I was lying on my bed listening to a family of three having a boisterous time on the lawn outside. I wondered why we couldn’t all live in a snapshot of one of those times when we are completely happy with no care in the world?
But the world is not like that. This is a shitty world. You are going to do some shit and have others do shit to you. You are going to sling mud at others and get shit in return. Some shit will inadvertently land on your doorstep.
To complicate matters, since this is by default a shitty world filled with people living shitty lives, some people have decided (within reason) that there are good shit (or great shit or bad shit as in “that’s some bad shit”) and just plain bad shit.
Everybody wants a piece of some great shit (no, good/great shit is not a synonym for “weed”).
No one wants to be shitted on, but lots of people don’t mind shitting on others.
The shit people do is limitless.
And when you hear “awesome” used to describe some shit, that right there is a reference to some really great shit.
No shit is not always good news, shit is going on all the time, you may not just know about it.
Being shit-unawares in not always good either. You may be coasting along enjoying good shit of your own making, until some shit-brain comes along, does a sneak-shit-attack and dumps some real bad shit on you thereby turning an otherwise acceptable afternoon into a shitty day.
Some people don’t know shit. Some have shit for brains and some are just plain shit. When it’s raining shit, don’t stop at an umbrella. Bring along the whole caboodle – overcoat, goggles, gas mask and knee length boots.
When shit is-a-flying all over the place, you can’t be sure where it’s going to land so being prepared is just good common sense.
No one has cornered the market on shit. People have thought otherwise throughout the ages, but found out to their utter dismay that new shit gets invented all the time.
“This shit will kill you” has never deterred anyone. People are going to: do shit, smoke shit, drink shit, and eat shit whenever they want.
Everyone will be scared shit-less at some point in their lives. Not everyone will admit it and others have just buried it under piles of other shitty memories and can’t remember it.
This doesn’t mean it’s all good. All that buried psycho-shit makes for maladjusted individuals and drives a whole industry of psychologist making great money from digging up shit people have forgotten or would rather not remember.
People with skeletons in their cupboard are hiding some bad shit. Bad shit is of course relative. Shit can vary from “I poisoned my neighbor’s chihuahua” to “I robbed a bank and got away with a shitload of money” to “I am a closet this-or-that”.
There is so much shit going on, one just has to stop writing about it at some point (seeing it’s endless)
If there are aliens out there, they better stay away, if they conquer us, they get to export some of our shit to their own world; if we conquer them, we export the shit ourselves. At the end of the day, what you get is two shitty worlds. And knowing how quickly shit gets around, when coupled with advanced alien travel technology, we will soon be flinging shit into the distant reaches of the galaxy: welcome to year 3000, when the milky way has been rechristened the shitty-way galaxy. Aliens you have been warned: “stay away!” (unless of course you think your ability to sling shit is second to none)
So, here I will stop writing shit. Go have some fun, and if you come across some person that’s having a shitty day, be a dear and give him some of your good shit.
(21/07/2010 6:50pm)

From time to time, I ask myself what’s the point of it all.
You live, you die. You grow up, build a house and raise some kids. So what? You start an NGO and ease the burden of the less privileged. For how long? And where will they be tomorrow? Have more kids than they can care for? Most of them become less privileged because their less privileged parents decided to have 6 kids on a no-kid income.
It’s questionable if poverty should be called a “vicious cycle”. All it needs is for one person to keep his pecker in his trousers or a lady to keep her legs together. But we cant. We are “social” creatures and society demands we conform to all its norms even when it’s injurious to our well-being. That’s against the basic rights of the human being to self-determination and the pursuit of happiness. That was a load of croc – pure bullshit. We are just plain undisciplined. The blackman just dont cut it.
The Westerners ask themselves continuosly “are we there yet?”, the blackman forgets to even ask himself anything and when he does, it’s likely to be “are we dead yet?” – and if it’s not, it should be (for all the “good” we do in the world.)  Another nail in Darwin’s coffin – natural selection (survival of the fittest) should have made Africa bereft of human beings but what do we have instead – a bunch of humans proliferating like ants – apologies to ants – there is more order in an ant hill than a typical African city.
F**k it all I say. Bring Armmageddon NOW! Bring it on! End the misery of many just “surviving” – for what – a better day? That’s what their parents and grandparents thought, but they are now bleached bones lying 6 feet under (if they are lucky).

Like all good Nigerians (in the know), an NGO is a good multple source of income. But that aside, it’s obvious with no stretch of the imagination, that there is too much “eating” going on in this country. Yes, some dont have enough to it while others are making up for them by eating 3,4,5 time their share in food.
And what have we got to show for all these over-eating and over-eaters? More frequent trips to the hospital (for those who can afford it), huge obscene bellies and thick cellulosic thighs and upper arms.
And what in all that’s holy is a “love handle”? Ok, maybe because I havent got any “love” in my life, that’s why I cant appreciate love handles. But frankly, ladies with love handles need not apply – unless you are of course Abacha’s daughter (think no more need for chasing after multiple streams of income!) in which case a justifiable exception may be made.
So I am starting an NGO (still searching for the right name) and our first campaign will be named “eat less, stay blessed”. Our goal is to redistribute the eating a little more equally. Like the French’s constitution states: “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” (for all people in all things).
All these talk of eating has made me hungry, so before I really get in the fray, excuse me for a minute while I grab a bite to eat.

All men (and women) are born with a bag of marbles slung over their shoulders. Don’t look in the mirror, it’s not visible.
This bag of marbles is both a curse and a blessing. It’s what makes on sane and also places on the same person the burden of conscience, love, hate, and so on.
As fate would have it, not all the marbles are of the same size and the size and content of each man’s bag is as random and many as the stars in the heavens.
There is an ongoing debate about what makes a perfect bag. As there are obviously no perfect men, one can conclude that there are no perfect bags.
It is easier to determine what is not a perfect bag than to find the perfect bag – no single person can do so in his life time and most people that claim to have the perfect bag are usually almost running empty.
It is certain that if you are artistically gifted to any noticeable extent, your bag is definitely short of some right-sized marbles – examples are the artistes and artists.
As usual, can we but not touch on that everlasting discuss on the relationship between good and evil.
There are men who are so short of marbles as to be jaundiced and there are men who are just plain evil.
Unfortunately, it’s sometimes difficult to tell the difference.
To complicate matters, there are men who are almost without marbles and at the same time just plain evil.
Some men who have lost all their marbles find themselves in position of power (Hitler) and so arrive at a position where they can almost get away with anything – they are labeled as geniuses by the beneficiaries and tyrants and despots by the victims. Yes, Hitler was also evil.
The men who have lost all their marbles and have no power are those wondering around in rags like the one just down your street trying to hump a power pole.

The more your marbles are either not of the right size and/or quantity, the more your deviation from that bag which we designate as perfect.

The prize goes of course to the person who first discovers a man with a perfect bag.

Suicide By Corp is a phenomena the “Oyibos” are not unfamiliar with. Fortunately or unfortunately for the would-be victim, centuries of modernization and thousands of law-suits have taught the police in those countries that being trigger-happy does not pay.
SBC by the way, is an occurence where a person puts himself/herself/itself in a situation where the cops have to shoot (hopefully dead) him or her or it.
It is thus a good thing that the average Negroid is averse (politically-correct way of saying “scared-shitless”) to dying.
This is because the cops in this neck of the wood have neither a pedigreed past nor adequate physical and psychological training nor any fear of law-suits or even the law. The law here is handed down to the masses by the courts and the judiciary, enforced by the police, over-ridden by the bourgeoise and (used to be) repudiated by the military.
If Nigerians (especially youths) where to gravitate towards suicide due to their percieved troubles, S.C.B. would soon become the latest fad as a means of exiting this planet in style. I suspect that the “high” in that last few minutes of taunting the police to open fire, the excitement and the suspence must rival an high from ecstacy (not that I know what that high is like).
Some say that those who chose to die when life becomes unbearable are braver than those who continue to suffer on despite the fact that it’s almost certain that there is no hope of their situation improving.
Some say it’s cowards that take the easy way out by committing suicide.
I say I have no say in the matter. I chose the easy way out. God says thou shall not kill. That’s His stand. That’s my stand. Period.

E je ki agba adura o. Father in Jesus name …

Nigerians, when it comes to verbal abuse, we give more than we get. I may be mistaken, but I think this was the same woman that was abusing a trader 10 minutes earlier “carry your smelly mouth away. We dont want to buy Waara. You probably didn’t wash your mouth today. Smelly mouth. I already told you that the person you are trying to sell to is on the phone”
Not sure what the trader said to have brought on the attack, but one could barely hear her voice anyway.
On my trip from Lagos to Ibadan two days earlier, as we were on the last couple of miles to the final busstop, there is a tendency for passengers to get off more frequently at various stops in Ibadan town.
The lady next to me suddenly challenged the driver to be calling out the names of the stops as we approached them, to which the driver responded that the lady better mention where she wanted to get off the bus. The tone was a little dismissive, but the next retort was that “Ok O, don’t call the names out. Just seat there with your mouth like a monkey’s. Isn’t that covered by the fare the passengers paid?”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Awon amuni deshe
Won a di eru bi eniti oun kuro nilu.
Elomi ofi ojuri Adeboye ri, won a gbe telivision siwaju won, won ama wo oun ti Adeboye n se.
Pastor Adeboye ni tie, jet loma gbe dele, enyin a wa ma fi ti yin ni awon eni eleni lara.
Ko sibi ti Olorun o si, kun le ni iyara e ko ba Olorun e soro.
Mori baba kan, in fact moni ko ma rin lo, boya ikun e ati e jo die. Kani won gbe alaisan lo Ibadan lana yen, ati ku ki won to de Ibadan.

(English translation of the preceding paragraph below:)
These people make one sin (by saying things possibly against the faith) through there actions.
They are on the move with so much luggage, it looks as if they are skipping town
Some of them have never actually seen Adeboye. A TV is placed in front of them on which they watch everything he is doing remotely.
As for Pastor Adeboye, he flies home in a jet, while all these people inconvenience others unnecessarily.
God is everywhere. Kneel down in the comfort of your room, and pray to your God.
I saw one old man walking along to the camp. In fact, I thought it was a good thing he is walking, maybe his huge stomach will shrink a little.
If an ill person was being taken to Ibadan yesterday, it’s unlikely he would make it that far, he would have died long before he gets to Ibadan. (she was talking about the standstill traffic jam of the previous Friday which she partly attributed to the “exodus” to the Redeemed Camp).

This was either the same lady that prayed at the start of the journey or another member of her group – they kept up a running commentary all the way to Lagos.

On a bus:
Jesus, the man behind the mask.

I am sure you have heard many pure water horror stories. 
I am going to tell you another one which was told to a close relation by a first-hand witness. The story goes like this:
A “couple” of which the wife was some sort of medical personnel (possibly a nurse) went into the “business” of selling pure water. The wife being in the medical field but not employed at the time, was good enough to ensure the “quality” of their product by boiling the water, passing it through a table filter and then bagging it by hand from the tap on the filter. Fortunately for the couple (and unfortunately for a lot of unsuspecting people out there), the wife got employed in her field again. As the husband had no other job, he decided to continue the pure water business.
Well, as business was really booming and he couldn’t keep up with the demand, he soon decided that it was the water filter was too slow, so that was removed from the production process, thereby increasing his output. Well, he still couldn’t keep up with the demand (booming business), so he decided that boiling the water and waiting for it to cool, was an unnecessary bottleneck, so that too went out of the production pipeline. Now we are left with unboiled, unfiltered water being bagged by hand.
As business was still really booming and he couldn’t keep up with the demand, he decided that bagging the water from a tank’s small tap by hand was too slow (and too painful on the back as he and his assistants had to bend low to fill the bags from the tank), so he ran the water into a big plastic vat. Sitting comfortably beside the vat with a small scoop, he continued filling the 50ml plastic bags by hand, and sealing the bags with a hand-sealer.
Did I tell you he was using water straight from the mains? Sorry, it almost skipped my mind!
The moral of the story? Let’s turn a popular Yoruba proverb on its head (if you are going to eat a toad, eat one with eggs). If you are going to drink pure water, go for bottled water from a well known source with a reputation to protect (no, I am not trying to kill our pure water cottage industry), otherwise you might as well take water straight from the mains (government water) in your house, say a quick prayer and while downing it, think to yourself that “Aye daa bo wa” (life is getting better) if you as a Nigerian can now drink water from the mains same as people in the developed countries. Couple that with the recent increased stability of the power supply (Uncle G.L.J., you can do more!), why, you could start thinking of asking your long lost-in-America relations to head back home 🙂

Enjoy!

One day in our house, I was the only one left that hadn’t yet gone to work. Suddenly I heard my pregnant neighbor scream and shout out my name.

So I went across to her room. She whispered that I should come near. As soon as I got close enough, the speed and force with which she grabbed my hold of my leg almost swept me off my feet.

And holding on to my leg, with one huge push the baby came out.

As I hadn’t had a baby before, I guess the shock was what made me take off. I ran out of the house and went past the machanic shed and didn’t stop till I had reached the other end of the street.

Then sanity set in and I wondered what I was running away from.

Then I took off running back to the house (shouting to the mechanics as I passed that it’s iya ibeji who is in trouble) I got back to her and she instructed me to get some water and sprinkle it on the baby.

The mechanics soon joined us and the placenta came out.

We decided to look for a nurse and one of the mechanics stepped out of the house. Fortunately he caught sight of a lady in a nurse’s uniform returning from work and he just grabbed her without any explanation and dragged her to the house. The poor lady must have been frightened out of her mind.

Well, that’s the first time I witnessed a delivery.

(That was one of the passengers on the bus narrating a story that came about as a result of a pregnant lady on the same bus that seems to be going into labour.) 

It usually starts with the little Chadean boys singing in Yoruba at the petrol station next to the bus park. They are singing some sort of “Fuji” which sounds quite good but you can’t help smiling at the fact that even though their Yoruba is very good, the song is still coming from a light-skinned urchin with curly hair.

Followed by the mobile preacher that prays all the way to the toll gate before getting off the bus.

The mobile drug seller then takes up the mantle of keeping the passengers entertained with the hope that some of them will take the bait and buy some of the drugs he is peddling.

Unfortunately for the one on the bus this time, there was a lady on the bus who appeared to be going into labour.

That was when the screaming started with multiple suggestions on what to do next. Stop; go; stop at next major road juncture. Keep going (husband). Later she said she wanted something to eat but no one had anything she wanted.

Well we stopped at the next town and almost all 30 people in the bus joined in the chorus to call the food peddlers and buy the gala and a bottle of lacasera.

We were soon on our way again.

Another 20minutes or so and an alarm was raised that she was about to give birth to the baby which prompted another round of shouting on what was to be done.

The lady next to me spied an “accident and emergency clinic” signpost on the other side of the express and people were soon yelling for the driver to pull over.

It was then decided to go on as the lady can’t possibly walk across the expressway and she can’t get on a bike either.

Well, we finally stopped at the Redeemed camp.

I think she threw up after eating the food and possibly her water broke? Because the conductor (driver’s assistant) had to scoop up some sand from outside to pour on the vomit.

She had to be carried across the (expressway’s) divide.

Fortunately, there was a peugeuot car by the road in front of the camp. They (husband, pregnant wife and small child) were soon being whisked at great speed into the camp.

We were at Mowe or so when the talk started about an Okada rider who died some days back. It was said that it rained on the day and that a ligthening bolt killed him. The driver said an eye witness told him and he was supported by others in the bus who had either heard the same thing or seen the body. He said the body, his possessions and his bike were by the road side with no one bold enough to go near him.

The conjecture ranged from his stealing the bike to his being cursed with the lightening that killed him.

Another explanation put forward is that he may have made a covenant with the god of thunder (Sango) and not fufilled it in time. Or his parents may have petitioned Sango for the man (when they had problems conceiving) and they didn’t fulfil their pledge.

Below is the audio of the earlier part of the journey (the “prayer session”).
Prayer Part 1
Prayer Part 2

Smile awhile I bid you sad adieu,
When heavens roll by, I come to you;
Then the sky will seem more blue,
Down in the lovers lane my dear.
So Wedding Bells will ring so merrily,
Every tear will be a memory
Night and day I pray for you
When we will meet again some day.

Wretched Orphan by Emman U. Anya

Note: if you have any doubts concerning the faith you profess or your convictions, proceed no further.
Having said that, the link below is a 13-chapter interesting read on Alchemy by a gentleman by the name Vincent Bridges. Stay with it – the chapters are not so long and you will be amazed at the amount of history condensed into so few pages.
Given all that, one must say that if it was during the “dark ages” on which Mr Bridges shed so much light, he would have been burned at the stake; quartered or pulled apart by a quartet of horses for even a tenth of the information he has divulged in the “book”.
I had thought (like most people I think) that Alchemy is just the pursuit (of how) to change ordinary metals (e.g., lead) into gold. Drawing on information from the earliest records of civilization (egypt and even before) all the way through the golden age of Christianity and Islam through the crusades and the Templars to the present day, he informs the reader that the transmutation (of metal) is but one of the triple goal of alchemy. Understanding time, forecasting/predictions and possibly manipulating it is an even greater goal.
He enlightens us on the involvement of the church (think mostly Catholic – Universal Xtianity) in the search for the attainment of these goals. Along the line, we are introduced to so many interesting characters and told about their rise (and sometimes fall).
I need to mention the philosopher’s stone here – because part of his conclusions is that the stone is some sort of meteorite and that without it, it’s impossible to turn metal to gold. He even suggests that the stone in Mecca is the philosopher’s stone. One individual that appeared to have got hold of part of the stone, at some point declared himself a living god, went mad and subsequently died or vanished. It’s this man’s piece that the author thinks was hidden in the Temple Mount and the search for it may have in part influenced the crusades to Jerusalem.
I could go on and on, but I can’t do justice to the “book.”
If you are interested, head over to the link below:
http://www.sangraal.com/library/gsa1.html