SOME MAKE THE NEWS, OTHER'S TELL IT...

Found this great article while checking out Pat Utomi's site: -

It is an embarrassment to Nigeria and Nigerians that our Attorney General and Minister of Justice who never ceases to remind us that ‘I am the chief legal officer of Nigeria’ could come out publicly yesterday to accuse Nuhu Ribadu of masterminding the recent criminal charges preferred against President Yar’adua’s Principal Private Secretary as well as some ex governors who are known to be very close to the president. Read more...

FASHOLA, THE MAN WHO IS TAMING NIGERIA'S MEGA-CITY

Found this great article by a foreigner, Matthew Green, about the man who is taming Nigeria's mega-city. Follow the link, it really is a great read...

WHAT IF YOU COULD CHOOSE WHERE YOU WOULD BE BORN?

I am about to be born.

You probably wonder what is news-worthy about the above statement. Every day, hundreds of thousands of women give birth around the continent, and hundreds of thousands more babies, somewhere around 262,500 to be exact, are made. So, you ask – what is newsworthy about the statement that a new baby is about to be born to some family in some part of the world?

The newsworthy part of the statement has not even been made yet, the full form of the statement reads somewhat like this – “I am about to be born to – a Nigerian woman, in a Nigerian hospital”.

For the reason that my head and feet are wrongly placed, I will be delivered via Caesarean Section. The whole thing could have been over by now, but power supply got cut off a few minutes after the decision to operate on my mother was made, via telephone (much thanks to MTN – whatever the letters stand for). My mother is so scared that I can feel her negative vibrations through the amniotic fluid that is supposed to insulate me from her world, with all their dirt and stuff. Well, funny enough – the lights come back on a few minutes after. I hear some of the people around shout ‘UP NEPA!!!’, and others scream ‘UP PHCN’, and I wish someone would please breakdown the acronyms for me. Are NEPA and PHCN equivalent bodies or things or whatever they are? Ok, someone down the stairs just said – ‘NEVER EXPECT POWER ALWAYS’, and someone else said – ‘PLEASE HOLD CANDLE NOW’. I guess these are what the letters stand for! I wonder how they could name national agencies such defeatist names. Well, I will later find that those are not their real names and that in fact - there is no such an agency as NEPA...

WHAT IF YOU COULD CHOOSE WHERE YOU WOULD BE BORN? PART 2

I can pick up vibrations from a television set in a nearby room. I hear an advert where the names Asa, Wole Soyinka, and a host of others are mentioned, and then the advert ends with the words “good people, great nation”. How come I have not picked a single positive vibration since I changed realms about 9 months ago? How could that advert proclaim this country as a great one when every single vibration I have come across in 9 months tells me otherwise? What exactly is responsible for the disparity between what their leaders trumpet daily and what really obtains in the streets? Corruption? Complacence? Cowardice? Curses (maybe generational)? Funny how all these words start with ‘C’.

Wait, what does the future look like for me in this country? Education does not seem to work; there are no roads, potable water, or any such thing as basic infrastructure; public health care is terrible; social security is a foreign idea; the government is not popular and does not seem to realize it; the president is ailing, and I wonder how they expect a sick guy to heal a sick nation; the list could go on for a few more pages, yeah - pages. I think I really have to take a second thought, before I commit my future to this country.

Hey, I can pick other vibrations from the television set again. It is about a country called Ghana, and even though I tuned in quite late, I pick the last few words – “Championing African excellence”. Well, from what I have heard in the other world, and from what my scans of their minds tell me, Ghana really just might be it. They have paid the price in the past, and methinks they are enjoying the fruits of their sacrifice now. At least, their life expectancy, at 60 years, is higher than Nigeria’s, at 48 years. In the same vein, the infant mortality rate is lower, at 5 deaths per a hundred births, and they seem to be actively taking steps to lower that. I wish the same could be said for Nigeria, but at times the way they act – you would think they were out to increase the mortality rate...