Much Ado About Little Blue Thumbs

                

April 4, 2011

Technically, I am very apolitical, unfortunately, the recent happenings that Jegarized our existence as people living in the Zanga in the last seven or so days have created sufficient cause for me to voice my opinions and concerns. Where or what is the Zanga? It is a nation state located in the heart of Africa, sometimes regarded as the most populous nation in Africa. Zanga is located 20 nautical miles off the coast of Zamunda (of the Hollywood flick Coming to America fame).

I should start by commending Prof. on his forthrightness and ability to say it as it is! It takes balls of steel to stand before a nation and confidently reel out what at best could be described as woeful project planning and even more worrisome excuses, as the basis for the delayed elections which were initially scheduled for April 2, 2011, across our beloved motherland.

It is not news that in some polling stations, better described as centres under the green petesse (canopy or umbrella, pronounced kpetesse), voting had already reached near completion, hence the potential issue of the validity of our blue thumbs; as I am guessing that it is quite easy to get your thumbs blued without being accredited, then again, we are all honourable people in the Zanga and would do no such thing.

In terms of process, you get to the polling station, present your voters' registration slip, and you are accredited – simply put, you show your slip, it is matched against a counter copy on the eligible voters' list; if the information tallies, you are asked to present your thumb to be marked with ink. All accredited voters, thus, have at least one little blue thumb.

My frustration however does not lie in the potential blueness of my thumb or the fact that movement is restricted from the night before, (so much for freedoms as enshrined in the constitution), or even the fact that potential voters have no choice but to wait under the scorching sun to cast their vote or be disenfranchised…

My grouse is with the seeming comfort with which we seem to regress while the rest of the world make giant leaps with their employ of technology in the context of voting.

Let us compare notes:

In the sane world, there is no restriction of movement, there are no curfews, there are no grim-faced AK-47-wielding mobile policemen, voting is conducted in well constructed fully air-conditioned buildings or polling centers, you have the flexibility to vote wherever you choose to vote, you even get the option to vote through your embassy representative if you are living outside the country of your birth, there is minimal human interference which reduces the risk of errors, people vote with a sense of pride and with no fear of intimidation, while the political class is mature and more often than not, driven by a genuine desire to make a difference and serve the people.

In the Zanga and most of Africa, it is a slightly different situation; nine out of ten times, the political process itself is flawed and marred with allegations of fraud, incompetence and a forecast of wrong doing, only matched by the incompetence and immaturity of the political class. In the Zanga, the people are the servants who exist to satisfy every whim of the political class or as they have now come to be known the ruling class (so I reckon the rest of us are just lowly serfs or plebs). We have polling stations that are a little more than ramshackle dumps, or at best, an umbrella erected smack in the middle of an intersection for emphasis.

We have grim-faced gun-wielding drunk and near-illiterate mobile policemen whose only joy is to cause you pain or discomfort, or both, we have the political thugs and area boys who are of the same intellectual stock as most of the wolves clamoring for political office. Worse still, we are treated like sheep to be controlled and used as the ruling political class deems fit, or how else does one explain a 5.00pm curfew order issued to the unsuspecting populace at 5.30pm?

Where else, in the twenty-first century can you be told that you can only vote at the centre you registered? What then is the purpose of a voter registration exercise to populate a central database that cannot be accessed from across the country, considering the fact that all our data and biometrics were captured, short of capturing data on our sexual preferences and the list of meals that give us gas.

As we take bold steps towards taking control of our political destiny, we can only but be reminded of the tsunami of change that is sweeping across the Arabian peninsular into Northern Africa with the growing list of political casualties from Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen to Saudi Arabia; where the voice of the people was heard louder than the sound of gunfire, the oppression of soldiers’ whips and the threats and ultimatums of dictators.

As we all proceed to cast our votes over the next few weeks, to select the cabal that would rule the Zanga for the next few years, we can only hope and pray that someday, somehow, somewhere in the Zanga, someone or a group of people would step forward to speak the mind of the people and fight their battle for political and intellectual freedom and dignity.

So, until that day comes, all we can do for now is suck it in, go down to the polling shacks and present our thumbs, so that we all may proudly display our little blue thumbs in hope of a better brighter tomorrow.

-end-

image culled from google images.

Please Don’t Call Me, Send a Text *angry smiley*!

Anyone who is anyone in my life must have heard these words spoken to them before, or had cause to read the words in a short and sharp text message I sent to them instead of picking up my phone to answer a call. Here is why you really cannot blame me for my actions.

For me, this is a very simple and straightforward statement that communicates how I feel about the seemingly acceptable foolish behaviour of most people who have access to mobile phones or who have had mobile phones thrust upon them.

With the advent of the mobile phone, we seem to have simply adapted our bad phone manners to align with the new culture and trend of mobile telephony which allows us all to roam the streets with our bad manners and unleash the same on unsuspecting/helpless sane folk. Believe it or not, there are commonsense-dictated rules on how to and not to use mobile phones…

Here are a few:

• The fact that you pick up your phone to call me does not make it mandatory for me to pick that call
•  Send Texts, as it helps you to articulate your thoughts rather than call to have a 5-minute directionless and valueless conversation with me
• Mobile phones have silent or quiet-mode options, use them
• When you call people, be guided by basic intelligence and be sure it is a good time for a conversation before you launch into a tirade that is important to you but is of absolutely no value to me.
•  Do not ask me why I did not return your call, except you are my significant other, or you pay my bills directly, or are family (hmm)… if not, you have a right to expect a callback, while I certainly reserve the right to not pick calls from you, or to not call you back.
• Your mobile phone is not deaf, stupid, or hard of hearing, chances are you are deaf, stupid or hard of hearing, so STOP shouting at your phone
• Mobile phones have spirits too (that’s why they get hot when you talk endlessly to/at them), take them out of your pant pockets before you fart… really!
• Always try to read peoples' moods or how busy or idle they are from their tone of voice when you call them and start a conversation; chances are that if they sound distracted and officious or busy, they are probably busy and your call is distracting them
• Since you took it upon yourself to call me, for heaven’s sake, have the common sense to speak and don’t leave me shouting hello! Hello! Hello!
•  Don’t call my line and then ask me if this is me, or if you are speaking with me... are you expecting to be speaking to your dead great-grandmother’s gay rabbit when you call my line?!
• When you call me, start the conversation by saying your name and where you are calling from. The conversation is more effective as it gives me enough information to terminate the call at that point; it also lets me know I am speaking with an informed, considerate person.
• In your smart opinion, do you think it is okay to type and drive or chat and drive when you cannot cook and drive or knit and drive?
• Mobile phones were not invented for you to have long-drawn meetings over them. They are an enabler to help you get people into the meeting for a sit-chat! So, don’t call me and on the drop of a hat expect me to leave all I have to do (which includes faffing-around and forming busy, believe it or not, that requires great skill and concentration) and expect me to just get into mobile-meeting-mode simply because you called to interrupt me?
• When you are done talking and want to end a phone conversation, how about you say goodbye or something that suggests that you are through talking?! It is quite annoying when you just terminate the call and I am left guessing as to whether or not you are still talking to me or if you have stepped out for a pee.
• If you call me, seriously, I am not saying you cannot quickly talk to someone else, but please, inform me before you suddenly start a parallel conversation with someone else (that I can clearly hear). If you really must do that, suggest a call-back or with my permission, put me on hold until you can give me the required attention, after all, no be you call me?!

So, simple rule, simple policy.. if you cannot conform, please don’t call me, send a text!

-end-

Ever wondered....?

1. How do destitute women always seem to be able to reproduce and care for their children but claim not to have money for food and upkeep?

2. Who makes destitute women pregnant in the first place?

3. How they never seem to present any forms or symptoms of illness?

4. How they always seem to have twins.... some with as many as three sets of twins training behind them while many a well-off woman is looking desperately for children of her own?

5. How mentally ill (aka Mad) men and women rarely ever have Mad offspring?

6. How do the mentally ill communicate love and affection enough to result in offspring?

7. How hung all madmen seem to be (we have all had to shrink at the sight of them trotting happily in their birthday suits?

8. What the world would smell like if we embraced our farts as an expression of our healthy metabolism and let them rip care-freely?

9. What it would be like to have Chris Rock as the president of the United States of America?

10. Why do the most annoying people secretly think everyone else is the most annoying person in the world?


#AmJustSaying

-end -

Love, Through Baba Ijebu's Eyes

True Expressions of Love…

It had been a stressful week with projects coming to an end and a lot of work deliverables, yet not much time to achieve them; all made worse by a frustrating three hours spent in Lagos rush hour traffic on my way home yesterday... at the end of which I became a near-maniac.

Such was the stress level that I decided to leave my car at home and take a taxi to and from work for a week, to enable me to get my energy levels back up and regain my umph.

Let me introduce him to you. Baba Ijebu is the happy-go-lucky taxi driver that became an integral part of my daily rat race for my taxi-hopping week. Relaxed, unassuming, and full of tales and surprising wisdom, Baba Ijebu brings to bear his life experiences and at every point in time, relates them to what is happening, and his projections of what is to come.

Wednesday: As I sit and try to relax my charged nerves and process today's edition of Sharing Life Issues with Chaz B,  I notice that Baba Ijebu seemed to be talking back to the radio... I should have left it at that, but my curiosity got the better of me and I engaged him in a conversation about love and life; he soon went into a long-drawn discourse to make his point. (Background) the topic of discussion on the radio program was Monster In-laws and we had just listened to the story of a woman who claimed that she lost her elder sister to the antics of an evil mother-in-law…

Suddenly he turns to me as we make our way down Western Avenue, Listen, he says. Some mothers in Law are wicked, but there are also a lot of wicked wives out there o! hmm, I am still with my wife of 39 years o, he says, even after all that she did to my mother, and her obvious meanness. He tells me of how after his wife delivered their first child, his wife’s mother (as tradition dictates) quasi-moved into his matrimonial house to nurse her. He noticed how in her tired state, she woke every morning to make breakfast for her own mother and ensure that breakfast was served at 7.30am daily. 

A month later, his mother came over to spend time with the new mother (his wife), at this time, his work schedule had changed so he left for work, daily, at 6.30am; assuming all was well, coupled with the fact that in his words, he had a good woman in his mother, he never heard any complaints. On this fateful day, he rushed home at noon to pick up a parcel he had forgotten as he hurried off to work earlier that morning, and lo and behold, he sees his mother in the kitchen cooking. After exchanging pleasantries with his mum, he inquires as to when lunch would be served, to which she replies that she was making breakfast....(pause)

A few uncomfortable glances and some not-so-pleasant exchanges later, he leans that every day after he leaves for work, his wife goes to sleep and does nothing until 30 minutes before he returns home from work in the evening, as such she (his mother) had since learned to endure hunger until noon, daily so that she only gets to cook and eat one meal a day while his wife sorts herself out by sending for food for herself only. His point, not all mothers are evil, and some evil mothers are made evil by the actions and or inaction of their daughters-in-law (when no one else is watching).

He continues the story by going back a few more years (rewinding to the early years of his marriage)  and tells me how his family had insisted he marries more than one wife, but it was his mother (who was now being maltreated by his wife), who made him promise that he would not under any circumstance take a second wife. It was also his mother who stood by him when all hope seemed lost during his courtship (his wife’s mother was against the union on the basis of him not coming from a wealthy background), and when he all but gave up his quest to marry his present wife.

I am silent as the weight of his statement begins to settle upon my heart… eventually, I ask how he has coped to this point. With a crooked smile on his face, he tells me how until a few years ago, his wife beat and slapped him every time they had an argument, and how his wife always boasted to her friends that she clipped her mother-in-law's wings, as well as his wings in the house (not knowing that his mother had decided to stay away from his home so as not to be the cause of any friction within their marriage). As we approach my drop-off point, he leaves me with these parting words.

‘When people talk about marriage and bliss, they do not necessarily go hand in hand. For him, marriage was a decision he took as the next phase of his life and he entered into it with no expectations or without any hope of finding paradise in it” 

for him, the key to keeping his home intact is knowing when to shut up and take the beating like a man, knowing when to be assertive and when to be timid. Most of all he tells me, success in marriage is dependent on Love. Not the Mills and Boons love oh!... the type that endures all things.

My week spent in the company of Baba Ijebu has gotten me to a point where I have had to rethink my position on a couple of issues, including the meaning and expressions of love.

As he drives off after dropping me at my destination, I am fixated on an image in my head of him kneeling and begging for mercy as his wife whom he loves unquestionably, beats him to within an inch of his life, as his grown kids and the neighbours watch in amazement.

Indeed, love makes people do stupid things.

-end-