"Home made" restaurant food and a dash of Naija politics

Oh, last week I also read the rather charmingly titled Is it Just me or Is Everything Shit? The Encyclopaedia of Modern Life. It had me rolling with laughter on the plane with its opinionated rants on various issues from Tony Blair to pre-washed vegetables to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera....and while reading I fell into the authors style of thinking. So when I walked into a restaurant in Venice and saw an item on the menu that said home made spaghetti, I thought to myself that's another abused word in modern life. You go into a restaurant and they have home made this or home made that on the menu- like the chefs prepared it at home and brought it in?? As the Americans would say gimme a break.....

I haven't talked about Nigerian politics in a while, partly because I'm still shellshocked at the way the Third Term brouhaha collapsed like a pack of cards. And as much as I was opposed to the third term, there's a bit of me that can't help thinking....now what? I know, I know...there are glimmers of hope what with talk of an Utomi candidacy and an Okonjo-Iweala candidacy, but I can't help but feel that at the end of the day, the small elitist cabal that has long held sway in Nigerian politics, unless the Nigerian people unite as the people of Anambra state did and resist all attempts to rig the 2007 elections. If Obasanjo can sort out a smooth transition to a credible successor, I promise to overlook all his failings henceforth....

On the subject of criticism, I get tired of people who suggest that all criticism, especially of "baba" Obasanjo is bad criticism. I am NOT anti-Obasanjo, I have no vested interests beyond my Nigerian citizenship and I acknowledge wholeheartedly what he has achieved- from securing a period of relatively peaceful civilian rule to paying off the debt, the GSM licences and so on. But to whom much is given, much is expected and Obasanjo had a whole lot of goodwill and could have done so much more....why for instance isn't there a similar health, education and science team to match his economic team?

Image is everything and a good library haul

Woke up this morning to the news that the Tories are leading Labour in opinion polls at the moment- no surprises there, but apparently for the first time, voters are rating the Tories higher than Labour on issues like health and education and not just their usual areas of immigration and crime. This brought to mind a conversation I had with a friend a few weeks ago. She's English, working class girl made good and has always been an ardent Labour voter, even though she's fairly high powered in the City....but two weeks ago, she told me she was going to vote Tory in the next elections. The question I asked her is the same one I would like to ask the thousand or so people polled last week:

I am as fed up with Tony Blair as any of you, but pray tell me what alternative policies the Tories have put forward beyond trying to be all things to all people? On health? On education? Even on the environment, beyond the cycling and arctic touring stunts, what? The numerous policy review commissions that Cameron set up are yet to report back, so on what is this sudden swing to the Tories based on?

The answer of course is image......in a media obsessed world, image is everything and it may well sweep the Tories into power at the next elections...

Have had a fantastic raid of the local library and have come away with Manju Kapur's new book Home which I just finished. Her depiction of an Indian trading family reminded me very much of the machinations that went on in a prominent Nigerian family who were friends of my parents....no decisions were personal- from who you married to how many children you had, to what car or clothes you bought your wife- all had to be sanctioned by the grand family council and the patriarch, otherwise you were cut off penniless, and isolated from the lucrative family business......

Other prized hauls this week include Romesh Gunesekera's new book, The Match, Freakonomics, Naomi Alderman's Disobedience set in an Orthodox Jewish community in North London and Vikram Seth's Two Lives.....

An interesting week lies ahead, reading wise

Apologies to Nigeriaworld

Have just realized the reason I wasn't able to get on to Nigeriaworld over the last few days was because of my office putting in a new firewall...so from PCs outside work I can access Nigeriaworld ok....pop-ups and all...

By land, rail, air and sea, a challenge for CNN and another oil-fuelled tragedy in Nigeria

Okay, I've got a few minutes in between workshop sessions, so I better drop a few lines. By the time I arrived in Venice last night, under a full moon, I had travelled by all the major means of transportation available to man, bar space travel. From a meeting outside London at noon, I'd taken a taxi to the train station, caught a train to London, got the tube to the airport, flown to Venice and taken the Alilaguna (waterbus) to a stop 5 minutes from the hotel where we're staying- we walked the last 5 minutes....

The first workshop sessions this morning have been interesting and there have been lots of opportunities for "networking", so it's all good. Apparently I got in too late last night to join in the semi-drunken revelry around the poolside that passed for the culmination of the welcome party...no great loss it seems, especially as I look at some of my bleary eyed colleagues struggling to stay awake this morning....

On CNN this morning, news of a pipeline explosion in which over 150 people were supposed to have died. The reporter had on a Mr Fagbemi (I think) from Amensty International, who spoke about the corruption that pervaded all levels of government. She tried to restrict it to the state and local government levels,quoting some unsourced statistic that 30 out of 36 state governors were corrupt but he insisted, rightly that all levels of government were involved-including the federal. Why the international press and community are taken in by Obasanjo's spurious anti-corruption war is still a mystery....Some questions I would like answered are- "Which companies are responsible for importing refined petroleum into Nigeria? Who are their shareholders? How do they get the authority to import? Is it through a transparent process?" I challenge CNN to provide us with this information...

In spite of attempts to lay the blame on criminals and conniving villagers for the explosion, the guy from Amnesty went on to lay part of the blame on the oil companies who have over the years refused to adopt what is standard practice for them in other parts of the world-burying their pipelines underground........ a practice clearly outlined and condemned in The Next Gulf:London Washington and the Oil Conflict in Nigeria....... I suppose Nigerian lives are cheap, and the Nigerian environment not worth protecting. So in collusion with their partners in the Nigerian government, they continue their rape of Nigeria's resources, while ordinary Nigerians pay the ultimate price....

The universality of football, villain of the day and a new discovery

From the office window I can hear the sounds of boys playing football in the alley next door. It reminds me of Naija- ever so often the ball slams into the wall with a thud, or the boys yell, and then I think football has no language- this could be anywhere in the world....

Nigeriaworld's still down and still no word on why....

The debates (or-stand-up-and-be-counted process) continues in the Legislature in Abuja. My villain of the day is Abdul Oroh, who was a "human rights activist" and a lawyer who was active in the coalition of civil society organizations that fought against the military who was reported as being among the legislators who to quote the Nigerian paper "dodged the issue". How someone can execute such a stunning volteface, only heaven knows. From human rights campaigner a few short years ago to apologist for tenure extension. Perhpas my old man's right-there must be something in the water in Abuja......

Stumbled across the frankest Nigerian blog ever- A Disillusioned Naija Girl- the posts are long but riveting. The author may come across as wacky, quirky, bitter or whatever, but she certainly qualifies for inclusion in my search for Nigerians off the beaten track....http://nijaoffspring.blogspot.com/
Over here, Tony Blair's attacking the ruling of a judge in a bid to appear populist merely underlines his desperation.....anything to connect with middle England...

Here's a message to Blair and his pal Obasanjo- it's time you both took a break permanently, you've earned it, and it'll do wonders for your increasingly haggard appearances.......(perhaps that's stretching it a bit especially in OBJ's case, but one can hope)....

Off to Italy tomorrow for work, will try and blog from there, but may be too busy...ciao

Deja vu everywhere, the misuse of anti-corruption laws and standing up publicly

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

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"....

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?

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.....

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....

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....

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

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....

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.

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.....

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......

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?

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.............

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

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