy" is my pat response
And to another friend who asks if we are definitely going to the exhibition at the new gallery next week, I respond- It's looking a bit iffy at the moment, I may have to work.... and so on
In Nigeria, all is on hold at the moment as we follow the Eagles' giddy progress through the African Cup of Nations- impeachments, third term agendas, oil troubles, all fade into insignificance before the dazzle of our footballers. Musing on the power of sport to unite, I remember dancing with policemen at a check point on Lagos Island on the night we won the football gold medal at the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996- they waved us through, not bothering to ask for our "particulars" or the customary "wetin you carry". I suppose it was the same spirit that led the New Zealanders I saw massed on a London street at the weekend to turn out in such great waves to support the All-Blacks, the rugby team. Amidst the cans of beer and bottles of alcopops making the rounds that morning, I couldn't help but marvel at the number of young NZ men who were dressed in short sleeved shirts, shorts and flip-flops (that's bathroom slippers to you) in near sub-zero temperatures........talk about the magic passion of sport
Friday, February 03, 2006
Meeting the internet and musing on freedom of speech and strange bedfellows
Recently, in an article, a journalist asked "do you remember the first time you used the internet?" Try as hard as I could, I couldn't.
I do remember my first e mail address, though. It must have been in the dying years of the 90s. It wasn't an e mail address like we know them today. It was at the local post office, where for some odd reason, someone somewhere had been visionary enough to link them to the internet. For a relatively small fee (Two hundred naira or so I think it was) , you could open an account with them and receive and send e mails. Does that sound straightforward? It was anything but. We were not let anywhere near the actual PCs- instead there were wooden desks at which you could write out in longhand your e mail and then pass it to the clerk who took it to the back room hidden from view where other clerks proceeded to type and send it for you from the post office address.
Confidentiality was non-existent and all replies to you had to include in the Subject line "for the attention of XY"so that they could be printed off and put in a pigeon hole for you to pick up the next time you visited the post office. It was a bit difficult as at the time I was carrying on a romance across the seas and this method of communication (and the thought of the dour matronly chief clerk reading through my sweet nothings) did tend to stifle the ardour......
And from there, I remember moving on to my first internet cafe- whatever gave me the temerity to think I could, I cannot recall. I remember the sniggering of the staff and the regulars at my one handed typing technique, and my wondering how anyone could ever type so swiftly with two hands without ever going to typing school... I soon became a regular at that cafe and as other internet cafes sprang up across town, I began to note which ones had good connections and which ones always had"their system down", which had generators to battle the frequent power cuts and which didn't, and so became a favoured and discerning customer.....Those internet cafes opened up new vistas for me and I do owe them a lot more than the browsing fees I paid....
Freedom of speech has been on my mind lately, partly because of my earlier post, and partly because of the Bill before the UK parliament to ban incitement to religious hatred, a law which opponents said curtailed the right to freedom of speech. The law sought to extend to religion the protection already offered to people from being insulted or abused on the basis of their race. Interestingly enough, it was opposed by a coalition of die-hard atheists who felt that religious belief deserved no such protections and fundamentalist Christians who felt that it would limit their right to preach to people of other religions or criticize them, the often unnamed other religion of course being Islam. The Bill was defeated and the government (in a farcical moment occasioned by Tony Blair leaving the House before he had voted, and thus allowing the defeat by one vote) had to accept an amended version which distinguished between insulting a religion and inciting hatred against it. While I mused on how freedom of speech could bring together the oddest bedfellows, news broke of the riots against the cartoons said to depict the Prophet Muhammed across the world
I must admit that while acknowledging that my opinions are no doubt shaped by my own personal circumstances as a non-Muslim, I struggled to appreciate the rationale behind the demand that the Danish government should have stopped the newspapers publishing the offending cartoons. I believe that people should respect each other and their beliefs, but I also believe that people have a right to free speech, and fail to see how on earth legislation can enforce respect. Fear and threats will not achieve much either, and can only lead to increasingly polarized positions.
Freedom of speech is obviously a very complex minefield to wade through, with shifting alliances and perspectives...
I do remember my first e mail address, though. It must have been in the dying years of the 90s. It wasn't an e mail address like we know them today. It was at the local post office, where for some odd reason, someone somewhere had been visionary enough to link them to the internet. For a relatively small fee (Two hundred naira or so I think it was) , you could open an account with them and receive and send e mails. Does that sound straightforward? It was anything but. We were not let anywhere near the actual PCs- instead there were wooden desks at which you could write out in longhand your e mail and then pass it to the clerk who took it to the back room hidden from view where other clerks proceeded to type and send it for you from the post office address.
Confidentiality was non-existent and all replies to you had to include in the Subject line "for the attention of XY"so that they could be printed off and put in a pigeon hole for you to pick up the next time you visited the post office. It was a bit difficult as at the time I was carrying on a romance across the seas and this method of communication (and the thought of the dour matronly chief clerk reading through my sweet nothings) did tend to stifle the ardour......
And from there, I remember moving on to my first internet cafe- whatever gave me the temerity to think I could, I cannot recall. I remember the sniggering of the staff and the regulars at my one handed typing technique, and my wondering how anyone could ever type so swiftly with two hands without ever going to typing school... I soon became a regular at that cafe and as other internet cafes sprang up across town, I began to note which ones had good connections and which ones always had"their system down", which had generators to battle the frequent power cuts and which didn't, and so became a favoured and discerning customer.....Those internet cafes opened up new vistas for me and I do owe them a lot more than the browsing fees I paid....
Freedom of speech has been on my mind lately, partly because of my earlier post, and partly because of the Bill before the UK parliament to ban incitement to religious hatred, a law which opponents said curtailed the right to freedom of speech. The law sought to extend to religion the protection already offered to people from being insulted or abused on the basis of their race. Interestingly enough, it was opposed by a coalition of die-hard atheists who felt that religious belief deserved no such protections and fundamentalist Christians who felt that it would limit their right to preach to people of other religions or criticize them, the often unnamed other religion of course being Islam. The Bill was defeated and the government (in a farcical moment occasioned by Tony Blair leaving the House before he had voted, and thus allowing the defeat by one vote) had to accept an amended version which distinguished between insulting a religion and inciting hatred against it. While I mused on how freedom of speech could bring together the oddest bedfellows, news broke of the riots against the cartoons said to depict the Prophet Muhammed across the world
I must admit that while acknowledging that my opinions are no doubt shaped by my own personal circumstances as a non-Muslim, I struggled to appreciate the rationale behind the demand that the Danish government should have stopped the newspapers publishing the offending cartoons. I believe that people should respect each other and their beliefs, but I also believe that people have a right to free speech, and fail to see how on earth legislation can enforce respect. Fear and threats will not achieve much either, and can only lead to increasingly polarized positions.
Freedom of speech is obviously a very complex minefield to wade through, with shifting alliances and perspectives...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
