My Thoughts on the Independence Bomb Blast

We have all just been saddened by the news of the Bomb Explosions outside the Parade Ground in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, as we celebrate our 50th year of Independence.

For the first time in a while, Nigerians were united in the celebration of something of national value. Everyone has something planned and the mood in Lagos and other major cities, towns and villages around the country has been festive.

And then this sad news that 8 people have been killed in the Blast!

What is this supposed to mean?

Who wants Nigerians to remember this occasion with mourning and gloom?

How are we supposed to react to this?

Are we to cancel all the celebrations we had planned today in honor of the lives which have been lost in this tragedy?

Should we all wear black and adopt somber long faces, forgetting that only hours ago, we were optimistic about our nation’s future?

Is it our civic responsibility to mourn on a day when we should ordinarily be celebrating?

*sigh* Nigeria..why?!

I would have liked to say right now that even though I commiserate with the families of those whose lives have been lost and am deeply sorrowful about their loss, that I refuse to be depressed by this tragedy.

However, I can’t help but wonder how I’d feel if one of those 8 people was my friend or family member.

Would I be so willing to continue the celebration then?

Will we be expressing a form of national Solidarity if we decided to collectively mourn this loss of Nigerian lives OR still go ahead to celebrate in spite of it?

Which of these options will speak well of us as a Nation?

If I were to be Goodluck Jonathan right now, in whose words lies the direction the rest of today (and after) should take for all Nigerians, what would I have said to 'My Fellow Nigerians' at this time?

My question remains: What is supposed to be the mood now after this Golden Jubilee Explosion??

Go Team IBB!!!

Bumped into an interesting group of people at Base Lounge, Silverbird Galleria, Lagos.



They were like the usual everyday young people we know, only that they were boldly proclaiming their support for Former Military Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida!!

I couldn't resist going over to speak to them; I was shocked and impressed at their audacity to publicly identify with the One who majority of Nigerians regard as the Enemy.

They claim to not be paid for their support...they say they actually believe in him as the solution for Nigeria!!

In their words, "Let the person who spoilt the country come and fix it by himself"

Alright...and there I was thinking nothing could shock me anymore in this Lagos of mine!!

MTV Africa Music Awards : The Little White Lie

For every time I ever heard the tag-line of the MTV Africa Music Awards commercial, I felt a cringe somewhere inside me.

I never really investigated the reason for that cringe, but I knew there was something terribly wrong with the statement being made at the end of the MAMA’s commercial.

“Giving Africa a Voice”

A few weeks ago, after hearing it yet again, I actually repeated it to myself a few times and it was immediately clear to me why I always had that negative reaction toward it.

It is a blatant LIE.

The MTV Music Awards is MTV’s signature continent specific Annual music Awards event. The MTV Europe Music Awards (EMA’s), MTV Asia Awards, MTV Australia Awards and now MTV Africa Music Awards are held annually in celebration of musical achievement around the world.

The MTV platform is very well recognized globally, and Africa was proud when in 2008, the first ever MAMA’s was held in Abuja, Nigeria.

Everyone was excited about this huge opportunity for African artistes to be recognized on an International platform. I was so excited about it, that I actually went to Abuja just for the Event.

Finally, we had our very own MTV Awards Event, as opposed to the African Act Category the entire continent had to struggle for on the Europe Music Awards (EMA’s) platform.

Nigeria’s TuFace and D’banj won the Best African Act Award in 2005 and 2007 respectively.


D'banj receiving his EMA

Without a doubt, African artistes have benefitted tremendously from the MTV Award platform and I celebrate that in every way I know how.

However, to make an outright claim that the MAMA’s platform ‘gives Africa a Voice’, is something I find completely absurd and insulting.

I think it’s just WRONG to say that.

It would have made a lot more sense if the tag-line was “Letting Africa’s Voice be heard”, that would have been a home truth that cannot be contested.

When someone says they gave you your Voice, doesn’t that mean that apart from them, you have no voice?!

So does this mean that before 2008 when MAMA’s was established, Africa had no voice??

But isn’t Fela Anikulapo-Kuti an African Voice which has been heard for decades before 2008? How about Mama Afrika, Mariam Makeba, who died in November 2008, but through her music, had been a Voice even in Apartheid South Africa?

What about Youssour Ndor, Brenda Fassi, Papa Wemba, Oliver De Coque, Seun Anikulapo-Kuti, Sound Sultan, Daddy Showkey and all the thousands of great Artistes who through their Music, have been a Voice for the millions of Africans they represent; did the MAMA’s give them their voice?

Let’s not even talk about our folklores; traditional music passed down from generations of Africans. Did your forefathers in the villages have televisions or any clue as to what MTV is?!

Even in personal relationships, the concept of “say what you mean and mean what you say” is an invaluable one, so it actually confuses me that a global brand like MTV, backed by a major indigenous Telecoms company, can confidently make such a profound claim, which is clearly a Lie.

Someone actually wrote that line, it passed through an Approval process, and has now been on Television for quite a while; a clear deception, being communicated to the millions of young Africans who watch and believe everything they hear and see on MTV daily.

How do you now convince the 13year old Nigerian boy, whose entire worldview is shaped by what he sees and hears on MTV Base, that Africa didn’t get her voice from the MAMA’s?!

How do you teach this same boy the concept of Individuality and the value of finding his own voice as a tool for making an impact in his world?

How do you convince him that there is pride in being African and much to celebrate about who we are and our history as a people?

I’m sure we all know that the best way to get anyone to accept an idea, regardless of how absurd it is, is to continuously confront them with it until they have no choice but to believe and accept it.

Why is it that the tag-line for the MTV Asia Awards doesn’t make the same claim?!

Have we as Africans become so desensitized to our own sense of Identity that we gleefully accept whatever we are told about ourselves, in exchange for an International Platform for our music?

Is that what it is?!

What about me? I have a Voice, it took me a long while, but I finally discovered it, and I have never been on the MAMA’s platform.

Neither has Tosyn Bucknor, whose voice gives hope to thousands of young people on the radio every week-day, or Funmi Iyanda who for years was a Voice for people who otherwise wouldn’t be heard, through her Talk Show on NTA.

Are these not African Voices?!

No matter how nicely wrapped a Lie is, it can NEVER become Truth. It will always remain a Lie.

The MTV Africa Music Awards with Zain, DOES NOT and DID NOT give Africa its Voice.

And that’s a Home Truth.

Blond Nigerian Answer To The Race Question?!

Of course my first reaction to the story about the Ihegboro’s, a Nigerian couple in London, England who gave birth to a Blond baby girl was “The woman’s Underground train has finally come out of the tunnel!!”

As in seriously now, how, when and where has it EVER been heard that a Black couple have a White child?!

But after reading the story, it’s actually looking more and more like we have just all witnessed a MIRACLE!!

The baby is not Albino, and the woman claims she hasn’t been creeping around. Her husband seems to believe her, so who am I to suggest otherwise.

Even if she’s been ‘getting it’ from some Caucasian guy, he has to be another level of Superman to completely dominate the child’s DNA and leave absolutely no trace of the mother’s race.

It’s interesting to me because just about 2 days ago, I was wondering within myself how all the different races of Humankind emerged. I was imagining a situation where ancient people like Noah in the Bible had different children who were Caucasian, Asian-looking, Black and even Middle-Eastern, in one family.

If all humanity began from one man, then it means that situations like this Nigerian couple’s were a normal thing in the B.C. days. Where a brown-skinned, sunburned Arabian couple would have produced a slanty-eyed, martial-art playing little boy!!

If not, then what other explanation is there as to how so many different kinds of people could have originated from one person. Or can we argue that everyone initially looked the same but as they migrated to different parts of the earth, transformed into whatever physical dispositions their environments demanded of them?!

What if people back then just accepted whatever came out after labor, no matter how it looked, as a child nonetheless, and then these children when they grew, migrated to different parts of the earth better suited for their Inhabitation, and then formed what we now know as Races?

Whatever it is, the Ihegboro’s ‘Miracle Child’, if all things being equal and the mother wasn’t getting busy on the side, has just shown the world that indeed, all these differences we hold on to so dearly are simply elements of our one Humanness.

Maybe blond haired baby, Nmachi Ihegboro, is God’s answer to the Race question, just like Caster Semanya, the hermaphrodite Athlete, may be His answer to the Gender question.

Hmmnnn..so I wonder what His answer to the Gay question would be??!

Again I say, if all things being equal, and there was no mago-mago involved in these extraordinary events!!

I wonder what Question I’m His answer to though?! Hmmnnnnn...

The Born-again Jihadist

As someone who has lived in Nigeria all my life, I thought I had reached a point where almost nothing could shock me.

I was proven wrong this morning when I opened the newspapers and read the report of the man who tried to blow up a passenger-filled airplane with his taxi. (click on title link for full story)




That is something you honestly don’t see anywhere but in the movies. The last time anything like that happened was in the movie ‘Live Free or Die Hard’ of the Die Hard series, when Bruce Willis’ character "killed an airplane with a car"!!


Bruce Willis

But everyone knows that life in Nigeria is one incredible Nollywood story so why am I surprised?

Different news media have given different accounts of the unknown man’s intentions. 234 Next says he claimed he was Jesus Christ and was trying to save the aircraft from an impending crash.

This Day on the other hand says that he screamed “REPENT!!” and then crashed his taxi under the plane. The paper reports that his message for the 200 people he could have killed was “Jesus is the Redeemer. Everyone should repent and follow him because I will come back and complete the attack”. According to him, Nigerians are unrepentant sinners.




This is some freaky, freaky happening!! So does that mean every bad thing I do from now makes me a potential target for terrorist attack?!

The idea of Jihad has now gone beyond religious boundaries and so anyone who feels that a person or group of people who are not living in conformity to their own idea of what is right, can now take up their own weapon of Mass Destruction to rid the earth of all perceived evil?!!

But wait o….what if according to the Next report he was telling the truth and was indeed trying to save the plane from a crash?! I’m just not convinced about the him being Jesus part though. It’s quite hard for me to reconcile Jesus being a fanatical taxi-driver by day and airplane destroying terrorist by night Efik man.

Then again, is it possible that we all engage in this form of Terrorism every time we judge people for their weaknesses and failures as human beings?? Every time we look down on other people’s beliefs just because they are even slightly different from ours?!




Am I not operating by the same principle of the Jihad when I alienate someone or condemn them in my heart just because their lifestyle is not in conformity to my personal standard of morality?

“Nigerians are unrepentant sinners”....can someone please remind Mr Unknown Assailant of where he’s from.

The 7yr old Dictator

A day doesn’t go by at my house without my 7year old nephew and his 5year old sister fighting over control of the TV remote.

He likes to watch all the macho stuff like Ben 10, Mega XLR, and an occasional Johnny Bravo. She on the other hand watches The Mickey Mouse Club, Hannah Montana and co. Once in a while they’d agree to a truce by watching something like The Suite Life of Zack & Cody together. Aside from that, it’s the Battle for the remote as usual.


Zack & Cody from the Suite Life

My nephew tends to have his way in that regard much more than his sister though. He’d either wake up much earlier (off school days) or get her interested in something else that’ll take up all her attention, then go and assume his position in front of the TV undisturbed. By the time she realizes it, it’s a little too late, cos he’ll just say “But I got here first!!” and not even Aunty Tari can do anything about that one.

So Saturday was no exception. He had reigned in front of the TV like he was Mugabe or Ghaddafi, and my niece had cried and cried, they had fought and argued, but he didn’t move a muscle.



So she gave up and soon came to ask if she could use my computer to play Dress-up, hairdressing and make-up games online. I set it up for her and she soon got lost in her own little paradise.




About an hour later, a knock on the door, nephew peeks in briefly and goes back to assume his throne. 10minutes later, he comes back, this time to tell his sister that they are going to be showing Dino Squad next. She ignores him.

He comes back 15minutes later to announce to her that after Dino Squad its (lists the names of two more cartoons). She doesn’t even acknowledge him with as much as a glance in his direction. He goes away and comes back 10minutes later, this time, a little less enthusiastic. “Lande, don’t you want to come and watch?!”

She stops very briefly, obviously irritated and tells him, “Can’t you see I’m busy?!” I almost felt sorry for him with the way his head dropped and shoulders sagged as he slowly walked out.




Few minutes later, there was a commotion outside; I rushed to see what the problem was. In his loneliness, Bade had chosen to go and have a fight with one of the maids. He was obviously just seeking attention from anywhere he could get it. I ignored him.

He soon went into one of the worst tantrums ever and everyone just ignored him. My traitorous heart felt sorry for him after a while and I knew I had to try to give him what he truly wanted- his sister.

I begged her to please come back and finish her game later, and go and play with her brother instead. She sulkily went off to meet him. I’ve never seen a tantrum throwing child switch that fast. In less than ten seconds he had stopped crying and whining, and now had Lande’s hand firmly in his and was following her everywhere.

I shook my head in amazement. No matter how hard we human beings, apparently even kids, go after those things we pursue every day, even if and when we do attain them, they can never satisfy that need in our hearts that can only be filled by the love for those in our lives.

Nigerian artiste, 9ice couldn’t have said it better in his track ‘Little Money’.

And they say True Love doesn't exist...

I listened to a young woman tell her story recently:

Her husband’s kidney’s failed and he needed a transplant. All his siblings and his Mum who were a match could not give him one of theirs. His sisters couldn’t give him because their husbands wouldn’t allow them, and his Mum couldn’t because a history of heart problems or hypertension made her ineligible.

So his wife, who was telling the story, promptly asked if she was a match, got tested and immediately offered to donate one of her kidneys to her husband as soon as she discovered she was.

The procedure for kidney transplants is a very delicate one and both donor and donoree can lose their lives in the process. In fact she had to sign multiple forms that confirmed that she was doing this of her own free will should she lose her life. Even her parents had to sign consent forms.

When asked the big question ‘WHY’ she did it, the lady gave a very simple answer: “My husband needed a kidney or he would die; I was a match; I didn’t even think about it beyond that.”



This woman was ready to give her life….sorry…..has given her life for her husband, because there is still major risk in living with only one kidney!!

The question I kept asking myself, apart from if I’d do it if I were in her shoes, was this: What if this man starts treating her bad or wants to divorce her in the future, would she regret her decision then?

There was the story last year about a New York doctor who sued his estranged wife, asking her to return the kidney he donated to her while they were married, until she allegedly had an affair.


Dr Richard Batista and Wife


I mean it’s a heroic gesture to give your kidney or any other vital part of yourself to someone you love, but I guess the test of the unconditional nature of the ‘love’ that prompts one to give so much, comes when there is a failure of the other party to meet one or all of your expectations of the giver.

All I could do after I listened to that woman tell her story was pray that God will give her the grace, so that regardless of whatever her husband does or does not do for her in future, she will not regret her decision.

We all have said or been told “I love you” at one time or the other, but the mark of true love is to give of oneself generously and expect NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING in return.

God help us.

The 'Na Wa O' Blessing

“Na wa o” is a term that I’m certain every Nigerian and wanna be Nigerian has used at least 10times in their lifetime.

It is a Pidgin English exclamation that is used to express awe and disbelief. It is the most likely term of expression a Nigerian would use when he/she is overwhelmed by something, either in a positive or negative way.

The most recent ‘Na wa o’ I heard was earlier today when a guy I know used it.

Sunday is a Security Guard at my office. He is the best of the entire team and also the youngest. His excellent service was rewarded recently by the Company he works for as he was made Supervisor over all his other much older and experienced colleagues.

What sets Sunday apart from the rest is simply his attitude to the job.

He acts as though being a Security guard is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

He is polite, courteous, friendly and helpful to all who he is opportune to interact with.

He runs like the Tasmanian devil is after him, to switch on the generators when there is a power cut, so that we who are in our offices don’t even notice that the power is out.

Sunday, is generally a great guy and the second best Security guard I know. The first still remains our guard at home (will tell you about him another time).

So this morning, Sunday received a surprise gift from an unlikely source. He really wasn’t expecting what he was given and from his reaction it was obvious that it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Sunday was visibly shaken; obviously overwhelmed by what he’d just been given and all he could repeatedly utter was….”Ah…Na Wa O!!!”

My prayer for you in this New Year is that God will do so many great and wonderful things in your life that will overwhelm you so much that all you’d be able to say is “NA WA OOOOOOOOOO!!”

May nothing happen to cause you to use the term to convey any negative feelings. Amen.