HEY EVERYBODY,
I am fine and still maintaining my sanity in Lagos. I am sure ya'll have been worried. Me too I have been worried about you guys oh. I have not been living up to expectation and filling that void for you guys and trust me I know how that can be. Anyways I wrote the post below nearly two weeks ago but with not having an adaptor, reliable and fast internet, a flash drive and a private helicopter to fly from one end of Lekki Express to Cool Cafe on Etim Iyang because of the traffic jam that takes two hours to get out off, I am left to browse only like twice a month. But things will get better as soon as I get my Apple G4 Notebook that was on one of my many Christmas wishlists. It might not seem like a big deal to you but too me it is because that means I can retire my 600x that IBM has long rejected. But before you continue reading, there are a few updates. Singto Thanks so much for thr Gummi Bears. That must be the most expensive and well travelled packs of Gummis. I mean all the way from Connecticut via NC to Abuja then Port Harcourt and finally Lagos. WOW!! Dedication. You should have seen how I almost hugged the mail man when he showed up at my door.By the way I am no longer 'sese de' or 'johny just come'. I have managed to blend in and lose a few 'Rs' in my accent. In fact I had to pull out my accent CD and book over the weekend to get a refresher course. You know how it is in Lagos. With an accent you can get a few more zeros in business negotiations and a few more boyfriends. I got my shopping fix on Sunday at Tejuosho. I bought like 18 yards of fabric, a pair of flip flops and some 'payeents' aka pata. I don't know how but my yoruba is actually on point. I decided to play around with the bra-and-pant woman and asked if she had 32D bras. She brought out some A cup bra for me and was like 'try it first'(ladies for those of you who followed your moms to the market way way back in the day to buy training bras, you know the deal now). I looked at the woman and was like 'Ah ah mummy e wo oyan mi.. se mo kere l'oju e...ele yi kole gba osan o' (ah madam take a good look at me, do I look small to you, this bra can't even carry an orange.) Speaking of which, why do the market women insist upon singing their wares to you as you are walking by? 'Anty come and buy ya payeent, bray-zee, singlet, night gown'....'sister mek-up, lipstink, ayi-pensool, ayi-shadoh, weave-on, fixin, nail-painting?'. And the igbo boys there are still the same. I almost slapped one the other day when he addressed said to us, "oh what pretty p***ies come and buy from me." I swear I almost forgot where I was and the next thing that came out of my mouth was 'Your Mother'. That sort of thing is very normal and sometimes going to the market can be rather agonizing. But I just had to go there on Sunday especially because it would be less crowded and most igbo peeps go to church. Then Valentines day was interesting. I got a cute white teddy from someone and I named it 'Commander Lee'. Then I hung out with another friend listening to his dad's collection of fifties oldies love songs. Bougie Nigerians!! But it was neat and one of the coolest Vals day in a while because I was doing something and not watching Lifetime. And yesterday we went on a 'date by the Lagoon'. Lol. It sounds very romantic but it is very normal around here. Shoot... your tire can decide to blow on Third Mainland bridge and there you go...a date by the Lagoon. God forbid you don't have as spare tire. There is no Triple A here and chances are you will wait forever to geT that tire fixed. This week I will be heading to Port Harcourt to see if I can find any interesting stories in the Niger Delta. Did you guys see Jeff Koinange's report. See why I just love him. Fearless and one of the best. Don't mind what Information minister Frank Nweke is saying. The only sad thing about that story is that it was not a nigerian journalist who got the story. Firstly there is no respect for journalists in this country and secondly if one had gotten it chances are the reporter would have been jailed by now and the SSS would have raided whichever TV station that dared to broadcast the story. SO KUDOS JEFF KOINANGE. Hopefully I will find some thing interesting and worth telling. Anyways, I miss BLOGGINg like crazy and I miss reading all your comments. Don't worry I shall be back in the mix soon so stick with me... NAIJA LOUN WA !!! (NA NAIJA WE DEY)
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Plus STV, Voters Registration etc
Today, my friends, is yet another public holiday in Nigeria. The Federal Government declared the holiday in order to avail the exploding population an opportunity to perform their civic duty. I decided to do my own part yesterday when I stood in a line at Unilag waiting to register after church. Unfortunately for me I wore a dress and became lunch for sand flies. My legs now look like candy canes because I have been scratching. But now that I am registered I am looking for whom to SELL MY VOTE TO because as I see it, the next president of Nigeria has been selected and whether I vote or don’t vote, I have already been voted for by the powers that be. Just keeping it REAL and if you don’t like that I have said that go and take Panadol/Tylenol. I will shed more light on all that another time.
The Public holiday however is not for everybody though, because just as in America , television doesn’t go on vacation in Nigeria either, so I find myself at work today instead of sleeping at home. Actually I take that back. One can forget about sleeping in my house past 6.30am (God forbid it’s Sunday) thanks to my mother insisting that ‘so long as praise is from the heart, God takes pleasure in hearing even a crow’s voice.’ You can figure that proverb out. Anyways my weekend was interesting. I went to my high-school mate’s wedding. Yippie!!! My first Aso-ebi experience. I bought the uniform gele (head wrap) and not the lace. My alibi being that I just bought shares at Transcorp and I am a youth corper. Riiiiigghhhttt!?!. Ok ok. For real men the lace was fine but a bit pricy for me, at the moment. I had to think about how far that money would go at Forever 21 versus ‘one-a-day’ baff. So I tried to go and buy fabric that would be closer in color but I was very very off point. Anyways no condition is permanent. I shall soon start working on my stock of lace and aso-oke. Speaking of shopping, I am pulling my hair out because I have not bought any new pair of shoes or clothes in the past two months. I am having some bad shopping withdrawals. In this part of the world, the average upwardly-mobile individual does ‘real shopping’ once a year. Give or take twice a year when they travel abroad for Easter, summer or ‘go to Dubai ’. The above average upwardly mobile go to London every other weekend or month and some sell stuff to the average…you get the picture. So right now, I am looking for those types of people because it is crucial. It is so crucial that I have opted to going to Tejuosho every Saturday to buy Akosombo, Woodin, London Wax et al. as a quick-fix. Don’t blame me, it is not my fault. I am a typical woman and I am wired like that. And the fact that the news paper vendors keep sticking that bloody City People/ Hint Style monthly every time you are stuck in traffic makes it even worse. As in I want to give them a slap when I call them because I want to buy a copy of This Day or Punch Newspaper and they bring all their glossy magazines instead. As if to say, ‘What is a fine girl like you doing reading about political jargon, you need to read this instead to keep up with the latest fashion and know ‘What Lagos Big Girls are Wearing,’ because you look like you need help.’
Area Boy Encounter
So I gather from the comments in the other post that some of you have seen some of my news reports on STV. One of the stories I worked on was on Children Hawking. That story was truly an initiation process into ‘how things work in Lagos .’ So the idea was to find a child-hawker and ‘get his/her story’. For some reason, that day, it was either all the street children in Lagos had gone on strike or went underground because they knew I was coming. We went from Marina, Obalende, Balogun and we could not find a single child on the street selling even pure-water talk less of groundnut. I figured probably it was too early for them and then there is this social service agency called NAPTIP ( National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons) that takes children into custody if they are seen on the street during school hours. I know it’s not an efficient agency and is just another lip service government agency because on other days I have seen up to 5 converge on one vehicle. Fortunately for us we found one boy selling bananas and we started talking to him. We found out that he was 13, had been pulled out from school because his parents were poor and he had to sell the bananas to help them feed the family. It was too good to be true, we finally found one with a great story. We felt we had hit the jack pot, not realizing where we were. APONGBON!!!! The headquarters of the Area Boys of Lagos. The ancestral home of all Lagos touts. You think Compton is bad, wait till you get to Apongbon. Forget 9mm, in Apongbon, the sharpest double-edge machete is what rules. Even mobile police men dare not show up and try to misbehave. So that’s where yours truly went to go and be speaking phonetics. After like 10 minutes, which we owe to the grace of God, one of the touts came to us, speaking in Yoruba and asking us what we were doing and who gave us permission. You know in America and any other reasonable country where things work as they should, when you are on the street, you are on public property and since your tax is what was used to build the road, you have as much right to it as anybody else. So ordinarily when a joker like this chap steps to you, that’s usually the first thing that would come out of our lips after looking around to make sure we are on public property. God save me that I did not make that mistake to quote law for this short individual, even thinking about it in my head. I would have gotten a fine, as opposed to dirty slap. My camera man told me not to open my mouth so that my accent will not give me up and that he will handle the situation.
Tout: What are you people doing, from where and who gave you permission
Cam : Ni suru...calm down…We are working o, see our ID, we are from STV.
Tout: Really, I hope that camera is not on
Cam : Ah no sir, we are doing a story on children that sell stuff (awon omo kekeke lon t’oja)
Tout: Ehn Ok… ehn you ‘av to pay (e san wo)
Cam : Ah we can’t oh… you will have to go and talk to our manager. Ok manage this one (brings out 2 N200 bills)
Tout: EEEEWWWOOOO….Kile eleyi…what is this… you can give this one to the beggars …. You see all these small small Fulani and Niger children yeah…this one is for them (despite rejecting it he still put the N400 in his pocket…two of his boys hear his loudness and join in)
Cam : E ma binu…Don’t be upset….By the way how much are you asking for (by now he sees we are in trouble and tells me to start making my way to the car.)
Tout: 10 thousand naira….ehs…Aunty where are you going, come here (nbo len lo… e sumo wan bi).
Addy: (smiling and looking the guy in the eye and trying to pull the puppy face) Leave me I am vexing now, you have spoilt my work. (E fi mi le jo, moun binu fu eh, oti da nko ti moun se)
Cam : (Talking to tout and now carrying his camera like a football under his arm) you see she is my madam and she is vexing. If you want to get anything you have to talk to her gently o.
Tout: Ahn... imagine…she is vexing for me…she can continue to vex na… if not that she is a fine girl I would beat you and her together.
Addy: Beat me ke… ah… ok…so after beating me how will you collect the money from me. Ok o…my guy lets go (signal to the cam guy to make his way to the car and throw the camera into the trunk because that is what they were after)
Tout: Ok Auntie I won’t beat you but if you want to work here you have to pay.
Addy: Ehn.. Let me go to the car and call my boss, plus I don’t have any money here.
As we are making our way the car, the driver sees immediately and understands and makes his way to his side of the car. As the driver was about to put the key to open the door, this short imp of a tout rushes from behind me and just lands the driver a slap. I stopped dead in my tracks. It happened so fast that if I did not go and stand in the middle he would have landed the guy another one. Then just right and quickly I came out of the shock and said to my self, this Negro could just bring out a weapon now and won’t mind to redesign all our faces. So just as I went in the middle I jejely took the key from the driver, came out from the middle and left them to sort themselves out. I opened the trunk and threw the camera in. By then I breathed my first sight of relief… Ok you bastard Area boys, if you like break the windscreen of the car, it is only a ‘made in Korea ’ there are plenty in Lagos . Lol. The next hurdle was to get away. My camera man was being held hostage in an argument and trying to explain our way out. Some older market women had come around to find out what was happening. This was a good sign because the women started abusing the area boys and telling them to leave us alone, especially after we had explained to them the story we were doing and they took pity on the boy. The driver was still upset from the slap and tried to speed off as the camera man was trying to make his way into the car. Why did these touts literally carry the camera man out of the car? HA!!! Abajo!!! They threatened to puncture our tire if we dared to drive off. The camera guy insisted I bring some money to just get them to leave us alone so we could leave. Since this was a Tuesday I still had some money that I had ‘obtained’ from over the weekend but the only problem was that I had allocated my funds. N500 for Lunch at Mr. Biggs( Am I the only one who loves that place especially their chicken, meat pie and jelly doughnuts…I mean donut. Everyone raises a brow when I say I eat at Mr. Biggs. I know Tantalizers is the ‘it’ fast food but their food has way too much pepper), N1000 phone credit, N500 for True Love, N500 for City People Style and N2000 for gas. It was between City People style and the life of my camera man. I had to save the poor guy. I was so glad when we left that place and each time we drive through I am always hoping the touts won’t spot us in the traffic and come to harass us. But I can be an idiot sometimes though. How about the other day we were driving through and I am looking out the window at all the absurdities that people are hawking and I spot one of the touts. Now if it were a regular person, they would have boned face, but being that I have my days, I started waving at this chap as if I had just spotted Tom Cruise. The guy started chasing us and we stopped on the side of the road. Trust these Lagos touts to flip the script once you have crossed their path.
“Ah Auntie Mi….My Aunty…Anything for Boys?” The idiot is now shaking the camera man that he almost killed as if they were frat brothers and have an understanding.
“We are just coming from Ikeja but we will see you later sha,” as if. But truly we probably would because we have to go through Apongbon quite often.
Anyways I’ll be working with STV for chop-money while I wrap my fingers and work my way around this freelancing thing. But do keep watching, I’ll try to load the video up so that those of you on Time Warner can enjoy it too. If you have any story ideas or any constructive criticism do shoot me an email.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Saturday, January 20, 2007
VILLAGE RUNS PART 3-- THE FINAL EPISODE
VIP TREATMENT, BANGER WARFARE AND HOW I LEFT THE VILLAGE
December 31st was the most fun I had on any village trip in my entire adulthood. Unfortunately we were once again awakened by the bloody village town crier who was going around at 5am with the gong reminding people about yet another church service. We also had to start the day by fetching water from the back yard well. Our GP tank had run dry. After all the early morning drama, we got all dressed up for church. Once again, although we tried, we could not avoid this one for two reasons. First my dad’s maternal uncle was doing a thanksgiving for his ‘Ezi-nna’ title and my dad’s brother’s wife was doing ‘itopu mkpe’ (ending her mourning period). So you see my friends, no amount of coy, sun, heat or dust could serve as an excuse for us not to be there. And to add to our grief, anything that involves my family is always the last on the list, I just don’t know why. We stood outside the entire time gisting and doing fashion parade like every one else. Gerda and Adanna were stuck with my parents, who have their own seat in church (if I had sat with them the other day, I may have gotten away with not covering my hair). It was hot as heck in there too. Immediately we were done with the obligatory thanksgivings, we went home to change and shifted to my dad’s uncle’s house in Umuduruehie, where there was enough food. This was a wonderful sight considering there was absolutely no food at home as my mother could not be in two places at a time. You know, this Christmas was somehow in our house oh. In the past we’d have food and drinks in excess and ‘out-the-wazoo’. You could go to the store and just grab whatever you want. Is it Star lager, Guinness small stout, odeku (Big Stout), Coke, Fanta, Gulder, malt, even palm wine. The best one you could find in the fridge this time around was UNILAG WATER. WTF!!!! We would kill chicken, goats and if we were lucky to have a good year, a cow would be shared amongst the different houses in our family. And my mother being the ‘Mother-T’ (a play on the words tea and Theresa, because she’s always serving ‘tea’ and serving food to everybody who comes, especially in the morning before she even eats) of the village, if any of the villagers were lucky enough to show up (we call it ukwu-oma or having the good leg) they’ll also get a portion of meat accompanied with rice and may be a tin or two of tomatoes so they can add that their holiday meal. But this year, hmh, the one tiny dwarf-goat that we found in the back yard awaiting slaughter ran away for 2 days and my dad didn’t even shout or over react. He was like, ‘Eh…well God must have rescued the goat, so go and buy mushrooms.’ Wow!!! But we found the goat later and made pepper-soup out of it. Back at my dad’s uncle’s party, we ate enough to last us the night and then we took Gerda and Adanna to ‘Okorosha’, the masquerade dance in the next village. This was the best ever.
In the past, going to Okorosha had never been fun for me. Since we ‘marauded’ in groups according to gender, my cousins, sisters and I always stood very far away and always near someone’s house so that we can run in if a masquerade jumped out. We always made sure we were not wearing trousers, and if we did in anticipation that we would have to run, we would tie wrapper over our pants or wear shorts under our skirt. Last time I visited, I was chased by the one called ‘Egwudo’, a rather wicked, scary and monstrous looking masquerade. I lost my brand-new nine west sunglasses that I bought for full price (Ok that’s no big deal since Dee broke her Roberto Cavalli goggles on Thursday). But this year it was very different. We drove to the Umu-okpara square unsure of what to expect. Me, Nene, Onyi, Gerda and Adanna got out and then the circus began. As sad as it is, Oyibo is good oh. I mean, can I walk around with a white person for the rest of my life? As we got out of the car, one unsightly masquerade spotted us and came over. At this point I would usually run away, especially since I was wearing trousers, but since I was with a white person, I had liver to form big girl and be confident, or were they going to flog me and the white woman. NEVER!! I told Gerda to ask before taking any pictures and did the translating for her. I found myself negotiating photo-ops with masquerades. That masquerade was lucky to get N200, but we got smart and went and got some N20 and N50 notes. We made our way towards the circle only to be greeted by one of the masters-of-ceremony who spoke to Gerda instead of us. He attempted to speak in what he thought was an American accent, ‘would like to have a seat?’ My eyes met with my sisters and the expression was ‘Are you serious?’ The man ushered us into the circle and seated us right in the front. Keep in mind there was no man with us, so this was a very big deal. The masquerades came up to us and danced in front of us and teased. They were not so scary any more. The masquerade that was supposed to be the flirty one kept on playing with us and wanting to collect our money without taking a picture with us. At some point one other MC came and started yelling at them to stop playing with us and taking pictures because we were women. But I had an agenda in mind. I was going to PUNK the masquerade that chased me. I am sure it was not the same dancer in costume, but whatever, I just wanted my picture. We could not get his attention or rather his guide was trying to pull a fast one on us by collecting our money first and asking for an exorbitant amount. I flashed a N500 but he refused to come, then I pulled out them N1000 bill and he seemed interested. I told him the only way he would get the money is if he posed with me for a picture. He obliged and that’s how Addy conquered Egwudo. After that I said a prayer and covered myself with the blood of Jesus because only God knows how many rituals they have to do before they come out on display. But thinking about it, all it took for me to get some bloody respect in my father’s land was to have a white-woman with me. It was fun but I could not help but analyze the conundrum of the situation. I guess until I start cruising town in some brand-new-tear-rubber SUV, build some duplex and starting dashing out mad cash, I’ll have to find a white-person-hand-bag. May be I’ll pick one up on one of my trips back to the States.
Later that night was the much anticipated ‘Ichu-Afo’, driving away the old year on New Year’s Eve. This is technically the part where fire works come in, but in our case it is noise to chase evil spirits. Ground Canons (egbe-ntu), double barrels, knock-out/banger, fire crackers even kids with sticks banging on empty tin-cans interrupt the musical orchestration that the crickets never fail to deliver every night. My sisters refused to go to the mission with me because they were tired, so I went with my cousins Adaobi and Chris. We bought N500 ($5) worth of banger; about 15 boxes with 10 sticks in each. We had to equip ourselves because New Year’s Eve at the mission is a war zone. We staked out one very dark corner and as people passed we’d throw the banger at them, watch them jump around and rave in Igbo, ‘Who is the ‘eeddiot’ that threw that banger? Thunder fire your head.’ Of course, we were dying of laughter and trying not to be loud. The madness however did not start till like 12.30. The new pastor at St. Andrew’s effed up on purpose I think, because usually church lets out at like 12.10. Anyways when everybody came out, it was crazy. Come and see hide-and-seek skills coming out. It was mischief at its best. I didn’t realize when my supply ran out. We headed towards home but my other cousins, some of whom were drunk decided to set a bon fire. They started singing Man-O-war songs like Obi Kerere Nke and some Tony-One-Week songs.
New Year’s Day, we had to go to church gain of course and show face in our ‘and-co’. New Year’s Day in our church is usually the biggest revenue collecting day so we were bound to be there a while. As I said earlier, since I was a kid this church has been collecting funds for a new building or one thing or the other but the window panels, the fans, ceiling and even the paint are more or less the original. They called my father to come and speak small grammar and open the floor for donation. My sister looked at me and was like ‘if this man should give out our flight ticket money in this place it would not be funny in that house.’ He spoke some grammar, being the ‘prof’ and then after a little bit he was like ‘kpana-kpana-kpana ** naira…and I would match the highest donation.’ WHAT? There were a bit too many zeros for my comfort and it ain’t like we are loaded in the sense to be giving out that chunk of money at a time. My sister was like, ‘you better go and tell your father to stop misbehaving.’ Other people came and gave their own. Then ‘Aunty Queen’, who for unexplainable reasons gets the gold medal for most liked, and I say that in sarcasm, opened the floor up for women with a few motivational women-empowerment words, ‘kpana-kpana-kpana ** naira’. Chris’s father came and dropped his own and the church went wild with standing ovation. OK, seems like business was good for some people in 2006. Then what did we hear next, a woman’s voice, ‘Praise the Lord…kpana-kpana-kpana ** naira to build the house of the Lord’. It was my mother.
‘Aw hell no...We are so freaking flying to Lagos, on first class if we can.’ I said as I looked at my equally flabbergasted sisters. I went to the window near where my dad was sitting.
‘Bros, I hope that is not our ticket money you are dashing out?’ tapping him on his shoulder.
‘C’mon gerrout my friend.’ He was obviously irritated by my question.
‘Is it me you are telling to gerrout? OK, it will do you like magic when you wake up tomorrow and don’t find me and your wallet.’ I had my own back up plan just incase plan A would no work.
We grumbled the entire drive back home and talked as if they were not there just to annoy them. I guess he didn’t think we were serious until we woke up at like 4am and started taking our bath and packing up our stuff. We went to him and he was like,
‘So what time does ABC first bus leave?’ He said when I went for collection and to greet him in the morning. I had to gather myself because it was too early for that sort of bad joke.
‘Err excuse me, I am going to the airport o and I need money for my ticket.’ My sisters quickly corrected me.
‘We…we need money for ticket.’ I had never seen reflexes in action like that.
My brother Chiwuike had laughed at us the night before when we’d told him how we were going.
‘Yeah right, you want to collect flight money from your father. Which father is that? You must have the wrong father in mind because it is not the same one that gave birth to us,’ he didn’t realize that we were very serious and had sworn that ‘levels go change in 2007’.
‘So how do you people say you are going?’ Chiwuike asked as we came out with our bags and headed for the car.
‘By air now’ I replied.
His eyes went wide and his face cracked in disbelief, ‘Ehn….Me nko? You did not collect for me? I see how you people are behaving in this house. Me that I have been here since begging and banging my head on the wall to collect and you, you just come from no where and you are collecting money to fly. Why? Because you are nnunu...pigeon....ehn? It's not your fault, Ada-Ugo (Eagle's daughter) or is it Egbe...hawk...answer now...which one…Nonsense!!!!’ By now he's rolling his eyes, demonstrating and ends with a very long, loud and deafening hiss. 'Psheeeewwww!!’
‘You didn’t say you were interested in flying.’ I had to laugh at his ‘half-joke-half-seriousness’. It was too late to include him or even go back to collect funds on his behalf.
We got to the airport and found that Aero Contractor had cancelled all its flights and Virgin was fully booked. Chanchangi was the only option but the 9.30 am and 1.30 pm were fully booked, according to the ticket agent. The 3pm flight was available but they would not start selling that until the other flights had taken off. The Harmattan haze, which is truly air-pollution and smog, was causing major flight delays that day. While we were waiting Dr. Alban, Sound Sultan and Nkiru Anumudu, all wide eyed and Gucci’ed out, rolled in. After a long wait, I decided to go and speak some grammar and phonetics at the airline office to get on a waiting list for the 3pm flight. But when in my conversation I purposely dropped one or two media giant names the agent miraculously found us seats on the flight that had been scheduled for 9.30am. Much to my surprise he turned down the token (not bribe) that I had given him for his ‘kindness’ because truly I just wanted to get on the waiting list for the 3pm flight.
The plane did not leave till 3.30pm and believe me when I say that was the scariest flight I have ever been on. I was nearly pissing in my pants. The roof of the plane was rattling the entire time. The image that kept coming in my head was the promo of ‘Snakes on a Plane.’ The engine sounded like the rickety motorcycles/ okada that ply the highways. It was not funny at all, however I was glad to be back in Lasgidi in a journey that took less than an hour. I could not take one more day in the East nor could I envision myself enduring the trip by road.
I came back and crashed till the next morning only waking in between when someone brought some suya. I woke up the next day, strong enough and well refreshed. That week I met Wild Child of Rhythm FM (He is truly wild) and my other favorite naija musician for 2006, African China. As I escorted folks to the airport, it dawned on me that I would not be going back to America for a while. Hmh… don’t know how I feel about that yet but I do know that if I was leaving there would not have been a dry eye at the airport. I am sure I would have cried all the way to California. Truly there is no place like home, even if it is not as comfortable as one wishes it to be. Right now I am trying to make some new friends to add to the old ones and of course settle into my new environment. I am already driving on the crazy Lagos roads and without a license if I may add. And is it just me or is MNET AFRICA MAGIC channel just not addictive. It is the Nollywood movie channel and once my remote lands on it I just can’t seem to get away.
COMING UP—PICTURES FROM THE TRIP(I HAVE TO GO TO COOL CAFE TO LOAD THEM UP, MY SERVICE CAN'T CARRY THEM) AND ADDY’S ENCOUNTER WITH AREA BOYS—YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS IT.
December 31st was the most fun I had on any village trip in my entire adulthood. Unfortunately we were once again awakened by the bloody village town crier who was going around at 5am with the gong reminding people about yet another church service. We also had to start the day by fetching water from the back yard well. Our GP tank had run dry. After all the early morning drama, we got all dressed up for church. Once again, although we tried, we could not avoid this one for two reasons. First my dad’s maternal uncle was doing a thanksgiving for his ‘Ezi-nna’ title and my dad’s brother’s wife was doing ‘itopu mkpe’ (ending her mourning period). So you see my friends, no amount of coy, sun, heat or dust could serve as an excuse for us not to be there. And to add to our grief, anything that involves my family is always the last on the list, I just don’t know why. We stood outside the entire time gisting and doing fashion parade like every one else. Gerda and Adanna were stuck with my parents, who have their own seat in church (if I had sat with them the other day, I may have gotten away with not covering my hair). It was hot as heck in there too. Immediately we were done with the obligatory thanksgivings, we went home to change and shifted to my dad’s uncle’s house in Umuduruehie, where there was enough food. This was a wonderful sight considering there was absolutely no food at home as my mother could not be in two places at a time. You know, this Christmas was somehow in our house oh. In the past we’d have food and drinks in excess and ‘out-the-wazoo’. You could go to the store and just grab whatever you want. Is it Star lager, Guinness small stout, odeku (Big Stout), Coke, Fanta, Gulder, malt, even palm wine. The best one you could find in the fridge this time around was UNILAG WATER. WTF!!!! We would kill chicken, goats and if we were lucky to have a good year, a cow would be shared amongst the different houses in our family. And my mother being the ‘Mother-T’ (a play on the words tea and Theresa, because she’s always serving ‘tea’ and serving food to everybody who comes, especially in the morning before she even eats) of the village, if any of the villagers were lucky enough to show up (we call it ukwu-oma or having the good leg) they’ll also get a portion of meat accompanied with rice and may be a tin or two of tomatoes so they can add that their holiday meal. But this year, hmh, the one tiny dwarf-goat that we found in the back yard awaiting slaughter ran away for 2 days and my dad didn’t even shout or over react. He was like, ‘Eh…well God must have rescued the goat, so go and buy mushrooms.’ Wow!!! But we found the goat later and made pepper-soup out of it. Back at my dad’s uncle’s party, we ate enough to last us the night and then we took Gerda and Adanna to ‘Okorosha’, the masquerade dance in the next village. This was the best ever.
In the past, going to Okorosha had never been fun for me. Since we ‘marauded’ in groups according to gender, my cousins, sisters and I always stood very far away and always near someone’s house so that we can run in if a masquerade jumped out. We always made sure we were not wearing trousers, and if we did in anticipation that we would have to run, we would tie wrapper over our pants or wear shorts under our skirt. Last time I visited, I was chased by the one called ‘Egwudo’, a rather wicked, scary and monstrous looking masquerade. I lost my brand-new nine west sunglasses that I bought for full price (Ok that’s no big deal since Dee broke her Roberto Cavalli goggles on Thursday). But this year it was very different. We drove to the Umu-okpara square unsure of what to expect. Me, Nene, Onyi, Gerda and Adanna got out and then the circus began. As sad as it is, Oyibo is good oh. I mean, can I walk around with a white person for the rest of my life? As we got out of the car, one unsightly masquerade spotted us and came over. At this point I would usually run away, especially since I was wearing trousers, but since I was with a white person, I had liver to form big girl and be confident, or were they going to flog me and the white woman. NEVER!! I told Gerda to ask before taking any pictures and did the translating for her. I found myself negotiating photo-ops with masquerades. That masquerade was lucky to get N200, but we got smart and went and got some N20 and N50 notes. We made our way towards the circle only to be greeted by one of the masters-of-ceremony who spoke to Gerda instead of us. He attempted to speak in what he thought was an American accent, ‘would like to have a seat?’ My eyes met with my sisters and the expression was ‘Are you serious?’ The man ushered us into the circle and seated us right in the front. Keep in mind there was no man with us, so this was a very big deal. The masquerades came up to us and danced in front of us and teased. They were not so scary any more. The masquerade that was supposed to be the flirty one kept on playing with us and wanting to collect our money without taking a picture with us. At some point one other MC came and started yelling at them to stop playing with us and taking pictures because we were women. But I had an agenda in mind. I was going to PUNK the masquerade that chased me. I am sure it was not the same dancer in costume, but whatever, I just wanted my picture. We could not get his attention or rather his guide was trying to pull a fast one on us by collecting our money first and asking for an exorbitant amount. I flashed a N500 but he refused to come, then I pulled out them N1000 bill and he seemed interested. I told him the only way he would get the money is if he posed with me for a picture. He obliged and that’s how Addy conquered Egwudo. After that I said a prayer and covered myself with the blood of Jesus because only God knows how many rituals they have to do before they come out on display. But thinking about it, all it took for me to get some bloody respect in my father’s land was to have a white-woman with me. It was fun but I could not help but analyze the conundrum of the situation. I guess until I start cruising town in some brand-new-tear-rubber SUV, build some duplex and starting dashing out mad cash, I’ll have to find a white-person-hand-bag. May be I’ll pick one up on one of my trips back to the States.
Later that night was the much anticipated ‘Ichu-Afo’, driving away the old year on New Year’s Eve. This is technically the part where fire works come in, but in our case it is noise to chase evil spirits. Ground Canons (egbe-ntu), double barrels, knock-out/banger, fire crackers even kids with sticks banging on empty tin-cans interrupt the musical orchestration that the crickets never fail to deliver every night. My sisters refused to go to the mission with me because they were tired, so I went with my cousins Adaobi and Chris. We bought N500 ($5) worth of banger; about 15 boxes with 10 sticks in each. We had to equip ourselves because New Year’s Eve at the mission is a war zone. We staked out one very dark corner and as people passed we’d throw the banger at them, watch them jump around and rave in Igbo, ‘Who is the ‘eeddiot’ that threw that banger? Thunder fire your head.’ Of course, we were dying of laughter and trying not to be loud. The madness however did not start till like 12.30. The new pastor at St. Andrew’s effed up on purpose I think, because usually church lets out at like 12.10. Anyways when everybody came out, it was crazy. Come and see hide-and-seek skills coming out. It was mischief at its best. I didn’t realize when my supply ran out. We headed towards home but my other cousins, some of whom were drunk decided to set a bon fire. They started singing Man-O-war songs like Obi Kerere Nke and some Tony-One-Week songs.
New Year’s Day, we had to go to church gain of course and show face in our ‘and-co’. New Year’s Day in our church is usually the biggest revenue collecting day so we were bound to be there a while. As I said earlier, since I was a kid this church has been collecting funds for a new building or one thing or the other but the window panels, the fans, ceiling and even the paint are more or less the original. They called my father to come and speak small grammar and open the floor for donation. My sister looked at me and was like ‘if this man should give out our flight ticket money in this place it would not be funny in that house.’ He spoke some grammar, being the ‘prof’ and then after a little bit he was like ‘kpana-kpana-kpana ** naira…and I would match the highest donation.’ WHAT? There were a bit too many zeros for my comfort and it ain’t like we are loaded in the sense to be giving out that chunk of money at a time. My sister was like, ‘you better go and tell your father to stop misbehaving.’ Other people came and gave their own. Then ‘Aunty Queen’, who for unexplainable reasons gets the gold medal for most liked, and I say that in sarcasm, opened the floor up for women with a few motivational women-empowerment words, ‘kpana-kpana-kpana ** naira’. Chris’s father came and dropped his own and the church went wild with standing ovation. OK, seems like business was good for some people in 2006. Then what did we hear next, a woman’s voice, ‘Praise the Lord…kpana-kpana-kpana ** naira to build the house of the Lord’. It was my mother.
‘Aw hell no...We are so freaking flying to Lagos, on first class if we can.’ I said as I looked at my equally flabbergasted sisters. I went to the window near where my dad was sitting.
‘Bros, I hope that is not our ticket money you are dashing out?’ tapping him on his shoulder.
‘C’mon gerrout my friend.’ He was obviously irritated by my question.
‘Is it me you are telling to gerrout? OK, it will do you like magic when you wake up tomorrow and don’t find me and your wallet.’ I had my own back up plan just incase plan A would no work.
We grumbled the entire drive back home and talked as if they were not there just to annoy them. I guess he didn’t think we were serious until we woke up at like 4am and started taking our bath and packing up our stuff. We went to him and he was like,
‘So what time does ABC first bus leave?’ He said when I went for collection and to greet him in the morning. I had to gather myself because it was too early for that sort of bad joke.
‘Err excuse me, I am going to the airport o and I need money for my ticket.’ My sisters quickly corrected me.
‘We…we need money for ticket.’ I had never seen reflexes in action like that.
My brother Chiwuike had laughed at us the night before when we’d told him how we were going.
‘Yeah right, you want to collect flight money from your father. Which father is that? You must have the wrong father in mind because it is not the same one that gave birth to us,’ he didn’t realize that we were very serious and had sworn that ‘levels go change in 2007’.
‘So how do you people say you are going?’ Chiwuike asked as we came out with our bags and headed for the car.
‘By air now’ I replied.
His eyes went wide and his face cracked in disbelief, ‘Ehn….Me nko? You did not collect for me? I see how you people are behaving in this house. Me that I have been here since begging and banging my head on the wall to collect and you, you just come from no where and you are collecting money to fly. Why? Because you are nnunu...pigeon....ehn? It's not your fault, Ada-Ugo (Eagle's daughter) or is it Egbe...hawk...answer now...which one…Nonsense!!!!’ By now he's rolling his eyes, demonstrating and ends with a very long, loud and deafening hiss. 'Psheeeewwww!!’
‘You didn’t say you were interested in flying.’ I had to laugh at his ‘half-joke-half-seriousness’. It was too late to include him or even go back to collect funds on his behalf.
We got to the airport and found that Aero Contractor had cancelled all its flights and Virgin was fully booked. Chanchangi was the only option but the 9.30 am and 1.30 pm were fully booked, according to the ticket agent. The 3pm flight was available but they would not start selling that until the other flights had taken off. The Harmattan haze, which is truly air-pollution and smog, was causing major flight delays that day. While we were waiting Dr. Alban, Sound Sultan and Nkiru Anumudu, all wide eyed and Gucci’ed out, rolled in. After a long wait, I decided to go and speak some grammar and phonetics at the airline office to get on a waiting list for the 3pm flight. But when in my conversation I purposely dropped one or two media giant names the agent miraculously found us seats on the flight that had been scheduled for 9.30am. Much to my surprise he turned down the token (not bribe) that I had given him for his ‘kindness’ because truly I just wanted to get on the waiting list for the 3pm flight.
The plane did not leave till 3.30pm and believe me when I say that was the scariest flight I have ever been on. I was nearly pissing in my pants. The roof of the plane was rattling the entire time. The image that kept coming in my head was the promo of ‘Snakes on a Plane.’ The engine sounded like the rickety motorcycles/ okada that ply the highways. It was not funny at all, however I was glad to be back in Lasgidi in a journey that took less than an hour. I could not take one more day in the East nor could I envision myself enduring the trip by road.
I came back and crashed till the next morning only waking in between when someone brought some suya. I woke up the next day, strong enough and well refreshed. That week I met Wild Child of Rhythm FM (He is truly wild) and my other favorite naija musician for 2006, African China. As I escorted folks to the airport, it dawned on me that I would not be going back to America for a while. Hmh… don’t know how I feel about that yet but I do know that if I was leaving there would not have been a dry eye at the airport. I am sure I would have cried all the way to California. Truly there is no place like home, even if it is not as comfortable as one wishes it to be. Right now I am trying to make some new friends to add to the old ones and of course settle into my new environment. I am already driving on the crazy Lagos roads and without a license if I may add. And is it just me or is MNET AFRICA MAGIC channel just not addictive. It is the Nollywood movie channel and once my remote lands on it I just can’t seem to get away.
COMING UP—PICTURES FROM THE TRIP(I HAVE TO GO TO COOL CAFE TO LOAD THEM UP, MY SERVICE CAN'T CARRY THEM) AND ADDY’S ENCOUNTER WITH AREA BOYS—YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS IT.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
VILLAGE RUNS PART 2
Kicked Out of the 24/7 Church
(Here’s a personal WELCOME note to the MTN Lagos staff who were recently recruited by ‘someone’. Sure he just told one person, but this spot can be contagious)
The next morning, which was Friday, an uncle was having a Thanksgiving church service to praise God for his recent political appointment. The venue, of course was our very infamous village church at the mission, St. Andrew’s Church. Now let me tell you about good old’ St. Andrews. It is the center and the pulse of Uburu-Ekwe. Everything happens in and around that church, even when it has no business being there. There was a time when the village tried unsuccessfully to ban women from wearing pants and mini skirts. Then they successfully ran the sacred Mmau masquerades underground. This and a lot more done from the pulpit of the church while they came up with one project or fund raiser to get your money. If you get anything new such as a house, baby, wife, husband, and you don’t take it to St. Andrew’s, hmh...hmh… you have not completed the ritual. If you can’t go there, at least invite the pastor to come to your house. Then if you are having a party for any of the above, you need not waste money to print out invitations or flyers, just say ‘Onakpotu na b’anyi, yirinu efe mara mma bianekiri ife n’akwu’ (there’s something happening at my house, wear you best clothes and come and see for yourselves). Let’s not even talk about the radical wing of the church, the Ekwe Born Again Association aka ‘Ndi-Born-Again’.
Anyways my sisters and I tried to get out of going to church, but this uncle is a rather important uncle and my father said to us, ‘If you like go to heaven and come back, just make sure you are in that church.’ We didn’t make any special outfit so I just wore one of my dresses. I don’t know if I was just being stubborn or that I refused to be bothered with what ‘villagers’ would say so I did not think twice about what I was wearing. After all my father saw and did not say to go and change. The criticism started when one of the ‘mamas’ who came to greet ‘ada-america’ came and pulled my dress up in the front. I was like ‘mama hapu that thing, it is the style.’ My sister’s told me to just take a pashmina just in case. I took one with me but draped it around my neck. At first there were no seats for us in the inside so we stood outside trying to be inconspicuous. But how is that possible when my sisters decided to do the Jackie O meets Queen Nora look with huge gogglish shades and their scarves tied like a hijab. I was like whatever. Things were going ok, we came in, one or two people tugged at my pashmina, trying to get it from my neck to my hair. Being me, I rolled my eyes and raised my finger, ‘Excuse me, how is it affecting you?’ The call to give offering came and I sashayed to the offering basin and back to my seat. Little did I know that the ‘mean’ custodian of the church had his evil eye on me and followed me. He came up from behind and pulled my pashmina over my hair.
ADDY: Dude get away from me man…Lemme alone.
CUSTODIAN: Cover ya hair... ah ah... how can
ADDY: How is that affecting you?
CUSTODIAN: I SAY COVER YA HAIR… it is ‘awa’ law.
ADDY: Where is that law and who made it? Please allow me to listen to the pastor.
CUSTODIAN: (by now raising his voice and being rather obnoxious) If you don’t cover ya hair I will embarazz you hear now. Either that or you leave.
ADDY: The church I go, it is abomination to cover our hair so I am not covering mine. Do your worst…geroutta my face please.
CUSTODIAN: This is ya first warning, don’t let me come back and see you here.
WOMAN: Cover your hair o, you know this is village and these are illiterates, they won’t understand you.
ADDY: Madam, se me see wahala o, if I say I don’t want to cover my hair, is that now a reason to be rude like that and shouting any how. He would rather interrupt the service just to prove power than to let me listen to the word of God.
CUSTODIAN: (Walks past) Hmh…hmh…second warning
MY SISTER: (Irritated by the man) you know what we really don’t have to be here. Let’s just leave and avoid any nonsense because as I see this man he is ready to stop this service.
RANDOM MAN: Nne we know your hair is fine but you can just take handkerchief and cover it, the is village, they are not exposed and the man is ready to embrazz you here.
Seeing that this was a battle I could not win, we got up and stormed into our car and I drove off. Not before some foolish boys yelled out in Igbo, ‘See what they are wearing, since when did people start coming to church naked?” Wow…naked is not quite the adjective I would use to describe our outfit.
We then went to my dad’s maternal home, Umuduruehie, which was just down the road from church. It is one of the few places we can eat freely and not worry about and juju-like stuff. I went to see my favorite old man, De Chukere. He is my dad’s uncle and the oldest man in the village now. He is really really old, so old that he has lost even his sense of feeling. In the past, he could hold your hand or hear your voice and know who you are. Seeing him like this broke my heart because he is dear to us and I can’t imagine going to Umuduruehie and not seeing De Chukere. Not normal, but we are all preparing ourselves because any moment the news could come. What I can say is that the man lived a wonderful life and we all pray to be as old as he is. Anyways, I took his hand and took a picture with him because I may not get that opportunity again.
Later that evening we had the annual Ekwe Day at the primary school field. BORING. That stuff used to be fun back in the day. I guess I have gotten too old to enjoy its.
Somewhere in between, our tire lost air and we had to go and find a vulcanizer. We drove through the bumpy road for 20 minutes to the only vulcanizer in the village. The negro charged us $500 (almost $5) to put air in our tire. It was either that or try with a bicycle pump. After that, our tire wheel started smoking; we’d probably burn the clutch from driving on only gear 1 and 2. Meanwhile we were operating on 1-0-1 (Breakfast-No lunch because our mother was not home to cook- very late dinner)
The next morning we decided to go o my mom’s village in Owerri. We took our Christmas guests along. My late cousin’s German wife Gerda (Nwaanyi Onye ocha aka Oyibo), and their seven year old daughter Adanna. This holiday was my first time meeting them. Naturally we have to take them where ever we go, like hand bags and accessories, and you can imagine the attention it was bringing, especially since they had an African outfit for every church service. Anyways, we got to Owerri and considering the fact that I truly feel that the next time I come to the east would be for someone’s wine-carrying, we decided this would be an express visitation. First stop Umuorie-Naze to see Aunty KZ. We did her the honors first because she is always upset that whenever we come we never make it to her house, or that we come to se her last and rush out. Unfortunately she was not at home. Next stop Umuakali-Naze, my mom’s home to see her brother ‘Uncle Daddy’. Why everyone calls him that, I just don’t know. He served us some African Salad (oil-bean salad) with pumo and shaki which Gerda examined extra well and asked questions like an invigilator before she and Adanna ate it. She cleaned the bowl and said in her broken English, “zis vehry gud gud but iz vehry pepper an’ zee meat hard.” We found some dusty and worn out books from the 50’s and 60’s in a glassless cabinet. One book stood out, ‘Do’s and Don’ts: Mistakes ’. This is a book from the colonial era. We shall learn more from that in subsequent blog entries. After a while we found some cute chicks (as in baby chickens not fine girls) roaming around in the back yard. I tried to catch one to play with but it kept evading me, Adanna joined in, and then went to call her mother who was carrying her camera around and taking pictures. I went and got some garri from the kitchen and that’s when they all came to me. But the mother hen started clucking really loudly and tried to fly out of the pen so we retreated.
From Naze we went to Isi-uzo Egbu to see Mama Felicia, my mother’s eldest sister. She was surprised to see us, but then all the neighbors came to see the ‘Ndi-ocha’ that we came with. It was so embarrassing the way they were just coming in and just starring. We didn’t stay long not just because of the growing crowd but also because we were hungry and Mama had not finished cooking. We were hoping to get to Ofe-Uzo Egbu to Aunty Celina’s to meet dinner. Bad move, especially after my mom refused to call to tell them we were coming. You can guess what happened. But on a good note, we met the birth of a new cousin, who my Uncle, her grandpa, has decided to call… you guessed it…ADAURE. I wasn’t too pleased to hear that but I decided not to express that displeasure. Apparently he had been thinking of what name to give the baby when I walked in and pleasantly surprised him. Aunty Celina had no food in the house so we had to rely on good ol’ Indomie noodles. On our way home, we got stuck in some wicked traffic for two hours. No AC because there was fuel scarcity, and you know how that goes. We didn’t get home till 10 pm.
STAY TUNED TO READ ABOUT MY VIP TREATMENT
(Here’s a personal WELCOME note to the MTN Lagos staff who were recently recruited by ‘someone’. Sure he just told one person, but this spot can be contagious)
The next morning, which was Friday, an uncle was having a Thanksgiving church service to praise God for his recent political appointment. The venue, of course was our very infamous village church at the mission, St. Andrew’s Church. Now let me tell you about good old’ St. Andrews. It is the center and the pulse of Uburu-Ekwe. Everything happens in and around that church, even when it has no business being there. There was a time when the village tried unsuccessfully to ban women from wearing pants and mini skirts. Then they successfully ran the sacred Mmau masquerades underground. This and a lot more done from the pulpit of the church while they came up with one project or fund raiser to get your money. If you get anything new such as a house, baby, wife, husband, and you don’t take it to St. Andrew’s, hmh...hmh… you have not completed the ritual. If you can’t go there, at least invite the pastor to come to your house. Then if you are having a party for any of the above, you need not waste money to print out invitations or flyers, just say ‘Onakpotu na b’anyi, yirinu efe mara mma bianekiri ife n’akwu’ (there’s something happening at my house, wear you best clothes and come and see for yourselves). Let’s not even talk about the radical wing of the church, the Ekwe Born Again Association aka ‘Ndi-Born-Again’.
Anyways my sisters and I tried to get out of going to church, but this uncle is a rather important uncle and my father said to us, ‘If you like go to heaven and come back, just make sure you are in that church.’ We didn’t make any special outfit so I just wore one of my dresses. I don’t know if I was just being stubborn or that I refused to be bothered with what ‘villagers’ would say so I did not think twice about what I was wearing. After all my father saw and did not say to go and change. The criticism started when one of the ‘mamas’ who came to greet ‘ada-america’ came and pulled my dress up in the front. I was like ‘mama hapu that thing, it is the style.’ My sister’s told me to just take a pashmina just in case. I took one with me but draped it around my neck. At first there were no seats for us in the inside so we stood outside trying to be inconspicuous. But how is that possible when my sisters decided to do the Jackie O meets Queen Nora look with huge gogglish shades and their scarves tied like a hijab. I was like whatever. Things were going ok, we came in, one or two people tugged at my pashmina, trying to get it from my neck to my hair. Being me, I rolled my eyes and raised my finger, ‘Excuse me, how is it affecting you?’ The call to give offering came and I sashayed to the offering basin and back to my seat. Little did I know that the ‘mean’ custodian of the church had his evil eye on me and followed me. He came up from behind and pulled my pashmina over my hair.
ADDY: Dude get away from me man…Lemme alone.
CUSTODIAN: Cover ya hair... ah ah... how can
ADDY: How is that affecting you?
CUSTODIAN: I SAY COVER YA HAIR… it is ‘awa’ law.
ADDY: Where is that law and who made it? Please allow me to listen to the pastor.
CUSTODIAN: (by now raising his voice and being rather obnoxious) If you don’t cover ya hair I will embarazz you hear now. Either that or you leave.
ADDY: The church I go, it is abomination to cover our hair so I am not covering mine. Do your worst…geroutta my face please.
CUSTODIAN: This is ya first warning, don’t let me come back and see you here.
WOMAN: Cover your hair o, you know this is village and these are illiterates, they won’t understand you.
ADDY: Madam, se me see wahala o, if I say I don’t want to cover my hair, is that now a reason to be rude like that and shouting any how. He would rather interrupt the service just to prove power than to let me listen to the word of God.
CUSTODIAN: (Walks past) Hmh…hmh…second warning
MY SISTER: (Irritated by the man) you know what we really don’t have to be here. Let’s just leave and avoid any nonsense because as I see this man he is ready to stop this service.
RANDOM MAN: Nne we know your hair is fine but you can just take handkerchief and cover it, the is village, they are not exposed and the man is ready to embrazz you here.
Seeing that this was a battle I could not win, we got up and stormed into our car and I drove off. Not before some foolish boys yelled out in Igbo, ‘See what they are wearing, since when did people start coming to church naked?” Wow…naked is not quite the adjective I would use to describe our outfit.
We then went to my dad’s maternal home, Umuduruehie, which was just down the road from church. It is one of the few places we can eat freely and not worry about and juju-like stuff. I went to see my favorite old man, De Chukere. He is my dad’s uncle and the oldest man in the village now. He is really really old, so old that he has lost even his sense of feeling. In the past, he could hold your hand or hear your voice and know who you are. Seeing him like this broke my heart because he is dear to us and I can’t imagine going to Umuduruehie and not seeing De Chukere. Not normal, but we are all preparing ourselves because any moment the news could come. What I can say is that the man lived a wonderful life and we all pray to be as old as he is. Anyways, I took his hand and took a picture with him because I may not get that opportunity again.
Later that evening we had the annual Ekwe Day at the primary school field. BORING. That stuff used to be fun back in the day. I guess I have gotten too old to enjoy its.
Somewhere in between, our tire lost air and we had to go and find a vulcanizer. We drove through the bumpy road for 20 minutes to the only vulcanizer in the village. The negro charged us $500 (almost $5) to put air in our tire. It was either that or try with a bicycle pump. After that, our tire wheel started smoking; we’d probably burn the clutch from driving on only gear 1 and 2. Meanwhile we were operating on 1-0-1 (Breakfast-No lunch because our mother was not home to cook- very late dinner)
The next morning we decided to go o my mom’s village in Owerri. We took our Christmas guests along. My late cousin’s German wife Gerda (Nwaanyi Onye ocha aka Oyibo), and their seven year old daughter Adanna. This holiday was my first time meeting them. Naturally we have to take them where ever we go, like hand bags and accessories, and you can imagine the attention it was bringing, especially since they had an African outfit for every church service. Anyways, we got to Owerri and considering the fact that I truly feel that the next time I come to the east would be for someone’s wine-carrying, we decided this would be an express visitation. First stop Umuorie-Naze to see Aunty KZ. We did her the honors first because she is always upset that whenever we come we never make it to her house, or that we come to se her last and rush out. Unfortunately she was not at home. Next stop Umuakali-Naze, my mom’s home to see her brother ‘Uncle Daddy’. Why everyone calls him that, I just don’t know. He served us some African Salad (oil-bean salad) with pumo and shaki which Gerda examined extra well and asked questions like an invigilator before she and Adanna ate it. She cleaned the bowl and said in her broken English, “zis vehry gud gud but iz vehry pepper an’ zee meat hard.” We found some dusty and worn out books from the 50’s and 60’s in a glassless cabinet. One book stood out, ‘Do’s and Don’ts: Mistakes ’. This is a book from the colonial era. We shall learn more from that in subsequent blog entries. After a while we found some cute chicks (as in baby chickens not fine girls) roaming around in the back yard. I tried to catch one to play with but it kept evading me, Adanna joined in, and then went to call her mother who was carrying her camera around and taking pictures. I went and got some garri from the kitchen and that’s when they all came to me. But the mother hen started clucking really loudly and tried to fly out of the pen so we retreated.
From Naze we went to Isi-uzo Egbu to see Mama Felicia, my mother’s eldest sister. She was surprised to see us, but then all the neighbors came to see the ‘Ndi-ocha’ that we came with. It was so embarrassing the way they were just coming in and just starring. We didn’t stay long not just because of the growing crowd but also because we were hungry and Mama had not finished cooking. We were hoping to get to Ofe-Uzo Egbu to Aunty Celina’s to meet dinner. Bad move, especially after my mom refused to call to tell them we were coming. You can guess what happened. But on a good note, we met the birth of a new cousin, who my Uncle, her grandpa, has decided to call… you guessed it…ADAURE. I wasn’t too pleased to hear that but I decided not to express that displeasure. Apparently he had been thinking of what name to give the baby when I walked in and pleasantly surprised him. Aunty Celina had no food in the house so we had to rely on good ol’ Indomie noodles. On our way home, we got stuck in some wicked traffic for two hours. No AC because there was fuel scarcity, and you know how that goes. We didn’t get home till 10 pm.
STAY TUNED TO READ ABOUT MY VIP TREATMENT
Sunday, January 07, 2007
VILLAGE RUNS PART 1
The Sojourn into the Land of Red Sand and Pitch Darkness
A Happy New Year to all you wonderful people. A belated Barka de Sallah to those of you who celebrated that and ate all of the ram in Lagos without inviting me. So we made it to 2007? No accident, no robbery, no kain nonsense. Ah!! God is good and very very ‘wonderfulous’. To those of you who dedicated time to stop by and read my last entry despite the lack of maintenance, thanks for sticking with your girl. Don’t worry, no condition is permanent and a patient dog always eats the fattest bone. (Reader: Is it me that you are now calling a dog? Adaure: Is your name Bingo?). The month of December was a transitional phase and soon I shall get up to speed so that you can get your dose of what Addy has to say. But let’s get right to it though, the ‘Koko’ of the matter so that some of you can get back to doing your home work and the work that you are being paid for. I got back from the village on Tuesday but let’s rewind….
5am Dec 28th the Journey Begins
Honestly man, thinking about it, I truly was not looking forward to going to the village. It wasn’t just because I was going to miss out on trips or electricity but for the mere fact that Harmattan was going to do a number on me. I had already lost my voice the night before and believe that as I write this, my voice is still beckoning somewhere for me to come and collect it. Since we some how convinced my father that we will find our way to the village just so that we could avoid having to have gone with him on the 24th, we had to go through some suffa-head moves. We agreed that we would take ABC bus to Owerri and the driver or our cousin would pick us up there. For me this was a normal routine as I have played this card a number of times before in order to get in a few more nights of partying with peace of mind. But apparently for one of my sister’s (Onyi) this was history for her as the last time she had been on one of these luxurious buses was ‘the first time I had been on one’, which was in 1991. I remember very well because that was the summer vacation just before I started secondary school. We had stayed at my dad’s house in Orlu and our car engine knocked at on the way to Lagos. Unfortunately for us we were suppose to start school the following Monday, which was in a few days so there was no option to turn back. That was the day I knew that ‘suffering’ had levels. To piss was wahala, not to talk of asking for banana and groundnut, which was part of the highlight of these road trips. My sister wore a hat and sunglasses and was like, ‘If they sent you from America to come and destroy my rep in this Lagos, tell them you did not find me.’ Nnenne on the other hand only broke her non-luxurious bus riding stretch last December when she had to escort my cousin’s Kenyan wife to the village so the nightmare of the situation was still fresh in her mind. We fit all our stuff into one suitcase, each outfit for the duration of our stay carefully assigned. We were like once New Year’s Day is over we are ‘peacing out’ so no need to carry excess luggage. Plus my dad said ‘travel light’. What we did was an understatement. We got to the bus station at Jibowu and then I thought to myself, ‘Babe you know you really don’t have to go through this?’ Little did I know what I was in for. First of all the pot holes along that Lagos-Ibadan Express Road can swallow a Coca-Cola truck and still have room for Pepsi. This is a problem across the country and was certainly expected, in fact you will be reading more about bad-roads and pot-holes in subsequent entries. But what I was not expecting was a suitcase almost falling on my head. Then the traffic that we hit at Ore in Ondo State was just a bastard. We were in it for two hours and our journey was still far. The cause of the go-slow again was bad roads because in that area the East bound lane of the highway was unmotorable and so that traffic had to use the West bound lane. And to say that Nigerians drivers can be very stupid is a statement that is unworthy of a gold medal. That is why there is so much road rage because some things that they do can make you want to get down from your car and become a traffic warden. You get the picture. And then you have those other set of stupid Nigerians that call themselves Mobile Police, government officials and dignitaries who go around with sirens trying to fly over the mess that is their responsibility. And to tell you how extra stupid they can be, one convoy was trying to get by but there was no where to go, so an idiotic uniformed man with a gun decided to shoot out the tire of the vehicle in the way. Now my question is after doing that, did he now expect the driver to carry the car on the head and move it out of the way? And knowing how things are hard in this country, I am sure that must have been a brand new tire the owner bought just to be able to have a safe drive to their hometown. I am quite certain that the ‘Oga dignitary’ saw what his officer did, but of course he or she would not care because to them we the Nigerian masses are ants that are meant to be crushed and so it goes unpunished. In a ‘civil’ society such a thing cannot fly. SHAME ON ALL THESE OFFICIALS WHO ABUSE POWER IN SUCH MANNER AND BLINDLY ALLOW THEIR STAFF TO INDULGE IN SUCH CRUELTY. I slept quite a bit on the bus but what was amazing to me was the fact that we got to Benin at 2.30pm, 6 and half hours after we started. In the past, if we leave Lagos at 9am, we would get to Benin by 12pm. May be it was the speed of the bus and the traffic factor but that one was a wonder. Upon getting to Benin, not only did I find myself talking to God not to allow my digestive system to misbehave, I also found myself playing detective. First about my conversation with God. You know how I had been avoiding peppery food. Well the night before, while I was on ‘my almost-a-date-but-not-quite’, I forgot that I was traveling and decided to indulge myself in a delicacy of Egusi and Pounded Yam. Now I have not ‘swallowed’ since I got back so you can imagine and plus you could tell the cook was Yoruba because the soup had so much palm-oil. Truly ‘Ofe-Mmanu-Mmanu (You know I had to take that cheap shot :). On the bus I felt my stomach go ‘prrrrrr’ and I remember my blunder and I was like ‘Chai Chineke, Abasi Mbong biko, please not here, not now.’ I think that prayer helped me get to Benin. Then I went to attempt to use the facility that was supposed to be the restroom at the ‘rest-stop’. In fact, at this point, I think it was the content of my stomach that was praying to God for me not to ‘discharge’ them into such a purgatory of a facility. I was like you know what, I think I can manage and hold this one till we get to Owerri. I didn’t drink any more water and ate nothing else and truth be told, it was God who put my digestive system in order because it would have been ghastly. As in instead of me to use that restroom, I would not have minded to use banana or coco-yam leaf to do what we call ‘shot-put’. You know…you bend down and ‘oomph’, then you wrap it like moin-moin and then give it another good ‘oomph’ and throw it very far away and then ‘splat’ on a palm-wine tapper's head and run. I speak from experience, but we thank God for his goodness. Then a lady sitting next to us lost her baby. Poor woman went to use the restroom and gave another lady her baby to hold. That is how the 6 month old baby ended up on the bus going to Lagos. The mother now got onto the bus just as it was bout to leave only for my sister to ask, ‘Madam, where is your baby?’ The woman was like ‘is she not here, I gave her to one girl on this bus.’ We then told her that no woman came on this bus with a baby. By now everybody on the bus heard what was going on and the following exchange ensued.
MAN 1: You say what? You don’t know where your baby is? You are a foolish woman.
MOTHER: (crying) Driver please, my baby is not here, help me.
DRIVER: You are not serious. Oya nu….get down. We can drop you here.
MAN 2: Oga driver no mind am jare, make we leave am for here sef, She is very stupid.
MAN 3: Very, very, in fact if I was your husband I will send you packing.
MAN 4: Send her packing ke? She will never set foot in that house again. She thinks baby is telephone.
RANDOM WOMEN: Oga driver abeg make you stop make she go look for the pikin
ADAURE: Please Mr. Driver can you stop the bus let’s go back and find the baby. We cannot leave without this baby; the baby could be in danger.
MOTHER: Somebody help me, my baby o, my baby is not here oh. (Weeping)
MAN 1: Oga driver just turn back jare, she is a very foolish woman. How can? And the person sef that took the baby is even more foolish.
MAN 2: Who did she even give the baby to?
MOTHER: I wanted to piss and I gave her to a girl holding ABC ticket to carry for me. She said she was on this bus.
MAN 3: What kind of piss is that for you to give your baby to someone you don’t know?
ADAURE: (irritated) this is not the time to blame anyone. Let’s just go and help find the baby. It would be a disheartening shame upon each and everyone on this bus if we leave this woman without making an effort to help her find her baby.
RANDOM WOMEN: Oga driver it is true o. Please ehn we don’t mind to get to Owerri at night. It is Christmas too oh.
The driver backs up and I and a few men get of the bus. Most of them were bickering and laying blame instead of asking around. It wasn’t till people saw a crowd gathering and a weeping woman did they come around to ask, ‘Na wetin happen?’ Meanwhile I had been on the other two buses asking if anybody had a baby that did not belong to them. As I was doing this I was trying very hard no to laugh when people, who knew that the babies they were holding in their arms was there own and not the one in question were like ‘Auntie is it dis one… are you sure... look well oh.’ I am thinking to myself do they think this is a joke? After a few minutes I went and started asking the driver to call the other buses. But unfortunately, because they don’t want anyone telling armed robbers the location of the bus, it is against the policy to have the phone on, so the driver was unable to reach the other buses. The other men began yelling at the driver and the attendant to do something and make calls just so that we are sure whether the baby was on the bus before we think other wise. This is Benin we are talking about and it is a city known for some serious ‘witch-crafting’ and ‘baby-nappers’ so everyone had already begun to think the worst. Meanwhile on the bus, the women had already started praying and casting out demonic spirits trying to hinder the smoothness of the journey. I went into the shops and started asking people if they had seen a woman and a baby that fit the description. We all felt helpless because it wasn’t like you could call the police to put out an ‘AMBER ALERT.’ When I thought about it I laughed in my head…now that is super funny…amber alert indeed. Some how, I guess the lady who had the baby had realized that the mother was not on her bus. Then after about an hour we saw another ABC bus pull in to the stop coming towards the crowd instead of the port. Come and here prayers “Fada paform your miracle…Daddy you are holy…Jesus you are wonderful…hollibaba shantarahrah paparahrah kakarahrah HOLY….JEEEEEEZZZUUUUUSSSS’. People flocked to the bus and the attendant emerged from the coach carrying a baby. ‘Na who get this pikin?’
“PRAISE THE LORD!!!!” was the cheer that accompanied the applause and jubilation as the mother received her baby. Some people had already started crying. One of the men who had called for the woman’s head used his handkerchief to wipe the sweat of the woman’s face. “Oya madam iz enough stop crying.” They raise the baby up like hey did Kunta Kinte in Roots. ‘Madam hold ya pikin well’ another man yelled as some women danced and tried to carry and hug the baby. People stretched the faces to kiss the baby’s chicks. ‘Fine baby!! Miracle baby!!’ Never was the baby’s name ever used. We all got back on the bus and continued our journey. We gave the woman our water and biscuit. The baby meanwhile was clueless as to what the fuss was about. She was quiet the entire time according to the other bus attendant. In my head I was thinking, but this pikin sef, you mean to tell me that you had absolutely no clue what just happened and could not even shout out that she was on the wrong bus or something. We went through the Benin-Asaba Expressway Bypass which was a smooth ride because SOMEBODY did his job and built a good road to decongest the traffic situation in Benin City. Props to that Governor. We got the River Niger Bridge and for the very first time in my life there was no traffic on the Asaba side of the bridge, which had always been the case when ever I was traveling to the East. I don’t need to tell you that there was traffic on the Onitsha side. Hiss. Onitsha is just a total nuisance of a place. A total Dump. You think Lagos is bad? Go to Onitsha and see what I call a dump. To cut the long story short we did not get to Owerri until 11pm that night. 14 bloody hours on the road with no food, water or going to the bathroom. If you see the speed that we used to enter our car, I doubt that Ben Johnson can beat that record. But the suffering was not over just yet. We still had the ‘Jogodo’ dance to do. The road from Owerri to Umuaka junction though pitch black was smooth with few pot holes. At one point we almost ran off the road because someone was driving without backlights. The speed sent us into the bushes. But for SUV I could have been telling a different story. Surprisingly the government had tarred the road going into Umuaka. Not sure whether that is left or right but if you are coming from Owerri it is right at the junction. But it was either the contractors forgot to branch left and tar the road from Nwaoriemkpu going into Ebenator and Uburu-Ekwe or somebody just pocketed the money since it just another village. May be we need to get Bill Clinton to visit because the story I heard was that the last time he came to Nigeria, he requested to see a village and guess what, the government decided to tar the road, but there ass was opened when Ol’ Bill looked left and saw a dirt road and called them on their bullshit. Oh well, I am sure the money has been allocated and someone is using it to build a massive house somewhere. Anyways when we made that left at Nwaoriemkpu, come and see some serious galloping and dancing. We did this for 30 minutes till we got to the Mission. The road from there to our house although a dirt road was graded and not that bad. As I walked into the compound, looking haggard, drained of energy, no voice and hungry, I went to my father and said, ‘Mr. Man, I hope you have no intentions of donating any money to the church this year because I need it to buy a plane ticket back to Lagos.’ His response, “You see that bush there, go and dig up the cassava and yam tubers, tomorrow is Bazaar at the Mission.”
MORE TO COME
A Happy New Year to all you wonderful people. A belated Barka de Sallah to those of you who celebrated that and ate all of the ram in Lagos without inviting me. So we made it to 2007? No accident, no robbery, no kain nonsense. Ah!! God is good and very very ‘wonderfulous’. To those of you who dedicated time to stop by and read my last entry despite the lack of maintenance, thanks for sticking with your girl. Don’t worry, no condition is permanent and a patient dog always eats the fattest bone. (Reader: Is it me that you are now calling a dog? Adaure: Is your name Bingo?). The month of December was a transitional phase and soon I shall get up to speed so that you can get your dose of what Addy has to say. But let’s get right to it though, the ‘Koko’ of the matter so that some of you can get back to doing your home work and the work that you are being paid for. I got back from the village on Tuesday but let’s rewind….
5am Dec 28th the Journey Begins
Honestly man, thinking about it, I truly was not looking forward to going to the village. It wasn’t just because I was going to miss out on trips or electricity but for the mere fact that Harmattan was going to do a number on me. I had already lost my voice the night before and believe that as I write this, my voice is still beckoning somewhere for me to come and collect it. Since we some how convinced my father that we will find our way to the village just so that we could avoid having to have gone with him on the 24th, we had to go through some suffa-head moves. We agreed that we would take ABC bus to Owerri and the driver or our cousin would pick us up there. For me this was a normal routine as I have played this card a number of times before in order to get in a few more nights of partying with peace of mind. But apparently for one of my sister’s (Onyi) this was history for her as the last time she had been on one of these luxurious buses was ‘the first time I had been on one’, which was in 1991. I remember very well because that was the summer vacation just before I started secondary school. We had stayed at my dad’s house in Orlu and our car engine knocked at on the way to Lagos. Unfortunately for us we were suppose to start school the following Monday, which was in a few days so there was no option to turn back. That was the day I knew that ‘suffering’ had levels. To piss was wahala, not to talk of asking for banana and groundnut, which was part of the highlight of these road trips. My sister wore a hat and sunglasses and was like, ‘If they sent you from America to come and destroy my rep in this Lagos, tell them you did not find me.’ Nnenne on the other hand only broke her non-luxurious bus riding stretch last December when she had to escort my cousin’s Kenyan wife to the village so the nightmare of the situation was still fresh in her mind. We fit all our stuff into one suitcase, each outfit for the duration of our stay carefully assigned. We were like once New Year’s Day is over we are ‘peacing out’ so no need to carry excess luggage. Plus my dad said ‘travel light’. What we did was an understatement. We got to the bus station at Jibowu and then I thought to myself, ‘Babe you know you really don’t have to go through this?’ Little did I know what I was in for. First of all the pot holes along that Lagos-Ibadan Express Road can swallow a Coca-Cola truck and still have room for Pepsi. This is a problem across the country and was certainly expected, in fact you will be reading more about bad-roads and pot-holes in subsequent entries. But what I was not expecting was a suitcase almost falling on my head. Then the traffic that we hit at Ore in Ondo State was just a bastard. We were in it for two hours and our journey was still far. The cause of the go-slow again was bad roads because in that area the East bound lane of the highway was unmotorable and so that traffic had to use the West bound lane. And to say that Nigerians drivers can be very stupid is a statement that is unworthy of a gold medal. That is why there is so much road rage because some things that they do can make you want to get down from your car and become a traffic warden. You get the picture. And then you have those other set of stupid Nigerians that call themselves Mobile Police, government officials and dignitaries who go around with sirens trying to fly over the mess that is their responsibility. And to tell you how extra stupid they can be, one convoy was trying to get by but there was no where to go, so an idiotic uniformed man with a gun decided to shoot out the tire of the vehicle in the way. Now my question is after doing that, did he now expect the driver to carry the car on the head and move it out of the way? And knowing how things are hard in this country, I am sure that must have been a brand new tire the owner bought just to be able to have a safe drive to their hometown. I am quite certain that the ‘Oga dignitary’ saw what his officer did, but of course he or she would not care because to them we the Nigerian masses are ants that are meant to be crushed and so it goes unpunished. In a ‘civil’ society such a thing cannot fly. SHAME ON ALL THESE OFFICIALS WHO ABUSE POWER IN SUCH MANNER AND BLINDLY ALLOW THEIR STAFF TO INDULGE IN SUCH CRUELTY. I slept quite a bit on the bus but what was amazing to me was the fact that we got to Benin at 2.30pm, 6 and half hours after we started. In the past, if we leave Lagos at 9am, we would get to Benin by 12pm. May be it was the speed of the bus and the traffic factor but that one was a wonder. Upon getting to Benin, not only did I find myself talking to God not to allow my digestive system to misbehave, I also found myself playing detective. First about my conversation with God. You know how I had been avoiding peppery food. Well the night before, while I was on ‘my almost-a-date-but-not-quite’, I forgot that I was traveling and decided to indulge myself in a delicacy of Egusi and Pounded Yam. Now I have not ‘swallowed’ since I got back so you can imagine and plus you could tell the cook was Yoruba because the soup had so much palm-oil. Truly ‘Ofe-Mmanu-Mmanu (You know I had to take that cheap shot :). On the bus I felt my stomach go ‘prrrrrr’ and I remember my blunder and I was like ‘Chai Chineke, Abasi Mbong biko, please not here, not now.’ I think that prayer helped me get to Benin. Then I went to attempt to use the facility that was supposed to be the restroom at the ‘rest-stop’. In fact, at this point, I think it was the content of my stomach that was praying to God for me not to ‘discharge’ them into such a purgatory of a facility. I was like you know what, I think I can manage and hold this one till we get to Owerri. I didn’t drink any more water and ate nothing else and truth be told, it was God who put my digestive system in order because it would have been ghastly. As in instead of me to use that restroom, I would not have minded to use banana or coco-yam leaf to do what we call ‘shot-put’. You know…you bend down and ‘oomph’, then you wrap it like moin-moin and then give it another good ‘oomph’ and throw it very far away and then ‘splat’ on a palm-wine tapper's head and run. I speak from experience, but we thank God for his goodness. Then a lady sitting next to us lost her baby. Poor woman went to use the restroom and gave another lady her baby to hold. That is how the 6 month old baby ended up on the bus going to Lagos. The mother now got onto the bus just as it was bout to leave only for my sister to ask, ‘Madam, where is your baby?’ The woman was like ‘is she not here, I gave her to one girl on this bus.’ We then told her that no woman came on this bus with a baby. By now everybody on the bus heard what was going on and the following exchange ensued.
MAN 1: You say what? You don’t know where your baby is? You are a foolish woman.
MOTHER: (crying) Driver please, my baby is not here, help me.
DRIVER: You are not serious. Oya nu….get down. We can drop you here.
MAN 2: Oga driver no mind am jare, make we leave am for here sef, She is very stupid.
MAN 3: Very, very, in fact if I was your husband I will send you packing.
MAN 4: Send her packing ke? She will never set foot in that house again. She thinks baby is telephone.
RANDOM WOMEN: Oga driver abeg make you stop make she go look for the pikin
ADAURE: Please Mr. Driver can you stop the bus let’s go back and find the baby. We cannot leave without this baby; the baby could be in danger.
MOTHER: Somebody help me, my baby o, my baby is not here oh. (Weeping)
MAN 1: Oga driver just turn back jare, she is a very foolish woman. How can? And the person sef that took the baby is even more foolish.
MAN 2: Who did she even give the baby to?
MOTHER: I wanted to piss and I gave her to a girl holding ABC ticket to carry for me. She said she was on this bus.
MAN 3: What kind of piss is that for you to give your baby to someone you don’t know?
ADAURE: (irritated) this is not the time to blame anyone. Let’s just go and help find the baby. It would be a disheartening shame upon each and everyone on this bus if we leave this woman without making an effort to help her find her baby.
RANDOM WOMEN: Oga driver it is true o. Please ehn we don’t mind to get to Owerri at night. It is Christmas too oh.
The driver backs up and I and a few men get of the bus. Most of them were bickering and laying blame instead of asking around. It wasn’t till people saw a crowd gathering and a weeping woman did they come around to ask, ‘Na wetin happen?’ Meanwhile I had been on the other two buses asking if anybody had a baby that did not belong to them. As I was doing this I was trying very hard no to laugh when people, who knew that the babies they were holding in their arms was there own and not the one in question were like ‘Auntie is it dis one… are you sure... look well oh.’ I am thinking to myself do they think this is a joke? After a few minutes I went and started asking the driver to call the other buses. But unfortunately, because they don’t want anyone telling armed robbers the location of the bus, it is against the policy to have the phone on, so the driver was unable to reach the other buses. The other men began yelling at the driver and the attendant to do something and make calls just so that we are sure whether the baby was on the bus before we think other wise. This is Benin we are talking about and it is a city known for some serious ‘witch-crafting’ and ‘baby-nappers’ so everyone had already begun to think the worst. Meanwhile on the bus, the women had already started praying and casting out demonic spirits trying to hinder the smoothness of the journey. I went into the shops and started asking people if they had seen a woman and a baby that fit the description. We all felt helpless because it wasn’t like you could call the police to put out an ‘AMBER ALERT.’ When I thought about it I laughed in my head…now that is super funny…amber alert indeed. Some how, I guess the lady who had the baby had realized that the mother was not on her bus. Then after about an hour we saw another ABC bus pull in to the stop coming towards the crowd instead of the port. Come and here prayers “Fada paform your miracle…Daddy you are holy…Jesus you are wonderful…hollibaba shantarahrah paparahrah kakarahrah HOLY….JEEEEEEZZZUUUUUSSSS’. People flocked to the bus and the attendant emerged from the coach carrying a baby. ‘Na who get this pikin?’
“PRAISE THE LORD!!!!” was the cheer that accompanied the applause and jubilation as the mother received her baby. Some people had already started crying. One of the men who had called for the woman’s head used his handkerchief to wipe the sweat of the woman’s face. “Oya madam iz enough stop crying.” They raise the baby up like hey did Kunta Kinte in Roots. ‘Madam hold ya pikin well’ another man yelled as some women danced and tried to carry and hug the baby. People stretched the faces to kiss the baby’s chicks. ‘Fine baby!! Miracle baby!!’ Never was the baby’s name ever used. We all got back on the bus and continued our journey. We gave the woman our water and biscuit. The baby meanwhile was clueless as to what the fuss was about. She was quiet the entire time according to the other bus attendant. In my head I was thinking, but this pikin sef, you mean to tell me that you had absolutely no clue what just happened and could not even shout out that she was on the wrong bus or something. We went through the Benin-Asaba Expressway Bypass which was a smooth ride because SOMEBODY did his job and built a good road to decongest the traffic situation in Benin City. Props to that Governor. We got the River Niger Bridge and for the very first time in my life there was no traffic on the Asaba side of the bridge, which had always been the case when ever I was traveling to the East. I don’t need to tell you that there was traffic on the Onitsha side. Hiss. Onitsha is just a total nuisance of a place. A total Dump. You think Lagos is bad? Go to Onitsha and see what I call a dump. To cut the long story short we did not get to Owerri until 11pm that night. 14 bloody hours on the road with no food, water or going to the bathroom. If you see the speed that we used to enter our car, I doubt that Ben Johnson can beat that record. But the suffering was not over just yet. We still had the ‘Jogodo’ dance to do. The road from Owerri to Umuaka junction though pitch black was smooth with few pot holes. At one point we almost ran off the road because someone was driving without backlights. The speed sent us into the bushes. But for SUV I could have been telling a different story. Surprisingly the government had tarred the road going into Umuaka. Not sure whether that is left or right but if you are coming from Owerri it is right at the junction. But it was either the contractors forgot to branch left and tar the road from Nwaoriemkpu going into Ebenator and Uburu-Ekwe or somebody just pocketed the money since it just another village. May be we need to get Bill Clinton to visit because the story I heard was that the last time he came to Nigeria, he requested to see a village and guess what, the government decided to tar the road, but there ass was opened when Ol’ Bill looked left and saw a dirt road and called them on their bullshit. Oh well, I am sure the money has been allocated and someone is using it to build a massive house somewhere. Anyways when we made that left at Nwaoriemkpu, come and see some serious galloping and dancing. We did this for 30 minutes till we got to the Mission. The road from there to our house although a dirt road was graded and not that bad. As I walked into the compound, looking haggard, drained of energy, no voice and hungry, I went to my father and said, ‘Mr. Man, I hope you have no intentions of donating any money to the church this year because I need it to buy a plane ticket back to Lagos.’ His response, “You see that bush there, go and dig up the cassava and yam tubers, tomorrow is Bazaar at the Mission.”
MORE TO COME
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
RESTING ON BOXING DAY
WITH NO PRESENT TO OPEN
It is 4pm on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. I am still in my pajamas, which means that I am stinking up the house. I insisted on staying home today because I have not slept in my house for 5 straight nights. You know how it is with Lagos trips. You cannot drive on Third Mainland Bridge after 11pm because of armed robbers patrolling. Another fuel related tragedy happened at Abule-Egba, which I think is near Alagbado. A pipe line exploded killing several people as they were lining up for fuel. The scarcity is not letting up so it sort of pays off that I am staying home today especially after spending 5 hours in a queue with my friend on Christmas Eve. Actually she spent 5 hours, I only spent 2 and that was because I felt bad. As per she is the one carrying me around in her ‘Fashion Wagon’ as it is called.
Well let me try to recap on the past 3 weeks so far in Lagos. Did I mention that it is hot as hell? But ironically that has been good because it is oxidizing my skin. The food is very peppery and my stomach is not used to it yet. The other day at Soul Lounge when everybody was ordering ‘ASUN’, I was like ‘this sounds very exotic let me try it’. BIG MISTAKE. Basically, this so called delicacy was a bowl of stewed crushed raw ‘ata-rodo’ (an equivalent of habanero pepper). The next morning I had to go buy ‘some things’ for my stomach. I am seriously avoiding spicy food because it can be embarrassing when you are crashing in someone’s crib and you ‘have to go…as in go’. Hmh…not cute.
Let me start with the day my fellow musketeer landed to complete the crew. Mat-Mat’s arrival was highly awaited because that meant that I could shake off my small sisters and not rely on my brother for his car. We started the afternoon out at the infamous SUPREME hair salon where I ran into some avid ‘According to’ readers from Boston. Shout out to them for stopping by to say hello, they were very nice and basically kept me company as the hair dressers performed their miracle on Mat-Mat’s busted weave. I am sorry my jand sister’s but you people need to boycott the hair dressers till they get some training. I swear I have never seen any sister from jand yet with a good weave. I am sure some people will support me on this one. In fact I am angry on your behalf. Anyways we then went to La Hacienda. You have to excuse me for not knowing exactly where on ‘the Island’ these places are because Ikoyi and Victoria Island have always been confusing to me since I was a kid. I swear that I don’t know my way around there. I tried their Nkwobi (cow feet in oil beans) but it was not that great. I have had better. Anyways L’Tizzie, T-Opizzie and Ayisola aka ‘Shelele’ came to meet us and we ended up at A-bar for a little early ‘happy hour’ of sorts. I only drank Fanta and Red-Bull. We didn’t go out that night so I stayed home and just ‘warmed’ my parents up to the fact that my two weeks with them and doing what they wanted to do was so over. You know you have to psyche them a bit into realizing that you are not a kid anymore and it is not news that you plan to stay over night at wherever you are, otherwise they will set the curfew for 10pm. But I think my parents are getting in touch now that they won’t even call to harass you and disturb your fun. All they say is stay where you are and don’t attempt to be on the ‘Bridge’.
Thursday came around and I had business meetings much of the day including one with a reporter for the Associated Press. Later that night, I went out with a friend to Saipan. Mat-Mat wanted to warm her dad up so she stayed home and made dinner. The live band at Saipan was TIGHT but whatever happened to the AC because it was like a box of sardine in a microwave. Hopefully this would not be the case when I go there again because I was really digging their live band. I left early not just because it was unbearably hot but because I was also paranoid and concerned that there was no visible alternative exit in the case of a fire. I’ve noticed that many places in Nigeria, including the new structures have no fire exits or sprinklers. I would think that someone would be thinking of these things as they build these magnificent and well intended structures. Make me just wonder. Anyways, I ran into a few people I knew and it was pleasant seeing them (ok may be that’s not true for one or two but it is Christmas so I am happy to see everybody)
Friday came around and I am not sure what I did that whole day, but that night was the most fun I have had in a non-wedding setting in a while. We went to the very famous La Casa. In my head I was like ‘finally’ as I had been hearing so much about this La Casa place. They played a lot of old school music that took me back to my diaper days. That is about to be my joint of Friday nights. Now I have to look for my Saturday night joint as these are the only two nights that I will be out once I get in work mode. Anyways I don’t know what happened but when I left I am sure I had downed a bottle’s worth of alcohol. It all started with mixing sprite and white wine. Then I graduated to just the white wine. It tasted like grape juice now so I didn’t know when I had three glasses. Then came the champagne…and it was ‘Pink Mo’. Not that I have ever had it before, it just always looks cute when all those model chicks and celebs carry their glass of pink champagne. So me too I was trying to carry my own glass, but unfortunately for me it was sweet. I knew I had had enough when my speech was all slurry and I just could not stop dancing. I even took off my shoes. I am sure people were like who is this crazy girl. After a little while I calmed down, but Mat-Mat on the other hand was a goner. According to someone’s description, she was ‘just jumping anyhow’. A friend came by and was like make sure she is drinking a lot of water. We had to abandon the car because we were blocked in and crashed at a friend’s place. Mat-Mat gets the award for longest hangover because she did not recover till Sunday. While I am on the subject, I had no idea there were so many single-older women in Lagos o. I guess that explains the ‘Sugar-Mummy’ trend these days as observed in the few ‘City-People’ mags that I have been able to lay my hands on. That is the way forward now. Men have been doing it and are still doing it so now I guess it is time for women to feel free to do it. So props to the ‘Nigerian Cougars’ doing their thang, and not limiting their options.
Meanwhile, on Saturday morning I was able to sneak into bed at 8am, before my dad woke up. Just on time to avoid the ‘evil eyes’, ‘the talk’ and to get money to continue the trips. Saturday was Tunde’s wedding, which I almost did not go to. Everyone who could take me out was in line for fuel. My folks were traveling the next day so the option to have my dad’s driver to take me out to Lekki was out. I was kind of upset because I had this nice dress that I had a tailor make for me. The woman collected N5000 for express service especially for this wedding because I was not sure what to expect considering it is an ‘ATL CREW’ wedding. Ya’ll know how ‘dem folks’ can be with their ‘BCBG’…ha…I should now go there and start looking like the house girl of America. But as they say sha, where there is a will, there is a way, turned out that Mat-Mat’s sister was headed to a party in the high brow estate called ‘Park View’. Ok…now I know there are rich people in my country but WHO THE F*** are the residents of that place…let me shake their hand. Lol. Those houses are magnificently massive. I never knew of that place but apparently it has been around for a while. Interesting discovery it was indeed. Next stop Banana Island. I hear those are even gynormous. It is good sha, because as I was driving past, I was feeling like I was when I was in Beverly Hills, admiring the houses. I have become a tourist in my own country. Lol. (Eureka!!! Business plan radar/ money making scheme; An Air Conditioned Bus tour through the ritzy neighborhoods of Lagos, which would include a 'cross-continental' lunch buffet at Eko Hotel and Take-Away Suya from Ikoyi Hotel. Irresistible!! N5K per head)
I got to the wedding party really late in my alternative dress, hung out with the folks there and had some small conversation. Later the party ended up at Bullet’s crib. Mat-Mat braced her hang over and came to pick me up and we went to another house party. It is Christmas season so there were enough parties. At this very party though, some of the gentlemen were seriously clowning me and decided to give me a nickname, Maria, because of my ‘Americana ways’. I slept through the story but could hear them laughing really hard. It wasn’t till I woke up and everyone was calling me ‘Maria’ that I realized I was the butt of the joke. We stayed over at another friend’s house again because it was too late to be driving home (we should just move to ‘the Island’). On another note I was worried because my parents were traveling to the village and were bound to wake up at like 5am. That meant that my runs would be busted. My sister’s were calling to find out where I was and when I would be coming home. We tried to sync up our stories. I sent my dad a text and avoided the unforeseen ‘wahala’. We didn’t get home till like 1pm Sunday. We slept like bats. I went to take a bath and Mat-Mat went to queue up for fuel. I joined her later. Sunday night I think we went to Park and Shop to do some ‘grocery’ shopping. We ran into our neighbors, the Adekoya’s who were having a Christmas party and were stacking up. We also spotted Ms. Funmi Iyanda and ‘her extra long legs’. As in ‘Word to Yo Momma,’ because if I had legs like that, I too will be in booty-shorts every frigging day of my life. From there we went to Victoria Crown Plaza to meet a friend and have drinks. I stuck to my Fanta. We swore we would not spend X-mas eve away from home so we braved it home at like 1am and that was it for Sunday.
Christmas day was odd. No parents in my house, no house girl, no food. You would think that with 3 grown women in the house someone would have boiled some rice. Nah...Not my house. The only food that was available was reserved for the boys. The rest of us were on our own. We all got dressed for church. My sister Onyi went off to spend X-mas with her ‘potential future family’, Nene was at the Adekoya’s (in fact she spent X-mas night there because she was locked out…Onyi slept off and didn’t hear the phone ringing). I spent the day with my fellow musketeers, Mat-Mat and Ayis. We went from house to house dressed up and looking for food. We found it at Deyo’s. Her mom had a ‘spread’. Moi-moi, fish, fried rice, jollof rice, fried chicken etc. We had our fill, rolled out to Mr. Biggs for Ice-cream and then La Hacienda for pepper soup. We ended up at L-Tizzies’ where I ran into Eldee, Ikechukwu and the Koko-Master, D’Banj himself (with his ‘wearing-sunglass-at-night-self’ when there is no sun :). My darling friend Ugo was also there (hey Ugo let’s get married if we are still single in 2010…seriously). Anyways we ended up at 11-45 for a Salsa party. That in itself will require a special blog entry but before then all I have to say is that these Salsa dancers (especially Boomsy and Wale) can put the Salsa dancers in clubs in America to shame because they were just all over the place. I guess because there was so much space that the dancers had room to ‘show-off’ their skills. Ehm…me too I am thinking I should go and take lesson too so I don’t feel out of place when they are spinning and wining and throwing their legs about. As usual we did not sleep in our house that night. Lol. Hence I find myself just waking up at 1pm with a cracked voice, drinking lime and hot water, and trying to update you with the gist. I am sure I have lost some weight. By the way the next person that squeezes their face when they tell me I am very skinny will get a ‘konk’ on the head. They should go and tell that to Agbani (who is now on a commemorative Nigerian stamp) and Oluchi (who if you have not noticed is expecting a little atootoo-poyoyo).
This is all for now. Pictures will come later. On Thursday I am off to go fishing and farming in my village for 5 days. Please God let the roads be clear of traffic, pot holes and armed robbers. Ya’ll have a good New Year; fill me in on whatever I will be missing out on. Right now I am off on a date...ALREADY..HA HA HA...Peace.
It is 4pm on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. I am still in my pajamas, which means that I am stinking up the house. I insisted on staying home today because I have not slept in my house for 5 straight nights. You know how it is with Lagos trips. You cannot drive on Third Mainland Bridge after 11pm because of armed robbers patrolling. Another fuel related tragedy happened at Abule-Egba, which I think is near Alagbado. A pipe line exploded killing several people as they were lining up for fuel. The scarcity is not letting up so it sort of pays off that I am staying home today especially after spending 5 hours in a queue with my friend on Christmas Eve. Actually she spent 5 hours, I only spent 2 and that was because I felt bad. As per she is the one carrying me around in her ‘Fashion Wagon’ as it is called.
Well let me try to recap on the past 3 weeks so far in Lagos. Did I mention that it is hot as hell? But ironically that has been good because it is oxidizing my skin. The food is very peppery and my stomach is not used to it yet. The other day at Soul Lounge when everybody was ordering ‘ASUN’, I was like ‘this sounds very exotic let me try it’. BIG MISTAKE. Basically, this so called delicacy was a bowl of stewed crushed raw ‘ata-rodo’ (an equivalent of habanero pepper). The next morning I had to go buy ‘some things’ for my stomach. I am seriously avoiding spicy food because it can be embarrassing when you are crashing in someone’s crib and you ‘have to go…as in go’. Hmh…not cute.
Let me start with the day my fellow musketeer landed to complete the crew. Mat-Mat’s arrival was highly awaited because that meant that I could shake off my small sisters and not rely on my brother for his car. We started the afternoon out at the infamous SUPREME hair salon where I ran into some avid ‘According to’ readers from Boston. Shout out to them for stopping by to say hello, they were very nice and basically kept me company as the hair dressers performed their miracle on Mat-Mat’s busted weave. I am sorry my jand sister’s but you people need to boycott the hair dressers till they get some training. I swear I have never seen any sister from jand yet with a good weave. I am sure some people will support me on this one. In fact I am angry on your behalf. Anyways we then went to La Hacienda. You have to excuse me for not knowing exactly where on ‘the Island’ these places are because Ikoyi and Victoria Island have always been confusing to me since I was a kid. I swear that I don’t know my way around there. I tried their Nkwobi (cow feet in oil beans) but it was not that great. I have had better. Anyways L’Tizzie, T-Opizzie and Ayisola aka ‘Shelele’ came to meet us and we ended up at A-bar for a little early ‘happy hour’ of sorts. I only drank Fanta and Red-Bull. We didn’t go out that night so I stayed home and just ‘warmed’ my parents up to the fact that my two weeks with them and doing what they wanted to do was so over. You know you have to psyche them a bit into realizing that you are not a kid anymore and it is not news that you plan to stay over night at wherever you are, otherwise they will set the curfew for 10pm. But I think my parents are getting in touch now that they won’t even call to harass you and disturb your fun. All they say is stay where you are and don’t attempt to be on the ‘Bridge’.
Thursday came around and I had business meetings much of the day including one with a reporter for the Associated Press. Later that night, I went out with a friend to Saipan. Mat-Mat wanted to warm her dad up so she stayed home and made dinner. The live band at Saipan was TIGHT but whatever happened to the AC because it was like a box of sardine in a microwave. Hopefully this would not be the case when I go there again because I was really digging their live band. I left early not just because it was unbearably hot but because I was also paranoid and concerned that there was no visible alternative exit in the case of a fire. I’ve noticed that many places in Nigeria, including the new structures have no fire exits or sprinklers. I would think that someone would be thinking of these things as they build these magnificent and well intended structures. Make me just wonder. Anyways, I ran into a few people I knew and it was pleasant seeing them (ok may be that’s not true for one or two but it is Christmas so I am happy to see everybody)
Friday came around and I am not sure what I did that whole day, but that night was the most fun I have had in a non-wedding setting in a while. We went to the very famous La Casa. In my head I was like ‘finally’ as I had been hearing so much about this La Casa place. They played a lot of old school music that took me back to my diaper days. That is about to be my joint of Friday nights. Now I have to look for my Saturday night joint as these are the only two nights that I will be out once I get in work mode. Anyways I don’t know what happened but when I left I am sure I had downed a bottle’s worth of alcohol. It all started with mixing sprite and white wine. Then I graduated to just the white wine. It tasted like grape juice now so I didn’t know when I had three glasses. Then came the champagne…and it was ‘Pink Mo’. Not that I have ever had it before, it just always looks cute when all those model chicks and celebs carry their glass of pink champagne. So me too I was trying to carry my own glass, but unfortunately for me it was sweet. I knew I had had enough when my speech was all slurry and I just could not stop dancing. I even took off my shoes. I am sure people were like who is this crazy girl. After a little while I calmed down, but Mat-Mat on the other hand was a goner. According to someone’s description, she was ‘just jumping anyhow’. A friend came by and was like make sure she is drinking a lot of water. We had to abandon the car because we were blocked in and crashed at a friend’s place. Mat-Mat gets the award for longest hangover because she did not recover till Sunday. While I am on the subject, I had no idea there were so many single-older women in Lagos o. I guess that explains the ‘Sugar-Mummy’ trend these days as observed in the few ‘City-People’ mags that I have been able to lay my hands on. That is the way forward now. Men have been doing it and are still doing it so now I guess it is time for women to feel free to do it. So props to the ‘Nigerian Cougars’ doing their thang, and not limiting their options.
Meanwhile, on Saturday morning I was able to sneak into bed at 8am, before my dad woke up. Just on time to avoid the ‘evil eyes’, ‘the talk’ and to get money to continue the trips. Saturday was Tunde’s wedding, which I almost did not go to. Everyone who could take me out was in line for fuel. My folks were traveling the next day so the option to have my dad’s driver to take me out to Lekki was out. I was kind of upset because I had this nice dress that I had a tailor make for me. The woman collected N5000 for express service especially for this wedding because I was not sure what to expect considering it is an ‘ATL CREW’ wedding. Ya’ll know how ‘dem folks’ can be with their ‘BCBG’…ha…I should now go there and start looking like the house girl of America. But as they say sha, where there is a will, there is a way, turned out that Mat-Mat’s sister was headed to a party in the high brow estate called ‘Park View’. Ok…now I know there are rich people in my country but WHO THE F*** are the residents of that place…let me shake their hand. Lol. Those houses are magnificently massive. I never knew of that place but apparently it has been around for a while. Interesting discovery it was indeed. Next stop Banana Island. I hear those are even gynormous. It is good sha, because as I was driving past, I was feeling like I was when I was in Beverly Hills, admiring the houses. I have become a tourist in my own country. Lol. (Eureka!!! Business plan radar/ money making scheme; An Air Conditioned Bus tour through the ritzy neighborhoods of Lagos, which would include a 'cross-continental' lunch buffet at Eko Hotel and Take-Away Suya from Ikoyi Hotel. Irresistible!! N5K per head)
I got to the wedding party really late in my alternative dress, hung out with the folks there and had some small conversation. Later the party ended up at Bullet’s crib. Mat-Mat braced her hang over and came to pick me up and we went to another house party. It is Christmas season so there were enough parties. At this very party though, some of the gentlemen were seriously clowning me and decided to give me a nickname, Maria, because of my ‘Americana ways’. I slept through the story but could hear them laughing really hard. It wasn’t till I woke up and everyone was calling me ‘Maria’ that I realized I was the butt of the joke. We stayed over at another friend’s house again because it was too late to be driving home (we should just move to ‘the Island’). On another note I was worried because my parents were traveling to the village and were bound to wake up at like 5am. That meant that my runs would be busted. My sister’s were calling to find out where I was and when I would be coming home. We tried to sync up our stories. I sent my dad a text and avoided the unforeseen ‘wahala’. We didn’t get home till like 1pm Sunday. We slept like bats. I went to take a bath and Mat-Mat went to queue up for fuel. I joined her later. Sunday night I think we went to Park and Shop to do some ‘grocery’ shopping. We ran into our neighbors, the Adekoya’s who were having a Christmas party and were stacking up. We also spotted Ms. Funmi Iyanda and ‘her extra long legs’. As in ‘Word to Yo Momma,’ because if I had legs like that, I too will be in booty-shorts every frigging day of my life. From there we went to Victoria Crown Plaza to meet a friend and have drinks. I stuck to my Fanta. We swore we would not spend X-mas eve away from home so we braved it home at like 1am and that was it for Sunday.
Christmas day was odd. No parents in my house, no house girl, no food. You would think that with 3 grown women in the house someone would have boiled some rice. Nah...Not my house. The only food that was available was reserved for the boys. The rest of us were on our own. We all got dressed for church. My sister Onyi went off to spend X-mas with her ‘potential future family’, Nene was at the Adekoya’s (in fact she spent X-mas night there because she was locked out…Onyi slept off and didn’t hear the phone ringing). I spent the day with my fellow musketeers, Mat-Mat and Ayis. We went from house to house dressed up and looking for food. We found it at Deyo’s. Her mom had a ‘spread’. Moi-moi, fish, fried rice, jollof rice, fried chicken etc. We had our fill, rolled out to Mr. Biggs for Ice-cream and then La Hacienda for pepper soup. We ended up at L-Tizzies’ where I ran into Eldee, Ikechukwu and the Koko-Master, D’Banj himself (with his ‘wearing-sunglass-at-night-self’ when there is no sun :). My darling friend Ugo was also there (hey Ugo let’s get married if we are still single in 2010…seriously). Anyways we ended up at 11-45 for a Salsa party. That in itself will require a special blog entry but before then all I have to say is that these Salsa dancers (especially Boomsy and Wale) can put the Salsa dancers in clubs in America to shame because they were just all over the place. I guess because there was so much space that the dancers had room to ‘show-off’ their skills. Ehm…me too I am thinking I should go and take lesson too so I don’t feel out of place when they are spinning and wining and throwing their legs about. As usual we did not sleep in our house that night. Lol. Hence I find myself just waking up at 1pm with a cracked voice, drinking lime and hot water, and trying to update you with the gist. I am sure I have lost some weight. By the way the next person that squeezes their face when they tell me I am very skinny will get a ‘konk’ on the head. They should go and tell that to Agbani (who is now on a commemorative Nigerian stamp) and Oluchi (who if you have not noticed is expecting a little atootoo-poyoyo).
This is all for now. Pictures will come later. On Thursday I am off to go fishing and farming in my village for 5 days. Please God let the roads be clear of traffic, pot holes and armed robbers. Ya’ll have a good New Year; fill me in on whatever I will be missing out on. Right now I am off on a date...ALREADY..HA HA HA...Peace.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
MERRY XMAS
HEY ALL!!!
HERE'S TO WISHING YOU A VERY MERRY XMAS AND A JOYOUS ENTRY INTO THE NEW YEAR. I WIL HAVE TO GIVE YOU ALL THE GIST ON DELAYED MODE. I AM TOO BUSY HAVING A BLAST DESPITE THE HICCUPS THAT COME BY WAY OF NO RIDE, MOSQUITO BITES AND OVER SIZED CLOTHES (I SHALL EXPLAIN LATER). I HAVE RUN INTO ONE OR TWO 'FANS' BUT IT IS HARD TO COORDINATE IN LAGOS BECAUSE THEIR IS JUST TOO MUCH TO DO AND FOLKS ARE ON BORROWED TIME. THAT SAID I CAN'T WAIT TO GET INTO WORK MODE EITHER. ANYWAYS I DOUBT I WILL HAVE RELIABLE INTERNET ACCESS TILL AROUND JANUARY SO PLEASE BEAR WITH ME. HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEK OF FESTIVITIES. PEACE OUT!!
HERE'S TO WISHING YOU A VERY MERRY XMAS AND A JOYOUS ENTRY INTO THE NEW YEAR. I WIL HAVE TO GIVE YOU ALL THE GIST ON DELAYED MODE. I AM TOO BUSY HAVING A BLAST DESPITE THE HICCUPS THAT COME BY WAY OF NO RIDE, MOSQUITO BITES AND OVER SIZED CLOTHES (I SHALL EXPLAIN LATER). I HAVE RUN INTO ONE OR TWO 'FANS' BUT IT IS HARD TO COORDINATE IN LAGOS BECAUSE THEIR IS JUST TOO MUCH TO DO AND FOLKS ARE ON BORROWED TIME. THAT SAID I CAN'T WAIT TO GET INTO WORK MODE EITHER. ANYWAYS I DOUBT I WILL HAVE RELIABLE INTERNET ACCESS TILL AROUND JANUARY SO PLEASE BEAR WITH ME. HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEK OF FESTIVITIES. PEACE OUT!!
Saturday, December 09, 2006
CONVERSATION WITH A 419 'er
TRYING TO GET INTO HIS HEAD
On Sunday night I sat down for two hours trying to watch this piece on ABC news by Brian Ross Scamming the Scammers. It is dial up Internet and it is FREE so I should stop being an ingrate and keep psyching to get broadband. As for T-1 connection, I am not sure that is in Nigeria yet. However that might be facilitated with the recent agreement that Microsoft just made with the Federal government "to allow the Nigerian government and agencies the use and deployment of its software at the cost of N324 million," according to the aily Champion. Anyways after watching that, I feel this is the right time to unveil some 'scrolls' that I have been keeping. Before I go ahead, I have to point out in sarcasm an irony in Brian Ross piece and emphasise the 'DELETE UNSOLICITED EMAILS' part. This is a case of penny wise pound foolish. So basically in order to save himself from being scammed out of his money, Mr. Ross decided to 'spend' money to fly first class, ship equipment to go and do a 3 minute report to show us 'he is no mugu after all'. Ok Mr. Ross, you just spent probably $10,000 when you could have just clicked 'delete'. Thank God for Minnie and Mickey. But interesting report none the less, would have been better if it was balanced with another report on what the Nigerian Government is also doing through the E.F.C.C. I am sure a sound bite with Mallam Ribadu or even a mention of how to report the scams to the body would satisfy that purpose. But ya'll know the deal with reporting about anything that has to do with Africa.
But back to my scrolls. I should have taken my own advice because this guy 'blascattered' my head with his English but I was angry the day this whole thing started and I was surprised I even got a response. It all started with the scam emails we were getting at work. You know how that can be. Every time one came, someone would never fail to mention or ask me about it. That is like saying to a blind man, "You are blind so I guess you cannot see that rainbow," or telling the mother monkey that her child is ugly. Anyways, just as other Nigerians in diaspora I would just laugh along, roll my eyes or curse under my breathe. But this day, I came in to work at 7am only to be greeted by the email. Knowing what I would face at work, I quickly replied. Usually when we get viewer emails at the station, if someone replied, you send an email out so no one else does. So I sent an 'I've responded to this viewer' not just to be funny, but just so that no one will come and start disturbing me. Lo and behold, one of my supervisors came in and the first thing he said to me after exchanging greetings was in reference to the scam email and we laughed about mine. Anyways enjoy the email exchange, I found it quite interesting and hilarious. Please do excuse the typos on my part and the poor use of the English language and lengthiness on Mr Dennis Audu's part. (PS: For the purpose of full disclosure, after my second reply, I moved the exchange to my personal account and did the rest from home.)
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-----Original Message-----
From: Denis Audu
Subject: Help this new change
Dear Sir/Madam,
Goodday,i am sorry for any enconviniences this letter may cause you in
trying to understand my purpose and why i have choosing to solicit for
your assistance .its true that i dont know you personally but my
previouse experience and the situation i found my self has thought me
to
have more faith in looking deyond my imidiated environment and being
that i have lost my confidence in human nature more especially people i
have laboured so much to fixed in strategic places who has choosen to
bit the finger that feed them instead of appreciating my kindness,but
now i have choosing to follow gods direction of faith and for you to
understand me please its important that you first put your self in my
own shoes.
I am Mr Denis Audu of the The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)of
ZIMBABWE the S P A to MorganTsvangirai,the c opposition leader . who
is currently facing more treason charges of plotting to kill President
Robert Mugabe the treason charge arises as a result of Tsvangirai's
meetings with a Canadian political consultant in which Robert Mugabe
allegedly claimed that Tsvangirai spoke of "eliminating"him Mugabe
ahead
of presidential polls, MorganTsvangirai If convicted risks the death
penalty. The new treason charges arose from mass anti-government
protests Tsvangirai organised last year in which he is accused of
urging
Zimbabweans to oust Mugabe.
The state accuses Tsvangirai of inciting supporters to overthrow the
government and engage in acts of public violence ,Pitabely during this
our prodemocratic campangne rally which we are being accused of public
violence a lot of our member were assassinated openly and secretely by
police and hudlums suspected to be the killer agents of the
government.ever since then or party have been subjected under heavy
attack by those incumbent masterminded forces as a result of our
continue oppositon stand against the incumbent president Robert Mugabe
and his porported tenure elongation .
Today as i am talking to you the president with the support of his
corrupt ruling Zanu PF party officials and members in the pailiament
are pressing for the manipulation of the arrangement to restrict
MorganTsvangirai from contesting the next general election there fore
negetting chapter IV of the constitution, section 28, subsection
(1),which states that a person qualifies for election as president if
he is "a citizen by birth or by descent, has attained 40 years and is
ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe". its against this background that we
have decided to remobilise with all our members nomatter what it will
take both home and abroad in readyness to resist his constitutional
amendment and for the forthcoming general elections through our youth
co-odinator in other to enable us resist any eventuality as is
expected,note that the national chirman of my party who was a former
Agricultural minister in my country is awear of this development
needless mentioning names including the part director of campaign
mobilization and finance comitee.
However,upon the above introduction of my person and purpose i have
been
directed to do all the international consultations associated to
getting
every body defence technologies which we may need in the course of
acheiving our objectives.having seen your contact in the search
directory thought it worthy to contact your person for possible
negociations in this update and how its going to work out smoothly,as
we
articulate this project we particularly search for men and women of
proving integrity and reliable due to the sensitive nature of this
transaction i assure you that your intrest is fully guaranteed and the
bases for your co-opration negociable.
Meanwhile i am to negociate the purchase outside Zimbabwe since the
money for this has been maped out from part of our party reserve fund
with a security company in europe totaling $21.5million us dollars by
the party ,being that i accompanied my boss MorganTsvangirai here in
europe where the deposit was made with the intention to utilize it by
our party before he was arrested, its upon this development that our
party wants me to continue with every party maped out plan scince i
have
a comprehensive details of every deposite made by my boss inrespect to
the party.what you will do for me is just to stand as the party
beneficiary contractor abroad to help secure the reserve first then we
look for a body defence company for the purchase and the party beleive
that i am the only person who has the capacity and the sagacity to do
the international consultations it takes.you will only party me to
utilize the confidence i am already enjoying in the party leadership by
being honest in my future dealing and correspondence with you.as we go
on i am going to provide you with all the neccesary logistics support
to
enable you function well in this project.
Do contact me via e mail mdc_coalition@yahoo.co.uk.
Thanks for your cosideration,
Denis Audu.
For (M D C).
*****************************************
From: Achumba, Adaure
Subject: RE: Help this new change
BROTHER
YOU CAN WRITE OH!!!! WHY NOT PUT THAT ENERGY AND TALENT INTO SOMETHING
BENEFICIAL INSTEAD OF EMBARRASSING YOUR PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD BY
SENDING THESE 419 LETTERS-- THAT IS NOT GOOD OH. EVERY TIME I GET ONE
OF
THESE LETTERS AT WORK THAT IS THE JOKE OF THE DAY. NOT VERY FAIR TO
THOSE OF US WHO ARE HARD WORKING. GO WRITE A BOOK OR A FILM SCRIPT AND
WORK FOR YOUR MONEY.
YOUR SISTER IN THE DIASPORA
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Sister,
I do appreciate your effort in finding time to read my letter and your
advice well noted.
Yes first off all can you indentify the country whose image your trying
to protect ,as soon as you give me this information then i will be in a
position to address your questions more meaningfuly.
Thanks for now,
Denis Audu.
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Brother,
What a pleasant surprise to read your note. I was truly not expecting
you to reply. To answer your questions (which is not really one) about
which country's image I am trying to protect. Frankly I am not trying
to
protect any image at all. The image of Africa and her countries is bad
across the board so trying to protect it is a futile effort. It is like
protecting Firewood from Fire, the two have an inevitable path of
destiny to cross, hence the given name. Changing the image of Africa is
what I am about and I cannot do that when there are people like you who
insist on taking that fast route rather than put that god given talent
and ability towards a skill or trade. You write very well, what will it
take you to hone that skill and broaden it in to something. There are
people who went from painting lipstick on their face in the mirror
every
morning and shining their teeth in vanity to painting the faces of
people as a business venture and owning their own make up line. There
are people who have gone from mixing coke and cherry fanta with brandy
for Christmas parties to being the primary mixed-drink and punch
supplier to events to owning a catering outfit. These are all people
who could have resigned to fast schemes like every degree holder who
cannot get a job, every high school certificate holder who cannot pass
university entrance exam, but they choose not to resign to that fate
and
put heir energy into exercising their talents and becoming
entrepreneurial. I hope this will help you address my question more
meaningfully as I am curious to hear you defend yourself and your
attempt to defraud an unsuspecting victim who may unfortunately be
gullible or even greedy enough to give you their information. I look
forward to your response and I hope we can share our views more on
this
matter.
Your Sister
Adaure
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Dear Sister Adaure,
I will appreciate a situation where by we try to be more direct in our approach,
because you are trying to be a bit diplomatical in tackling my questions just be open there is no problems since you have dicided to correct a wrong but remember there is a background to every injustice and by the time you indentify your self well,i am ready to give you a more comprehensive insight to this problem you are trying to address maybe it will even aid you incase you wants to write a book.
Before i forget in your next letter please tell me that country in the world you think as having the best image not even continent and the yadstick used for such assesment by whose ever is that later day saint that produced that report.
Yours Brother,
Denis.
**********************************************
My Brother Dear Dennis
I am being as open as a calabash. How much more direct can I really be. You want me to fly inside the computer. I am not being 'diplomatical' as you put it. Just stating a fact. And why do I need to 'indentify' myself, it is not like I am hiding behind a fake name or email address like you are. I am all ears to your comprehensive insight into the problem and yes may be your insight can help me understand where you are coming from and the background on the injustice that you speak of. I am sure they will make good material to write a book. I can even have you as the co-author so that you can stop your illegal hustling. To your last statement, you are right there is no country that has the best image neither is there a country to which a yardstick assessment can be attributed to. I don't think i have said that or even hold that position. But just because some things are uncontrollable and are over looked doesn't mean it is right or give it any justification because that is basically what you are trying to say. Anyways bros, I think you are the one being a bit indirect and not being very open. If I may go further, what is your story, why do you chose to send the email scam instead of doing something else. Please educate me since you are seem to challenge my claim to the moral high ground on this matter.
Your Dear Sister Adaure
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Dear Sister Adaure,
I am happy atleast that you have accepted the fact that there is no country with a clean image, i have lived also in the so called advanced countries and i know how they came about there advancement, you may also have been out side Africa.i was motivated to responding to your first mail because you said this mail comes always everday and that your co-workers reads it with you with the impression that the mail comes from your brothers in Africa.So i actually wanted to get to those your co-workers and lash them incase they are white people.
Well your theory is real but can only work out in a just society,i also enjoy your writting for so long i have not been in contact with ladies that writtes so mavelousely.
Lastly i am writting you from here in Madrid Spain if you wouldnt mind this is my telepohe number 0034-650-677-802.if we must contnue in this chart let me know you better.
Thanks for your intrest.
Denis.
*********************************************
Brother Denis,
This is interesting. So are you saying you are NOT AFRICAN? Amazing!! I am aware that some of these emails do not originate from Africa directly but I was not expecting a non-African. I was afraid you would be Nigerian because you answer my questions with nothing but more questions and try to take me off the subject. Very typical. Perhaps you have too many Nigerian friends.
So you are in Spain? What do you do in Spain? Do you have a real job or you just rely on revenue from your email scams.
Per knowing me better, I am not sure what you mean? I am sure we can continue this dialogue on our ideology via email. I honestly don't have time to talk on the phone, plus I would like to document our conversation for that book we talked about. Anyways go through my previous email and re-read them because there are so many questions you have left unanswered. Cheers Brother
Your Sister (I guess no longer perhaps) Adaure
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Dear Adaure,
Now two things a imperative i gave you an option to reveal your indentity if you must have an insight about my activities which you refuted,instead your intrest revolves around record my converstions with you.perhaps if that is your only intrest then that will cost you small money.
Denis.
**************************************************
Hello Denis
You are certainly right, my interest does revolve around recording our conversations and getting insight into what you do and why you do it. I apologize if I did not make it clear that I was a journalist. I assumed you would have made that inference from my email address or done some research of some sort. Anyways I am a journalist from Nigeria but live in the United States. You are a fascinating character and I am interested in hearing your story. It is amazing, especially when it can help dispel the myth that these email scams all originate from Nigerians and Africans. You did give me the impression that you are neither.Is that correct? Anyways it is unfortunate but as a news journalist I do not pay to get stories. Even if I did, how am I sure you would not turn me into a victim and run away with my money. That being said I am enjoying this exchange and look forward to continuing to hear from you. Again please go over my previous emails and answer the questions I have asked you elaborately. You may also chose to decline and discontinue this exchange. You also gave me your phone number but I must get your consent as well to have the conversation recorded. Again this is only for journalistic purposes and does not involve any law enforcement so you can relax. I am just after the fascinating story that you have to tell. Believe me no one will pay you for your story so here is your opportunity to turn your scam into something good. I await your reply. Cheers
Adaure
********************************************
Subject: For your comprehensive insight.
Ada,
I thank you for your effort intrying to bring me to a talk,well that’s not bad.
However,I can see that your privilegded to be hard working in the United states as i was mearnt to know in your first mail but please note that working hard is a function of income and environment that is the demand for labour and some of your brothers and sisters are not exposed to such opportunities at home i dont realy know your antecedentes but atleast your parents some how could afford it in one way or the other.
I am sorry maybe if i could not tackle your questions directly it is not deliberate as i try to give you a more coincise details which could offer a more valuable answers to your questions, but incase if your not satisfied, your free to resend it back to me for an appropriate answer.
Listen cearfully may be I don’t know what is your fathers position about Nigeria because he is the only person in a position to tell you the truth,but when he fails in that duty then as an adult you can search for answers to your own questions.
In 1914 one man called Lord Lugard carried out the amalgamation of north and southern Nigeria to the British intrest to suit the police of indirect rule and consequently placed north in a more political dominating power in Nigeria polity which positioned the north in getting a lion chair of what ever that comes out of Nigeria,even when geographically they are located in a barren desart and having boundries with the poorest African state Chad.
Before independence a man called Tafawa Bellewa was a primary school teacher and the british empire being leaded by a woman in England finds this man more qualified to be the priminster more that Zik and Awolowo and other elites that paid the price of our independence struggle,this is not for the intrest of me and you and Nigerians but for the intrest of the northern muslems and british because the England government felt it is only the muslem north will remember and guarantee there intrest when the go. I will send you an appendix to this points.
The british government masterminded the killing of the ibos in the north with there constant arminitions and personel supply to Gowon after the fall of Tafawa belewa the stuge they installed in Nigerian as a priminster. The coupe that huasted Belewa was never an igbo coup which Britain makes the world to beleive , why ?because General Ironsi who crippled the coup was an igbo man and ojukwu also an igbo man rendered the coup immobile in the northern kanu where he was serving as a brigade commander then.
Sister I have washed the western intrest and finds out that it chages over time ,so it is never permanent .eg in Nigeria they have demonstrated an all time support to the muslems than the Christians whom seams to share the same christian faith with them contrary to what we see in the case of irsael and lebanon,in iraq they propagated Saddam when they wanted to use him against Ayotala komeni of Iran ans they succeded later because of the difficulties in respecting a dishonest father Sadam fallout of there favour and was accused of possesing a weapon of mass distrutions which uptill now is still being looked for.
I am not drawing this inferences in other to divert my focus from the original subject but to capture your understanding of the historic background of the problems your trying to address.
I had listened to the American independence speech and I saw there was really a promise and it is upon this promise that Marthin luther stood and libreted the black negros from the chains of slavery to the promise land of freedom for all irrespective of color and that promise is freedom to every American. I had gone to search for Nigerian independence speech and could not fine the content of the speech instead Tafawa Belewa was busy thanking the that woman in england and the people of England for handing over power to him so there was know promise from where to continue as a people .Even in Biafran struggle there was a promise and that promise was Self determination and it was that promise of self determination that sustained the will to continue the struggle without any armunitions at our disposal upto 1970 when the Nigerian and Britain lead attack with higher fire power got fed up of drinking the innocent blood of the igbos,and the America and the rest of the world was behind washing as our fathers, mothers , brothers and brothers ,young and old died defencelessly,and we are still Christians together sitting and worshiping the same god,I wonder who will go to heaven.since that brotherly love we were thought as young growing Christians was greatly betrayed when we see them joing hand with muslems in killing there own Christian brothers and sisters.
Today in Nigeria an average igbo young lady that comes out of the university can not get a job unless she gave out her body to the northern directors in different government institutions men even older that there own fathers,and young men from the eastern Nigeria who came out of the university could not be employed while illiterates from the north occupy executive government positions. as if that is not enough, they introduced what is called normadic education in the north so that that cattle rearer can also oneday become the manager of financial institutions while our well trained graduates are parading the street with nothing to show for, there by making education non attractive in the eastern Nigeria and you want us to sitback and die of hunger in the missed this delibrate policy of crpplling us psychologically and economically..They even went asfar as introducing what is called cut of point in the university entrance examination so that sobody who scoure 300 from the east and west will gain the same admission to read the same course with somebody who score 50 from the north so that those who scoure from 150 to 200 from the easth will be denied admission as if it is a course to become intelligent ,what a sell out to the system,when they were doing privatization the northerners being present in the government used the same money they stole from government pocket to bought over all the privatized government enterprise and our retied fathers could not even afford there pensions as at when do, takless of investing on privatization.
Please before I forget you asked me while I am doing this job ,but note that higher educations exposes one to a certain level of life that is why the Nigerian first civilian regime introduced car loan to fresh university graduates as an offer of entitlement upon employment these lasted upto 1980 when the military northern oligachy took over power again and turned the whole system upside down.i can not afford to be looking my father who gave me education and my younger once die of hunger.
Frustration does a lot of things especially when equal opportunity is not given to every one in the same society,i am happy atleast that after the British and Nigeria invasion which left Biafran igbo totally naked we did not resort to terrorism like the arabs but repositioned our energy towards economic survival.which one is better.
I have to live your ,a word is enough for the wise.
From Denis.
*******************************************
HE THEN SENDS ME A COPY OF PRIME MINISTER TAFAWA BALEWA'S ADDRESS TO THE NATION ON INDEPENDENCE DAY, OCTOBER 1ST 1960 AS WELL AS AN ARTICLE TITLED WHY THE IGBO MAN IS NOT TRUSTED BY Justice Eze Ozobu. SEARCH FOR THEM ON GOOGLE AND LET ME KNOW IF YOU CANNOT FIND THEM AND I WILL POST THEM. I GUESS HE WAS TRYING TO DRIVE SOME POINT TO BACK UP HIS POSITION. I WAS LOST.
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Hmh...very interesting write up. I did see your other emails as well. So you are Nigerian after all and saddest of all an Igbo. You dashed my little glimmer of hope with that revelation. While I understand where you are coming from and agree that the environment in Nigeria is harsh and wealth is not distributed fairly, I do not agree that one should resort to unscrupulous means to make a living. I also do not agree that my being in the US is the privilege that provided me the opportunity to work hard. That is self determined regardless of where I would have ended up in life. From your email you seem to have some level of education. What is your educational background and qualification and are you in Spain legally. Perhaps if you are not, that's an added reason as to why things might be hard for you. Have you ever thought of starting your own business and if so what was the result of that. See optimism and hard work goes a long way.
You say "Frustration does a lot of things especially when equal opportunity is not given to every one in the same society,I am happy at least that after the British and Nigeria invasion which left Biafran Igbo totally naked we did not resort to terrorism like the Arabs but repositioned our energy towards economic survival.which one is better"
It is interesting they way you are rehashing history as a means to justify your being an ill to society and the Igbo heritage. Is this your way of acting out or getting back at society. I am all for economic survival, that's why many of us leave the shores of Africa in the first place to seek economic opportunities where they are abundant. As you too are one of the 'fortunate' one, using your inference, why aren't you utilizing the opportunities available to reposition your energy and wits into something more tangible and honorable rather than dupe people? I mean. let's get real here, what you do is criminology and nothing else. Artfully using your education to perpetuate crime without a gun. How can anyone in his or her right mind try to justify that? I am just wondering because you still have not explained that aspect. Thanks for the Nigerian history lesson but I think I got enough of that to earn straight A's in the subject secondary school. But I appreciate the refresher course, however it is truly a digression from my original questions which I have also rehashed in this email.
(ps: Na wa for you sha. Why do Naija people like to play Maradona when they are asked simple questions. Bros na wetin...abeg time na money o...just ansa me jare.)
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Ada Please,
Repeat that question your talking about,may be i could not capture that.
Dennis
*******************************************************
Hello Dennis,
Thanks for your speedy response
Here are some questions I have written out that I would like for you to answer to help me understand you and get insight into what you do and why you do it.
<1> What led you into this art of sending email scam letters and how successful/ profitable has it been for you. How often have people fallen to the trap.
<2> Are you gainfully employed? If so why do you choose to do this? If not employed, why not?
<3> How do you justify this criminal activity as repositioning your energy towards economic survival, s you have eloquently put it.
<4> What is your back ground; educational, family, cultural and economic?
<5> Do you care that the emails you send are embarrassing to other Nigerians and Africans. For example, when I get emails like this at work, it is the joke of the day because people assume ( justifiably) that they are from Nigerians.
<6> Why do you not value hard work as a means to an end.
<7> What would you say is the psychology behind people who become victims to this email scam and fall for your elaborate stories.
<8> What is your immigration status, are you in Spain legally? Are there no jobs for you there and is that why you resort to 419
<9> Have you ever thought of starting your own business and if so what was the end result of that.
<10> Do you have a family, children, wife and kids? Or are you just a young hustler looking for the fast lane to wealth.
<11> Basically tell me your story, Who is "Denis" the man behind this artfully crafted letter. Where are you coming from? Take me into your life journey and your philosophy. I want an honest and true story with well thought out answers and responses that are real to you and not a coy or made up. I find you to be very interesting and intelligent and I am fascinated by that and would like to read more from you.
Feel free to add whatever else you would like. Will be looking out for your response. Thank you for your time in doing this. Cheers
Adaure
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Adure ,
Your questions are too many are you working for fbi or what?meanwhile i am single in case if you may like to marry me.
I have ideas of buisness but i dont have money to put it to reality so am worried bucause of my burning desire to sustain the dream alive.i dont have papers to do normal job and if sudenly you work with another persons paper such persons normaly eat our money here and you cant complain otherwise you will be facing security risk.
i am a higher school leaver my attack is basically a focused sustained asult on white people not people like you.i have never gotten a good client to raise money for my trade otherwise i would quit this buisness as it cant guarantee steady means of lively hood.which ever psychology they will suffer will never by equal to that one suffered by that negro slave that was moved from his ancestral root whose soul is still in search of final resting place both the living and the death.dont tell me about image of country again because i have knoe country my country Biafra is still yet to be they only country i can stand and defend her image anywhere.
I hope with this you will be okay.
Denis.
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Denis
I am not with the FBI, I am just a reporter and as such I tend to ask very many questions. You did not give me the answers that I was looking for. Are you bored already? C'mon now, see all the questions I gave you and you are giving me this short answer. I cannot even write one paragraph with that. Try to answer the questions each specifically because you have all these ideas going on and you are confusing me a little bit
Meanwhile as I wait for you to really answer my questions, lets talk about Biafra since you do not care about Nigeria's or Africa's image. How do you think you are helping Biafra's image with this. I am ashamed you are trying to twist this into a debate about Biafra's existence or lack thereof and trying to use the past (slavery included) as justification for your lifestyle. Biafra died with the Nigerian Civil war in 1970 and you seem to be a prisoner of ideology. Do you think that if Biafra did come to fruition in 1970 that it would not be another mess that most african countries are. Do you think Biafra would be any different from Nigeria or that it would not share the same history as other countries. Your argument bears no substance. By the way how old are you? Where you born during or after the war?
Awaiting your response
Adaure
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At this point, I guess he either chickened out or found a 'MUGU' that bought his first scam letter BS. I never heard from this guy again.
Anyways I am unable to read through so bare with me. I have to rush out and find where to go as 'NEPA HAS STRUCKETHED' and their is no juice in my lap-top battery. Anyhow please do share your thougths on this rather silly exchange.
On Sunday night I sat down for two hours trying to watch this piece on ABC news by Brian Ross Scamming the Scammers. It is dial up Internet and it is FREE so I should stop being an ingrate and keep psyching to get broadband. As for T-1 connection, I am not sure that is in Nigeria yet. However that might be facilitated with the recent agreement that Microsoft just made with the Federal government "to allow the Nigerian government and agencies the use and deployment of its software at the cost of N324 million," according to the aily Champion. Anyways after watching that, I feel this is the right time to unveil some 'scrolls' that I have been keeping. Before I go ahead, I have to point out in sarcasm an irony in Brian Ross piece and emphasise the 'DELETE UNSOLICITED EMAILS' part. This is a case of penny wise pound foolish. So basically in order to save himself from being scammed out of his money, Mr. Ross decided to 'spend' money to fly first class, ship equipment to go and do a 3 minute report to show us 'he is no mugu after all'. Ok Mr. Ross, you just spent probably $10,000 when you could have just clicked 'delete'. Thank God for Minnie and Mickey. But interesting report none the less, would have been better if it was balanced with another report on what the Nigerian Government is also doing through the E.F.C.C. I am sure a sound bite with Mallam Ribadu or even a mention of how to report the scams to the body would satisfy that purpose. But ya'll know the deal with reporting about anything that has to do with Africa.
But back to my scrolls. I should have taken my own advice because this guy 'blascattered' my head with his English but I was angry the day this whole thing started and I was surprised I even got a response. It all started with the scam emails we were getting at work. You know how that can be. Every time one came, someone would never fail to mention or ask me about it. That is like saying to a blind man, "You are blind so I guess you cannot see that rainbow," or telling the mother monkey that her child is ugly. Anyways, just as other Nigerians in diaspora I would just laugh along, roll my eyes or curse under my breathe. But this day, I came in to work at 7am only to be greeted by the email. Knowing what I would face at work, I quickly replied. Usually when we get viewer emails at the station, if someone replied, you send an email out so no one else does. So I sent an 'I've responded to this viewer' not just to be funny, but just so that no one will come and start disturbing me. Lo and behold, one of my supervisors came in and the first thing he said to me after exchanging greetings was in reference to the scam email and we laughed about mine. Anyways enjoy the email exchange, I found it quite interesting and hilarious. Please do excuse the typos on my part and the poor use of the English language and lengthiness on Mr Dennis Audu's part. (PS: For the purpose of full disclosure, after my second reply, I moved the exchange to my personal account and did the rest from home.)
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-----Original Message-----
From: Denis Audu
Subject: Help this new change
Dear Sir/Madam,
Goodday,i am sorry for any enconviniences this letter may cause you in
trying to understand my purpose and why i have choosing to solicit for
your assistance .its true that i dont know you personally but my
previouse experience and the situation i found my self has thought me
to
have more faith in looking deyond my imidiated environment and being
that i have lost my confidence in human nature more especially people i
have laboured so much to fixed in strategic places who has choosen to
bit the finger that feed them instead of appreciating my kindness,but
now i have choosing to follow gods direction of faith and for you to
understand me please its important that you first put your self in my
own shoes.
I am Mr Denis Audu of the The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)of
ZIMBABWE the S P A to MorganTsvangirai,the c opposition leader . who
is currently facing more treason charges of plotting to kill President
Robert Mugabe the treason charge arises as a result of Tsvangirai's
meetings with a Canadian political consultant in which Robert Mugabe
allegedly claimed that Tsvangirai spoke of "eliminating"him Mugabe
ahead
of presidential polls, MorganTsvangirai If convicted risks the death
penalty. The new treason charges arose from mass anti-government
protests Tsvangirai organised last year in which he is accused of
urging
Zimbabweans to oust Mugabe.
The state accuses Tsvangirai of inciting supporters to overthrow the
government and engage in acts of public violence ,Pitabely during this
our prodemocratic campangne rally which we are being accused of public
violence a lot of our member were assassinated openly and secretely by
police and hudlums suspected to be the killer agents of the
government.ever since then or party have been subjected under heavy
attack by those incumbent masterminded forces as a result of our
continue oppositon stand against the incumbent president Robert Mugabe
and his porported tenure elongation .
Today as i am talking to you the president with the support of his
corrupt ruling Zanu PF party officials and members in the pailiament
are pressing for the manipulation of the arrangement to restrict
MorganTsvangirai from contesting the next general election there fore
negetting chapter IV of the constitution, section 28, subsection
(1),which states that a person qualifies for election as president if
he is "a citizen by birth or by descent, has attained 40 years and is
ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe". its against this background that we
have decided to remobilise with all our members nomatter what it will
take both home and abroad in readyness to resist his constitutional
amendment and for the forthcoming general elections through our youth
co-odinator in other to enable us resist any eventuality as is
expected,note that the national chirman of my party who was a former
Agricultural minister in my country is awear of this development
needless mentioning names including the part director of campaign
mobilization and finance comitee.
However,upon the above introduction of my person and purpose i have
been
directed to do all the international consultations associated to
getting
every body defence technologies which we may need in the course of
acheiving our objectives.having seen your contact in the search
directory thought it worthy to contact your person for possible
negociations in this update and how its going to work out smoothly,as
we
articulate this project we particularly search for men and women of
proving integrity and reliable due to the sensitive nature of this
transaction i assure you that your intrest is fully guaranteed and the
bases for your co-opration negociable.
Meanwhile i am to negociate the purchase outside Zimbabwe since the
money for this has been maped out from part of our party reserve fund
with a security company in europe totaling $21.5million us dollars by
the party ,being that i accompanied my boss MorganTsvangirai here in
europe where the deposit was made with the intention to utilize it by
our party before he was arrested, its upon this development that our
party wants me to continue with every party maped out plan scince i
have
a comprehensive details of every deposite made by my boss inrespect to
the party.what you will do for me is just to stand as the party
beneficiary contractor abroad to help secure the reserve first then we
look for a body defence company for the purchase and the party beleive
that i am the only person who has the capacity and the sagacity to do
the international consultations it takes.you will only party me to
utilize the confidence i am already enjoying in the party leadership by
being honest in my future dealing and correspondence with you.as we go
on i am going to provide you with all the neccesary logistics support
to
enable you function well in this project.
Do contact me via e mail mdc_coalition@yahoo.co.uk.
Thanks for your cosideration,
Denis Audu.
For (M D C).
*****************************************
From: Achumba, Adaure
Subject: RE: Help this new change
BROTHER
YOU CAN WRITE OH!!!! WHY NOT PUT THAT ENERGY AND TALENT INTO SOMETHING
BENEFICIAL INSTEAD OF EMBARRASSING YOUR PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD BY
SENDING THESE 419 LETTERS-- THAT IS NOT GOOD OH. EVERY TIME I GET ONE
OF
THESE LETTERS AT WORK THAT IS THE JOKE OF THE DAY. NOT VERY FAIR TO
THOSE OF US WHO ARE HARD WORKING. GO WRITE A BOOK OR A FILM SCRIPT AND
WORK FOR YOUR MONEY.
YOUR SISTER IN THE DIASPORA
*********************************************
Sister,
I do appreciate your effort in finding time to read my letter and your
advice well noted.
Yes first off all can you indentify the country whose image your trying
to protect ,as soon as you give me this information then i will be in a
position to address your questions more meaningfuly.
Thanks for now,
Denis Audu.
******************************************************************
Brother,
What a pleasant surprise to read your note. I was truly not expecting
you to reply. To answer your questions (which is not really one) about
which country's image I am trying to protect. Frankly I am not trying
to
protect any image at all. The image of Africa and her countries is bad
across the board so trying to protect it is a futile effort. It is like
protecting Firewood from Fire, the two have an inevitable path of
destiny to cross, hence the given name. Changing the image of Africa is
what I am about and I cannot do that when there are people like you who
insist on taking that fast route rather than put that god given talent
and ability towards a skill or trade. You write very well, what will it
take you to hone that skill and broaden it in to something. There are
people who went from painting lipstick on their face in the mirror
every
morning and shining their teeth in vanity to painting the faces of
people as a business venture and owning their own make up line. There
are people who have gone from mixing coke and cherry fanta with brandy
for Christmas parties to being the primary mixed-drink and punch
supplier to events to owning a catering outfit. These are all people
who could have resigned to fast schemes like every degree holder who
cannot get a job, every high school certificate holder who cannot pass
university entrance exam, but they choose not to resign to that fate
and
put heir energy into exercising their talents and becoming
entrepreneurial. I hope this will help you address my question more
meaningfully as I am curious to hear you defend yourself and your
attempt to defraud an unsuspecting victim who may unfortunately be
gullible or even greedy enough to give you their information. I look
forward to your response and I hope we can share our views more on
this
matter.
Your Sister
Adaure
*********************************************
Dear Sister Adaure,
I will appreciate a situation where by we try to be more direct in our approach,
because you are trying to be a bit diplomatical in tackling my questions just be open there is no problems since you have dicided to correct a wrong but remember there is a background to every injustice and by the time you indentify your self well,i am ready to give you a more comprehensive insight to this problem you are trying to address maybe it will even aid you incase you wants to write a book.
Before i forget in your next letter please tell me that country in the world you think as having the best image not even continent and the yadstick used for such assesment by whose ever is that later day saint that produced that report.
Yours Brother,
Denis.
**********************************************
My Brother Dear Dennis
I am being as open as a calabash. How much more direct can I really be. You want me to fly inside the computer. I am not being 'diplomatical' as you put it. Just stating a fact. And why do I need to 'indentify' myself, it is not like I am hiding behind a fake name or email address like you are. I am all ears to your comprehensive insight into the problem and yes may be your insight can help me understand where you are coming from and the background on the injustice that you speak of. I am sure they will make good material to write a book. I can even have you as the co-author so that you can stop your illegal hustling. To your last statement, you are right there is no country that has the best image neither is there a country to which a yardstick assessment can be attributed to. I don't think i have said that or even hold that position. But just because some things are uncontrollable and are over looked doesn't mean it is right or give it any justification because that is basically what you are trying to say. Anyways bros, I think you are the one being a bit indirect and not being very open. If I may go further, what is your story, why do you chose to send the email scam instead of doing something else. Please educate me since you are seem to challenge my claim to the moral high ground on this matter.
Your Dear Sister Adaure
****************************************
Dear Sister Adaure,
I am happy atleast that you have accepted the fact that there is no country with a clean image, i have lived also in the so called advanced countries and i know how they came about there advancement, you may also have been out side Africa.i was motivated to responding to your first mail because you said this mail comes always everday and that your co-workers reads it with you with the impression that the mail comes from your brothers in Africa.So i actually wanted to get to those your co-workers and lash them incase they are white people.
Well your theory is real but can only work out in a just society,i also enjoy your writting for so long i have not been in contact with ladies that writtes so mavelousely.
Lastly i am writting you from here in Madrid Spain if you wouldnt mind this is my telepohe number 0034-650-677-802.if we must contnue in this chart let me know you better.
Thanks for your intrest.
Denis.
*********************************************
Brother Denis,
This is interesting. So are you saying you are NOT AFRICAN? Amazing!! I am aware that some of these emails do not originate from Africa directly but I was not expecting a non-African. I was afraid you would be Nigerian because you answer my questions with nothing but more questions and try to take me off the subject. Very typical. Perhaps you have too many Nigerian friends.
So you are in Spain? What do you do in Spain? Do you have a real job or you just rely on revenue from your email scams.
Per knowing me better, I am not sure what you mean? I am sure we can continue this dialogue on our ideology via email. I honestly don't have time to talk on the phone, plus I would like to document our conversation for that book we talked about. Anyways go through my previous email and re-read them because there are so many questions you have left unanswered. Cheers Brother
Your Sister (I guess no longer perhaps) Adaure
*********************************************
Dear Adaure,
Now two things a imperative i gave you an option to reveal your indentity if you must have an insight about my activities which you refuted,instead your intrest revolves around record my converstions with you.perhaps if that is your only intrest then that will cost you small money.
Denis.
**************************************************
Hello Denis
You are certainly right, my interest does revolve around recording our conversations and getting insight into what you do and why you do it. I apologize if I did not make it clear that I was a journalist. I assumed you would have made that inference from my email address or done some research of some sort. Anyways I am a journalist from Nigeria but live in the United States. You are a fascinating character and I am interested in hearing your story. It is amazing, especially when it can help dispel the myth that these email scams all originate from Nigerians and Africans. You did give me the impression that you are neither.Is that correct? Anyways it is unfortunate but as a news journalist I do not pay to get stories. Even if I did, how am I sure you would not turn me into a victim and run away with my money. That being said I am enjoying this exchange and look forward to continuing to hear from you. Again please go over my previous emails and answer the questions I have asked you elaborately. You may also chose to decline and discontinue this exchange. You also gave me your phone number but I must get your consent as well to have the conversation recorded. Again this is only for journalistic purposes and does not involve any law enforcement so you can relax. I am just after the fascinating story that you have to tell. Believe me no one will pay you for your story so here is your opportunity to turn your scam into something good. I await your reply. Cheers
Adaure
********************************************
Subject: For your comprehensive insight.
Ada,
I thank you for your effort intrying to bring me to a talk,well that’s not bad.
However,I can see that your privilegded to be hard working in the United states as i was mearnt to know in your first mail but please note that working hard is a function of income and environment that is the demand for labour and some of your brothers and sisters are not exposed to such opportunities at home i dont realy know your antecedentes but atleast your parents some how could afford it in one way or the other.
I am sorry maybe if i could not tackle your questions directly it is not deliberate as i try to give you a more coincise details which could offer a more valuable answers to your questions, but incase if your not satisfied, your free to resend it back to me for an appropriate answer.
Listen cearfully may be I don’t know what is your fathers position about Nigeria because he is the only person in a position to tell you the truth,but when he fails in that duty then as an adult you can search for answers to your own questions.
In 1914 one man called Lord Lugard carried out the amalgamation of north and southern Nigeria to the British intrest to suit the police of indirect rule and consequently placed north in a more political dominating power in Nigeria polity which positioned the north in getting a lion chair of what ever that comes out of Nigeria,even when geographically they are located in a barren desart and having boundries with the poorest African state Chad.
Before independence a man called Tafawa Bellewa was a primary school teacher and the british empire being leaded by a woman in England finds this man more qualified to be the priminster more that Zik and Awolowo and other elites that paid the price of our independence struggle,this is not for the intrest of me and you and Nigerians but for the intrest of the northern muslems and british because the England government felt it is only the muslem north will remember and guarantee there intrest when the go. I will send you an appendix to this points.
The british government masterminded the killing of the ibos in the north with there constant arminitions and personel supply to Gowon after the fall of Tafawa belewa the stuge they installed in Nigerian as a priminster. The coupe that huasted Belewa was never an igbo coup which Britain makes the world to beleive , why ?because General Ironsi who crippled the coup was an igbo man and ojukwu also an igbo man rendered the coup immobile in the northern kanu where he was serving as a brigade commander then.
Sister I have washed the western intrest and finds out that it chages over time ,so it is never permanent .eg in Nigeria they have demonstrated an all time support to the muslems than the Christians whom seams to share the same christian faith with them contrary to what we see in the case of irsael and lebanon,in iraq they propagated Saddam when they wanted to use him against Ayotala komeni of Iran ans they succeded later because of the difficulties in respecting a dishonest father Sadam fallout of there favour and was accused of possesing a weapon of mass distrutions which uptill now is still being looked for.
I am not drawing this inferences in other to divert my focus from the original subject but to capture your understanding of the historic background of the problems your trying to address.
I had listened to the American independence speech and I saw there was really a promise and it is upon this promise that Marthin luther stood and libreted the black negros from the chains of slavery to the promise land of freedom for all irrespective of color and that promise is freedom to every American. I had gone to search for Nigerian independence speech and could not fine the content of the speech instead Tafawa Belewa was busy thanking the that woman in england and the people of England for handing over power to him so there was know promise from where to continue as a people .Even in Biafran struggle there was a promise and that promise was Self determination and it was that promise of self determination that sustained the will to continue the struggle without any armunitions at our disposal upto 1970 when the Nigerian and Britain lead attack with higher fire power got fed up of drinking the innocent blood of the igbos,and the America and the rest of the world was behind washing as our fathers, mothers , brothers and brothers ,young and old died defencelessly,and we are still Christians together sitting and worshiping the same god,I wonder who will go to heaven.since that brotherly love we were thought as young growing Christians was greatly betrayed when we see them joing hand with muslems in killing there own Christian brothers and sisters.
Today in Nigeria an average igbo young lady that comes out of the university can not get a job unless she gave out her body to the northern directors in different government institutions men even older that there own fathers,and young men from the eastern Nigeria who came out of the university could not be employed while illiterates from the north occupy executive government positions. as if that is not enough, they introduced what is called normadic education in the north so that that cattle rearer can also oneday become the manager of financial institutions while our well trained graduates are parading the street with nothing to show for, there by making education non attractive in the eastern Nigeria and you want us to sitback and die of hunger in the missed this delibrate policy of crpplling us psychologically and economically..They even went asfar as introducing what is called cut of point in the university entrance examination so that sobody who scoure 300 from the east and west will gain the same admission to read the same course with somebody who score 50 from the north so that those who scoure from 150 to 200 from the easth will be denied admission as if it is a course to become intelligent ,what a sell out to the system,when they were doing privatization the northerners being present in the government used the same money they stole from government pocket to bought over all the privatized government enterprise and our retied fathers could not even afford there pensions as at when do, takless of investing on privatization.
Please before I forget you asked me while I am doing this job ,but note that higher educations exposes one to a certain level of life that is why the Nigerian first civilian regime introduced car loan to fresh university graduates as an offer of entitlement upon employment these lasted upto 1980 when the military northern oligachy took over power again and turned the whole system upside down.i can not afford to be looking my father who gave me education and my younger once die of hunger.
Frustration does a lot of things especially when equal opportunity is not given to every one in the same society,i am happy atleast that after the British and Nigeria invasion which left Biafran igbo totally naked we did not resort to terrorism like the arabs but repositioned our energy towards economic survival.which one is better.
I have to live your ,a word is enough for the wise.
From Denis.
*******************************************
HE THEN SENDS ME A COPY OF PRIME MINISTER TAFAWA BALEWA'S ADDRESS TO THE NATION ON INDEPENDENCE DAY, OCTOBER 1ST 1960 AS WELL AS AN ARTICLE TITLED WHY THE IGBO MAN IS NOT TRUSTED BY Justice Eze Ozobu. SEARCH FOR THEM ON GOOGLE AND LET ME KNOW IF YOU CANNOT FIND THEM AND I WILL POST THEM. I GUESS HE WAS TRYING TO DRIVE SOME POINT TO BACK UP HIS POSITION. I WAS LOST.
*******************************************
Hmh...very interesting write up. I did see your other emails as well. So you are Nigerian after all and saddest of all an Igbo. You dashed my little glimmer of hope with that revelation. While I understand where you are coming from and agree that the environment in Nigeria is harsh and wealth is not distributed fairly, I do not agree that one should resort to unscrupulous means to make a living. I also do not agree that my being in the US is the privilege that provided me the opportunity to work hard. That is self determined regardless of where I would have ended up in life. From your email you seem to have some level of education. What is your educational background and qualification and are you in Spain legally. Perhaps if you are not, that's an added reason as to why things might be hard for you. Have you ever thought of starting your own business and if so what was the result of that. See optimism and hard work goes a long way.
You say "Frustration does a lot of things especially when equal opportunity is not given to every one in the same society,I am happy at least that after the British and Nigeria invasion which left Biafran Igbo totally naked we did not resort to terrorism like the Arabs but repositioned our energy towards economic survival.which one is better"
It is interesting they way you are rehashing history as a means to justify your being an ill to society and the Igbo heritage. Is this your way of acting out or getting back at society. I am all for economic survival, that's why many of us leave the shores of Africa in the first place to seek economic opportunities where they are abundant. As you too are one of the 'fortunate' one, using your inference, why aren't you utilizing the opportunities available to reposition your energy and wits into something more tangible and honorable rather than dupe people? I mean. let's get real here, what you do is criminology and nothing else. Artfully using your education to perpetuate crime without a gun. How can anyone in his or her right mind try to justify that? I am just wondering because you still have not explained that aspect. Thanks for the Nigerian history lesson but I think I got enough of that to earn straight A's in the subject secondary school. But I appreciate the refresher course, however it is truly a digression from my original questions which I have also rehashed in this email.
(ps: Na wa for you sha. Why do Naija people like to play Maradona when they are asked simple questions. Bros na wetin...abeg time na money o...just ansa me jare.)
*****************************************************
Ada Please,
Repeat that question your talking about,may be i could not capture that.
Dennis
*******************************************************
Hello Dennis,
Thanks for your speedy response
Here are some questions I have written out that I would like for you to answer to help me understand you and get insight into what you do and why you do it.
<1> What led you into this art of sending email scam letters and how successful/ profitable has it been for you. How often have people fallen to the trap.
<2> Are you gainfully employed? If so why do you choose to do this? If not employed, why not?
<3> How do you justify this criminal activity as repositioning your energy towards economic survival, s you have eloquently put it.
<4> What is your back ground; educational, family, cultural and economic?
<5> Do you care that the emails you send are embarrassing to other Nigerians and Africans. For example, when I get emails like this at work, it is the joke of the day because people assume ( justifiably) that they are from Nigerians.
<6> Why do you not value hard work as a means to an end.
<7> What would you say is the psychology behind people who become victims to this email scam and fall for your elaborate stories.
<8> What is your immigration status, are you in Spain legally? Are there no jobs for you there and is that why you resort to 419
<9> Have you ever thought of starting your own business and if so what was the end result of that.
<10> Do you have a family, children, wife and kids? Or are you just a young hustler looking for the fast lane to wealth.
<11> Basically tell me your story, Who is "Denis" the man behind this artfully crafted letter. Where are you coming from? Take me into your life journey and your philosophy. I want an honest and true story with well thought out answers and responses that are real to you and not a coy or made up. I find you to be very interesting and intelligent and I am fascinated by that and would like to read more from you.
Feel free to add whatever else you would like. Will be looking out for your response. Thank you for your time in doing this. Cheers
Adaure
**************************************************
Adure ,
Your questions are too many are you working for fbi or what?meanwhile i am single in case if you may like to marry me.
I have ideas of buisness but i dont have money to put it to reality so am worried bucause of my burning desire to sustain the dream alive.i dont have papers to do normal job and if sudenly you work with another persons paper such persons normaly eat our money here and you cant complain otherwise you will be facing security risk.
i am a higher school leaver my attack is basically a focused sustained asult on white people not people like you.i have never gotten a good client to raise money for my trade otherwise i would quit this buisness as it cant guarantee steady means of lively hood.which ever psychology they will suffer will never by equal to that one suffered by that negro slave that was moved from his ancestral root whose soul is still in search of final resting place both the living and the death.dont tell me about image of country again because i have knoe country my country Biafra is still yet to be they only country i can stand and defend her image anywhere.
I hope with this you will be okay.
Denis.
***********************************************
Denis
I am not with the FBI, I am just a reporter and as such I tend to ask very many questions. You did not give me the answers that I was looking for. Are you bored already? C'mon now, see all the questions I gave you and you are giving me this short answer. I cannot even write one paragraph with that. Try to answer the questions each specifically because you have all these ideas going on and you are confusing me a little bit
Meanwhile as I wait for you to really answer my questions, lets talk about Biafra since you do not care about Nigeria's or Africa's image. How do you think you are helping Biafra's image with this. I am ashamed you are trying to twist this into a debate about Biafra's existence or lack thereof and trying to use the past (slavery included) as justification for your lifestyle. Biafra died with the Nigerian Civil war in 1970 and you seem to be a prisoner of ideology. Do you think that if Biafra did come to fruition in 1970 that it would not be another mess that most african countries are. Do you think Biafra would be any different from Nigeria or that it would not share the same history as other countries. Your argument bears no substance. By the way how old are you? Where you born during or after the war?
Awaiting your response
Adaure
********************************************
At this point, I guess he either chickened out or found a 'MUGU' that bought his first scam letter BS. I never heard from this guy again.
Anyways I am unable to read through so bare with me. I have to rush out and find where to go as 'NEPA HAS STRUCKETHED' and their is no juice in my lap-top battery. Anyhow please do share your thougths on this rather silly exchange.
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