NIGERIA'S PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION

THE KODAK MOMENTS

Here are the FLICKS from the Presidential Inauguration. A big thanks to freelance photographer Johny Greig for providing the lovely pictures. You ROCK Johnny. Please do not reuse or repost any of these pictures without permission. I will be back with juicy details and commentary on the event. WOW!!! GUYS LIKE JOKE LIKE JOKE ... WE HAVE A NEW PRESIDENT O. And there were no RIOTS, mass killing, religious or tribal conflict just a rigged election. Boy can I live with that or what!?! It's an odd feeling and quite surreal because as a Nigerian you've grown up never knowing if these things will happen. Anyways let me know what you think about the pictures and if you have trouble accessing them.

Meanwhile looks like the folks over at BBC spend a lot of time on our dear Naija blogville. Check out this article on BBC.COM. Hmh... what does that say about our blog world. Can we become a voice to reckon with on issues and Nigerian politics in the international arena?

YALE LOSES TEMPER WITH KULUTEMPA

Congratulations Singto!!!!

My darling Singto aka Kulutempa is finally getting kicked out of Yale. Hooray!! You Go Girl. You are officially smart. Bet you didn't think 2 years would go by so fast. Unfortunately I can't be there for all the festivities. Ndidi and Des and everybody else who's going, ya'll need to take mad pictures and call me to tell me all about it. LUV YOU HON!!! CONGRATS AGAIN!!!



Meanwhile I am in Abuja once again. This time for the inauguration events. I was at some TOTALLY ND RADICALLY boring dinner Sunday night. The president was there with Yardy and Goody (trying to find some funky names for them before somebody comes up with something razz like Baba or Oby!?!) and even Shaggy (former president Shagari). It was surreal. As in I was finally able to see these cats that I have been reading about for ages in text books and newspapers. They were LIVE AND DIRECT... Hair, eyes, nose and fingernails. I came so close that I over heard them debating what to do next, whether to go and have proper dinner at someone's house or where to hang out. Basically a 'WHERE THE HELL'S THE AFTER PARTY DAMMIT' kinda conversation. At moments like that you tend to forget how much you dislike these guys for their poor leadership and misgovernment and become what a fan is to a rockstar. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to psyche myself out of my daze and back to paparazzi mode that I MISSED MY MONEY SHOT. May be next time, but here's Shaggy up close.

And here's me with the lovely and ageless Onyeka Onwenu. Isn't she just so cute and adorable.


Being the nosey amebo that I am, I am observing all the political animals of our country jockey for and contemplate positions in the new government. It just reminds me of a hollywood casting call. Each individual, an actor coveting a particular role. Plug in the right names and you have a full credit roll that rivals a blockbuster hit. The scenario is even complete with a casting couch in front of Baba's office. It's interesting to watch, listen and take all in. Some Deep stuvvs. No wonder some appointments just don't add up sometimes, and you just wonder. Anyways while I am here I too might as well join the band wagon...abi no be so. Shiiiiioooooo!!! The position me I want is official PRESIDENTIAL TOWN CRIER and Singto since you are now jobless, I will then hire you as my Senior Special Adviser to the Presidential Town Crier. Sheerruuup my friend, do you know the salary comes in 6 figures and a dollar sign. Lol.

FATHER -DAUGHTER TEXT HUMOR

This was too funny I had to post it. This was a text message exchange between my dad and my sister. My sister is stuck in Asaba, Delta State doing her NYSC. She was posted to the Ministry of Works and Mines and you all know how 'ministry work' tends to be like in our dear country.

Onyenachi: Fada! Just incase u haven't noticed, i have been sending texts to you because I don't have much credit to call. As the case may be, your daughter is low on cash. Moreover as a fellow 'civil servant', government has not paid us. They say they will pay at the beginning of June. Besides I am tired of this place. They are wasting time and money posting me here because I do absolutely nothing all day except smile... more like hiss and roll my eyes at people.

DAD: Onyi, thanks for ALL the mails. Well...our own month is 40 days but I will see what I can do to save you from starvation. But for now DRINK WATER. God Bless.

ADDY'S FIRST ABUJA TRIP -- PART 3

NIGERIA MUSIC AWARDS AND THE JUVY RUNS

All I can say is Wow. Well may be those who were not juvenile and irresponsible like I and Isis would have something different to say. Anyways the show started at 11.45pm instead of 8pm. Apparently, the President and his P-D-P cronies were having their last retreat in the Obasanjo administration and stayed at the Convention center for ever. I ended up wearing my ‘Yellow BCBG dress’ from last summer that I had packed just incase. I know, Faux pas, but I was not going to pay N800 to Le Meridien to get my other dress ironed. We raced through the red carpet portion. I hate those. We found our people and got seated. Isis went to work. By the time we got to the 3rd award, after a VERY long BORING skit by Ramota and Chief Zebrudaya, Addy was half asleep. Isis got back and we agreed that we definitely had to gerrouta there. At this point I shall plead the 5th and stick by our story, which is we were just going to the bathroom and would be outside in the car thereafter getting some fresh air. I mean we had to make up for 45 minutes of no oxygen. We came back on time to see Tuface pick his Song of the Decade award. By now it was like 3am. Isis finished up and we all hit town once more. By now I was tired and decided to turn in shortly after that at around 4.30am.

ABUJA OF NO PURE WATER SACS

This is the cleanest place I have ever been to in Nigeria. Not a single pure water sac or seller, no hawkers, NO OKADA riders, no traffic, no yellow buses, no loud speakers blaring Fuji music, there were more trees than houses, more hills than high rises and clean air. Now I see what Singto had been raving about. In fact I want to move. I hate Lagos now. Hmh... With the new administration coming in and everyone jockeying for positions and stuff, may be I need to go to a street corner in Maitama or the gate of Aso Rock with a sign that reads ‘Hire Me.’ Lol. It is that serious. May be when Silverbird completes its new multiplex cinema in Abuja I will lobby my way up north. Or better yet SINGTO find a job in Abuja so that I can come and visit you every other weekend. We can have the best of both worlds. Gosh why can’t Lagos be half like Abuja? Is there anyone in the Action Congress in Lagos that can be like El Rufai whom Fashola can appoint to bring Lagos out of the trenches? And with a new president, will that mean they would release more funds to Lagos because as I understand it Baba and Tinubu are like oil and water and hence federal funding was not coming fast. I mean should Lagos not be treated and run like a country? Anyways I am sure I’ll be back in Abuja sooner that you can say Jack Robinson. If you haven’t been make sure you make an effort on your next trip to Nigeria. It is just something different from the craziness of the likes of Lagos, Benin and Port Harcourt. I mean it was so pinching me that on my return flight I looked out the window as we flew over Lagos. When I saw the shanty buildings, smking dumpsites, yellow buses and traffic, my heart sank and I was like "WHAT DA HELL IS DIS?" Hopefully I'll be back for the inauguration but I hear the place will not be for the meek.

LEAVING ABUJA AND MEETING ADONIS
Sunday came around and it was time to go. The others in the crew were not doing anything special so I decided to accept a friend’s invitation to breakfast at the Hilton. I left my suitcase with ‘protocol’ and told him that I would meet the crew at the airport. Protocol had gone ahead and gotten us all tickets on Aero Contractor. I was meant to be at the airport at 1pm to make it for the 2pm flight. I am enjoying breakfast and the conversation and didn’t realize when it was 12.30pm. My friend now calls the driver, who takes his sweet time to arrive and I leave at 12.45pm. Now the airport is a good 30 minutes away and considering I had already irritated protocol the night before, I was all like ‘OMG they’ll never take me anywhere, ever again.’ Isis sends me the first text, ‘Dude, where u at…I’m 10 minutes out, please stall for me….Adaure, where are you? They’ve left me here and gone inside….I am at the Virgin Counter but I don’t see you…. Gurl it is Aero come back around to the domestic side.”

I finally get there and I put on my sunglasses to hide my face, because my stunt had been a bit to diva-ish and my behind could have been left in Abuja in a heart beat. I check in by 1.30 and go into the waiting area. Eventually everyone relaxed and we were all back to having our conversation. Then ADONIS WALKS BY……. Addy’s cute guy radar antenna goes beep beep. I try to find Isis to radio toe cute-guy alert but she was not getting my signal. We then start boarding and I totally forget about Adonis because I was thinking, this dude just strolled in at like 2pm so he was not likely on my flight. Boy was I sooo wrong. When we were at the bottom of the stairs, there he was at the top, chest all cut ‘kush-kush’ like Johnny Bravo, muscles like Pop-Eye and a smile like John Smith. I alert Isis and another friend for their appraisal and approval. We all agreed he was a major piece of hotness. We get on the plane and he gets up from his seat and we are all scoping. I am trying so hard to avoid his eyes because the grin on my face was just too wide. Anyways this is where the other juvenile story comes in. Gosh, when am I gonna grow up man….27 and still behaving like a giddy 15, not even 17 year old. It can be cute sometimes but even I am beginning to get irritated by myself. Lol. Anyways through out the flight we were all contemplating how we’ld get my note from our seat 14 E to his seat 17 E inviting him to lunch. It was like Rocket Science ya’ll. I can hear some of you saying oh that’s so desperate… I know. But you have to chuck the pride sometimes, be bold and just do it like NIKE. So I try to get the attention of the air hostess, at least she would understand the need to not let this opportunity pass by. But why did the Air host answer instead. Now considering he is an African man and I am an African woman, I am not sure the host would have been pleased to be passing the note across for us. So we decide that we need to come up with another plan. So I am like hey why don’t I write his seat number and ‘pass it on’. I forgot that not every Nigerian went to a school where ‘pass it on’ was the norm, or even knew what it was. The note finally got to 17 E not before everybody on the plane knew that we were passing a note. I am telling you we were laughing so hard that tears started running down our eyes. The guys sitting next to ‘Adonis’ also got to read the note and were laughing and looking to see who was the ‘lady in pink’. LOL. I guess they were tripped we actually passed the note.

Moments later, I get a text message. HA!!! MISSION IMPOSSIBLE ACCOMPLISHED. Then when the plane stopped, Isis starts playing ‘Summer Nights’ from the Grease soundtrack and we kept laughing really laughing hard. It was my best flight in ages. Meanwhile protocol highly irritated by our typical high school chicks’ antics left us and went on the first bus. But Mr. Nigeria was gentleman enough to wait for us. We get our luggage only to find out that LASTMA had towed our protocol bus. LOL. Isis ended up taking us home. Turns out, Adonis is from Israel. Dejavu all over again. Israeli dudes must be really cute because the last dude I pulled that ‘pass it on’ stunt just last month on was from Israel as well. I am going to have to retire that M.O and find something else. Turns out that dude was a hardliner and started railing on the Palestinian and talking about how he used to be in the IDF and how Palestinians are this and that. I was like well after talking with my Palestinian friends in college, I can under stand where they are coming from and while I respect your views and opinion I’d have to say it’s probably only adding o the reason there’s no peace in the Middle East. It only recently occurred to me that could possibly be the reason I ain’t heard from the hommie after that. Ha!ha!!ha.!!! Such a trip. His loss and good riddance because I got a bit scared about his ‘previous job description’ YIKES!!. But back to Adonis, he was like he had spotted me at the airport (my laughter was carrying…just a bit loud) but he didn’t know how to come up to me because I was with my friends. Hmh...BS or not? Anyways he was like thanks for the note and blah blah blah blah blah. We’ll see what happens but ya’ll know what they say about black girls and Jewish boys. Uh Hmh!!

Meanwhile it's Wednesday and I am surprised I have not seen the story of our ordeal in the papers yet considering a number of press people were onboard. I am surprised PUNCH, whose staff also nearly fainted did not report it yet(may be it was buried in the business section). I am counting on City People not to disappoint in their May 29 edition. Hopefully they will not make it one of their 'fluff-stuff' stories and really indict and call out Chanchangi for their BS. Unfortunately this is Nigeria law suits are mere formalities and media bashing and bombardment is usually what gets the best result. However the truth is that news editors get paid off not to run stories and if we continue allowing these people get away with it, people will continue dying.

ADDY'S ABUJA TRIP -- PART 2

THE PRESSURE COOKER PLANE

This is where the real drama comes in, and I swear I don’t make these things up and I don’t understand why I attract so much drama. The plane had been chartered by the Nigerian Music Awards organization to take press and celebs to Abuja. It was called…you CAN’T believe it…SOUL FLIGHT. I believe it was supposed to be a Virgin Atlantic flight because that’s what had been advertised, but I suspect the deal must have fallen through at the last minute. We finally boarded the plane at 4.30pm only to get in and find it steaming hot inside. One interesting thing I have noticed with Nigerians is the way we access and react to situations. While other people do the boiling point thing, Nigerians are more optimistic and start with cracking jokes about the situation, in hopes that it would get better. Then they go to reality mode where they realize that this thing is no longer funny. You ear phrases like, ‘de tin don get k-leg’, ‘e don comot for jolomi o’ and ‘odikwa risky’. Then you hear them asking questions. Then finally the third stage sets in when it turns into anger and a free for all fist fight for dear life. That was what Addy and Isis found themselves stuck in the middle of. The plane was so freaking hot people were sweating profusely and had to take off their clothes. The ChanChangi pilot and the cabin crew refused to open the door or turn on the air. They said when they turn the engine on that the air would kick in. Ok o. We were patient enough for that. Then some random people that didn’t look like press or celebs. People started getting upset that Chanchangi was selling the empty chairs just to fill up the plane. Basically, selling seats that had already been bought. Floozies!!!!! Meanwhile the cabin was getting hotter and hotter.

By now we had spent up to 30 minutes in the air compressed cabin and everyone was panting for air in the sweltering heat. The pilot starts moving the plane, that’s when all hell broke lose. It is bad enough that flying in Nigeria is traumatic and stressful. Not only was the plane’s rattle raising my blood pressure, looking under the seat to see no life vest really bothered me. My heart rate went up, sweat beads rolling down my face, my nails tapping the arm set. Effiong one of the producers then draws our attention to his broken seat belt. I then called the crew hostess to tell her that I wanted to get off the plane because I was very hot and will not fly under the condition. She was like Ok be patient we will soon take off. Then I told Isis and Alozie, one of our radio producers who is much older, that I was seriously not feeling well.

Before I knew it, tears started rolling down my eyes, my chest was burning and I started gasping for breathe and hyperventilating. I jumped up from my seat and started yelling ‘I need some oxygen PLEASE!!!” I think fear and panic coupled with the heat overcame me. I made my way to the front where the oxygen tank was. There were only two. Isis got one of the safety instruction cards and started fanning me. I swear I must have gone blank. But I could hear cameras clicking and all that flashing was blinding. Isis, realizing this was probably going to end up in something like City People, tries to step between me and the ‘paparazzi’. Effiong and Alozie make their way to the front. By now there was pandemonium on the lane and the pilot was not saying anything over the radio. The crew members were just as retarded. People were kicking on the cock pit door and threatening to open the cabin door if they did not stop the plane. Apparently the pilot was taxing back to the tarmac but because he was not saying anything to calm the passengers down or control the situation we got all panicky.

Moments later another reporter from the Punch Newspaper also starts hyperventilating and nearly faints. They carried her to the front o use the other oxygen tank. Then another guy also starts cursing and shouting that he could not breath and he got very angry and emotional and rushed to the cock-pit like a lunatic screaming, “Open the F—ing door, Stop this F—ing plane, I am dying, I can’t breathe.” As he kicked, my ear was just right next to where he was kicking. I was crying, Isis was also crying and we were already like, ‘Dang we are going to die today if this plane takes off.’ Some guy in the back(Marvelous Benji) seeing how this other dude was behaving thought he was going to open the cabin door while the plane was in motion, now came and grabbed the dude in a choke-hold basically. This only made matters worse because the dude, as small as he was found energy from no where to struggle free. He punched and kicked and of course trust Nigerians to forget that this is some one who is under crisis and is fighting for air.

Anyways 'Marv' and some of his friends also got angry and you can imagine what happened, keeping in mind that these guys had been shacking (drinking) beer all afternoon. The started fighting on the plane, eventually we get to the tarmac and the cabin door opens. You should have seen how people just rushed out the door gasping and gulping air like it was Fanta. People forgot their things on the plane. Meanwhile, the men and the ChanChangi people had rushed ahead for the free for al fight. Everyone was asking what was going on. Then all we saw were some odd number off black clothed hungry looking police men and the white shirts of the ChanChangi and Federal Aviation Authority people. We get to the terminal and we are like we need our luggage to gerrout of this place. The airline folks refused to give it to us. Kate Henshaw who was also on the flight was also telling them to give her her bags, but they refused. So we all waited patiently as they said they would go and bring another plane. As if we are talking about molue or luxurious buses.

Anyways we had spent 45 minutes on board with out air and by now it was like 5.45pm. The drama and shouting continued going on with no end in sight. I spotted some guy who had a camcorder and started coaching him on what to do. Obviously I had come back to my senses and back to reporter mode. Then at one corner I see Effiong in the middle of a scuttle with the ChanChangi people. I think he had tried to play voltron for the dude who could not breathe and got jumped on. So like Spider Woman I think quickly enough to go there and try to get him out of the mess, as per woman now, they will calm down small. Some how it worked but not after the look on my face changed and I yelled and cursed sternly at the people who were trying to rile Effiong up again.

Then I go and find the police officer in the biggest GSB-Aviators (Go Slow Bones… you know the designer knock-off $2/N200 sunglasses they hawk on the streets during traffic. Don’t worry; I have one or two hot ones. Lol) I start narrating calmly all that had happened because it didn’t seem like any resolution was coming. As Isis and I are telling him the story, he is like, ‘Ehn…is dat so... you don’t mean it…geesus….ok I am coming.’ He goes off to make a call. Then another guy from the FAAN comes to us to get a statement and find exactly what happened. To cut the long story short. Chanchangi kicked off the paying passengers, ran the engine of the plane, topped off gas and told us to get back on the plane. We reluctantly got back since they refused profusely to off-load our baggage. We all have a little ‘profession ethics’ discussion amongst ourselves and were like should we get back on considering we had a job to do…actually everyone did, except me. I was just tagging along. Anyways we all got back on (kicking myself for knowingly risking my life at this point) but this time we had some CHURCH up in that plane. Zakky Azzay, who I guess is now a gospel artists prayed this powerful prayer and we clapped and calmed down. There was a little air this time. By now it was like 7.20pm. By the time we got to the take off runway, a voice comes from over the radio, ‘Ladies and gentle men, ya attenshon plis. Unfachoonatly dis plane will not be goin’ to Abooja. The minister of Aviation has ordered dis plane to tern around. So we are going back to the terminal plis.” PHEW!!! You could hear everyone on the plane heave a sigh of relief and clap. SAVED!!!

GETTING TO ABUJA…VIRGIN NIGERIA TO THE RESCUE
We get off the plane and get on the bus to the old terminal as we had originated from the new terminal. Some how we eventually get our luggage after hounding several Chanchangi and FAAN people (notice how I type ChanChangi often, just so that all Google hits will point to this page) I call a friend who works at the Virgin counter and Effiong calls another who was about boarding the 8pm Virgin Nigeria flight. We are still at the old terminal at 7.45pm and needed to get to the international airport. We get an Airport Taxi for N1,500. We told the driver that if there was ever a time that he need to do some rough ‘gra-gra’ driving, this was the time. We got the Virgin counter in just roughly ten minutes breathing and panting heavily. We asked if the flight was still on ground and that we had made reservations blah, blah, blah. The lady was like ‘Sorry, the gate has close and the plane will be leaving soon.’

OOOHH NOOOOO!!!! Come and see us begging. We begged and begged and begged. But all they said to us was NOPE!! We are not taking anymore passengers. Then she said if we really want to go tonight that Bellview had an 8.45 flight and that the sooner we make our way back to the old domestic terminal the better. Was this a sign that we weren’t supposed to go on this trip? I mean everything that could go wrong was going wrong. So we were like, shocks, I guess no Abuja and with our long gloomy faces we made for the sliding doors. As we walked out the door, Isis is like ‘OMG that’s Yemi!!” I am like who the hell is that?

Apparently she knew this fella through some six degrees of separation type link (WHOA!! I just had a Eureka moment here…is that where Six Degrees North at Bacchus gets its name from or is it a coincidence? Hmh… that’s deep. Totally rad...Back to the story) He was one of the directors at Virgin… ‘A Virgin Big Boy.’ Kai…GOD You 'IS' wonderful. Isis starts telling him about our ordeal and how we needed to be on that flight. He was amazed and shocked by our story that he ‘felt pity’ for us, waved his friends off and was like ‘Come with me.’ You can guess what happened and it went something like this…

‘Bisi…is the plane still on the ground? Yes Sir….Get these people on it right now… But sir the gate is closed … Nkechi dis is Yemi we have 3 more passengers please open the gate…But their bags sir…Musa check their bags at the plane otherwise they can go on board with it… Yes Sir… Collect their money and issue them a boarding pass… what about their ticket sir… deal with that later, just get them on that flight….yes sir.

Luckily for me I had gone to the bank two weeks ago and had money and I helped my colleagues out. We counted N45, 000, dumped it on the counter with the ticketing lady and ran to the gate like a lion was chasing us. E got on board panting and laughing with joy. Apparently the pilot had announced to the passengers that there was a slight delay and some more passengers were being expected and he apologized. So when we walked aboard looking all crazy, some woman just hissed loudly. ‘PSHIIIIEEEEWWWW…iz even SILVA-BED people.” When she said that we were like, “Ah madam no talk like that o, if you know what we have gone through today you will thank God we are here, Chanchangi wanted to boil us alive.’ We settled down and started narrating our amazing ordeal to the attentive ears of the other passengers and cabin crew members. The flight took off at about 8.40pm. They gave us food, drinks and most importantly REFRIDGERATED OXYGEN. We slept like babies on the flight and got to Abuja at around 9.30pm. We were so happy and I finally was in this city called Abuja that I had never ever been to before. Paradise. As in can I relocate to Abuja or what? Anyways Virgin Nigeria and Yemi came to our rescue; he get's Addy's hero of the month award. So if anyone knows this Yemi please say a big thank you to him and give him a big hug for rescuing Addy and Friends. But just because he hooked us up doesn’t now mean that you too should go and be looking for Yemi at Virgin to hook you up. You might just get bundled out by airport security.

ADDY'S ABUJA TRIP -- PART 1

Pressure Cooker Plane, Nigeria Music Award, Juvy Runs etc

It would be an understatement to say my first trip to Abuja was JUST an interesting experience. First of all I thank God I am able to write this blog because the trip sapped out all my energy and Lord know what would have been the headlines had things gone according to plans. Despite all the comedies of error it was so much fun and filled with silliness. So what do you want me to start with? The sizzling (no pun intended) drama or the highly irresponsible juvenile aspect. Oh boy....am I gonna get implicated in some queries or what? Ok well I’ll start from the beginning as I remember it all. Keeping in mind that some portions of the story remain a blur (I’m killing it with the puns) to me.

THE DREAM
So on Monday I had a dream that I could not put a finger on. I was in a plane and the plane was in distress. The tail of the plane was blue with the logo CAL and then ADC. This didn’t make any sense to me because at the time I was not planning on going anywhere. So I said a quick prayer, went back to sleep and disregarded it. Then on Tuesday evening I bumped into a co-worker and he mentioned the trip to Abuja for the Nigerian Music awards and I was like ‘Awww….I wanna go too,’ considering the fact that I had the weekend off and would probably have ended up no place else other that the great and infamous 6 degrees North At Bacchus. I always want to call it BC 360 after my favorite show on CNN, AC360. How cheesy. Anyways, my co-worker said he’ll get back to me Wednesday when things would be finalized and let me know if he got a slot for me. Honestly, I didn’t think it was going to happen because I really didn’t have to be there. The only excuse I was trying to use to get a ticket was that I was going to chaperone the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria and Mr. Nigeria (in reality I probably was the one who needed chaperoning). So I totally forgot about it, may have sent a text or an email as a reminder but by the close of workday Thursday I had totally forgotten about it and made plans for the weekend with anther co-worker. But on Thursday night around 11.30 p.m’ish I get a call. “Adaure I got you on the flight, be at the airport at noon at the ChanChangi counter for the 1pm flight.” DA HELL!!! Not that damn airline!! Remember my last ordeal with them? Yeah… My heart sank. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cop out or ask what happened to the Virgin Atlantic flight. I was also very sleepy as I had to wake up at 4am the next morning to go to work. So I call one of the youth corper who works with me to let her know that I would not be at work and that I am going to Abuja. She suggested I pack right then, but darn it, I needed to sleep. So I set my alarm for 3am instead. I wake up, pack, go to work and was done by 10.30am. Apparently there were 9 of us from the company going to this event; the entertainment crew, radio reporter, protocol, the king and queen and then me. Isis, the presenter for Entertainment Weekly calls me and is like, ‘Oh my Gawd, my tailor totally messed up, my dress is not ready, please help me pick up another dress in Ikoyi at Teema Towers.” I am like ok it is 10.30 so I am sure I can spare 30 mins to get the dress. Little did I know. Traffic from Lekki to Victoria Island was heavy and by the time I got to Ikoyi it was already 11.15. I looked around for the place to no avail. None of those mallam-maigadi gate men and okada riders seemed to know where this place was. As in how can you be a security guard and you don’t know where certain places are in your neighborhood.

Anyways I eventually left Ikoyi and tried to get to the airport. I knew I was not going to make it there by noon but I was shooting for 12.15. We were doing 120 kilometers per hour on Third Mainland Bridge only to hit traffic in Gbagada. We tried to cut off at Anthony Village but upon getting to Oshodi we hit another road block. We eventually make it to Ikeja, yet another bumper to bumper traffic on Mobolaji Bank-Anthony Way. How about I got to the airport at 1.15pm because for some odd reason there was some serious traffic all over Lagos. If this had been a Virgin Atlantic flight I probably would have missed it. Isis meanwhile lives in Ikeja and trying to do the ‘I live near the airport’ Diva moves, leaves her house around 12.15 pm. She got to the airport around 1.45pm. Well the good thing was that the plane was still on the ground and people were still ‘strutting’ in. You know how it is with ‘these celebs’. They like to take their sweet time. And of course we waited forever…forever, ever, for ever ever.

ADDY THE READING MACHINE

FORGET THE WEDDING WEBBIES, BOOKS ARE SO THIS SEASON

Hey folks,

I have basically become the lean mean reading machine of Lagos. I have purchased nearly every book in the 'nigerian' fiction section of Nu Metro. Went to a book fair at Unilag last week and bought three books, which I will blog about when I finish with them. Oh by the way Kaine Agary who wrote Yellow-Yellow will be at Nu Metro at the Silverbird Galleria on Saturday the 19th. I am not sure what time but if you get there early you can catch a movie or grab some popcorn. Back to my gist. So yeah so I am bouncing off the wall with my thing for books. So here's what I am reading now and trust me this book is HOT and STEAMY with drama and that's just chapter 1,2 and 3. I had to force myself to go to bed at 10pm, 2 hours later than usual for a Thursday night, since I have to be at work at 5am on Fridays. The thing that s pissing me off though is that this book has been in circulation for a while and NOBODY thoughtto tell me there was good book such as this one in existence. Good because of the topic it deals with. I decided to google the author up to see what has been said about him and the book. Here's what's on Molara Wood's Blog. As in it is so stale that I am embarrassed to be buzzing about it. There's nothing as annoying as rocking last season's fashion and it applies to books too. I am sure you are wondering who I am talking about and what book. It's Jude Dibia's Walking in Shadows.

(***oops wrong picture***)

The book tackles homosexuality in Nigeria and contradictions in heterosexual love and relationships. HAA!!! This dude is BOLD and a genius for going where many refuse to go either because of their own prejudices, hypocrity or the fear of backlash. With all the Sharia fever in this country. And how did the government not ban the book with all the fiasco they were creating in the senate over the issue. Is that a sign of progress or that was an oversight. That is just fascinating and I AM ONLY ON CHAPTER 3. I am afraid of what other drama is in the book. And ofcourse a very ignorant and drama concentrated me keeps wondering whether the author is gay or not. Not that it matters, I just need to satisfy my curiosity (anyone with the inside scoop?) Well that's all I can say about the book for now so that I don't spoil it for you guys. I trust you will go and grab a copy. if you are a curious cat like myself see more in this interview with Onyeka Nwelue a blogger. I am off to ABuja for the Nigeria Music Awards, which I trust Bella Naija will have an update on before the show ends. Keep it up gurl. I am sure i'll be done with the book by the time I return on Sunday so probably we should get to discussing this book by next week. If you have already read it please feel free to post your comments on the book. Jude Dibia's second book UNBRIDLED is also in stores now and I gather it's really good. Yes you guessed it, I have a copy already. HA HA HA