Tell Someone Your Story

I have some amazing stories to tell.

Considering my history and background, as well as varied experiences I’ve had whilst living in 4 different countries on 3 different continents, I have racked up some impressive yarns.

Add to this the fact that I consider myself a very good story-teller (both verbally and writing) then this one makes a whole lot of sense.

The problem however is that some stories cannot be easily shared with just anyone. You find individuals on Facebook for instance who share intimate details on Facebook and whilst this is a way of sharing information, it is not the same as having someone sit across from you and listen to your story.

Having gone through a separation has obviously been a learning experience for me in so many ways. And a lonely one. There are very few people I feel comfortable with discussing the way I really feel with. Especially among family members and even close friends. What I find is that a lot of people already have preconceived notions of what you are going to say and are more interested in telling you what they think. Without ever really listening to you.

I find that I have to project different personalities depending on who I am talking to and I oftentimes find myself telling my story in a way as not to offend. Or give someone the opportunity to blackmail me emotionally.

Rarely, do I have the opportunity to clearly and unabashedly tell my story to a person and not get judged in return. Or told what to do. Or what not to do. Just tell my story and have someone listen. I say rarely because I do have some wonderful friends (and family) who are amazing listeners and who listen to my story. And nothing else.

I look forward to my sessions with these friends because in telling my story, it releases the burden of pent-up emotions and makes you feel like the maxim, ‘a problem shared is a problem half solved’.

And not always is my story one of suffering and woe. Some genuinely amazing things have happened to me (as well as some naughty ones) and it is the same principle of being able to share these stories and not feel like you are having to defend your choices or lifestyle. You just get an appreciation of sharing your stories.

A shrink serves this purpose too. A professional with an objective outlook and no personal stake in your story. A professional listener. The 12 sessions I had with Dr Yolanda was critical in helping me crystallize my thoughts and firm up my conviction. I was able to speak through my doubts, fears and aspirations and all she did was, listen.

Some people actually prefer the anonymity of a stranger at a bar to pour out the story of their lives to. Or a helpline. I guess the point is that verbalizing an account of your story to someone no matter the form it takes is such an integral part of the human experience. It is how history and ideals and ancestral knowledge was passed from generation to generation for so long after all.

Life is a conversation. And if you’re lucky enough to find someone or some people to listen to your side of it then you are extremely lucky indeed

This post is part of the series on "How to get and keep happiness" from the Time Magazine article online here. I had written about 13 of the 20 ways to get and happiness. This is number 14. You can find the others on this blog.

We Need to Get Involved

The West Wing is an American TV series from the 1990s that follows a fictional White House Presidency. It portrays the inner-workings of Presidential Politics and takes viewers into the personal lives of these staff members as they help President Josiah (Jed) Bartlett a liberal former governor push his agenda.

The fictional President Bartlett (played by Martin Sheen) is a Professor of Economics, winner of the Noble Peace Prize, a former congressman and Governor of New Hampshire. He is in every sense of the word, an intellectual giant. The character as written by Andy Sorkin was usually the smartest person in any room he walked into.

The series focuses on the sheer scale and complexity of national (and international) politics that competes for the attention of the President. When you have a mix of domestic affairs, military matters, foreign affairs you could see how an administration could get bogged down by competing interests. Throw in the dynamic of a hostile congress including members of the President’s own party who had their own agendas to push and it looks like a task greater than any 1 man.

Jed Bartlett consequently surrounded himself with a cadre of senior staff to advise and execute his agenda.

They were lawyers. And professional political operatives. They were professional PR consultants and they were graduates of Yale, Harvard and MIT.

And they were all first rate minds. And at the top of this pyramid was his Chief of Staff Leo McGarry.

Leo was the one who originally convinced Jed Bartlett to run for President and was a former air force pilot, cabinet level secretary and he was referred to as a world class political operative. He was a political pugilist who had made plenty of enemies but was respected by both allies and enemies for his wide breadth of knowledge, strategic mind and tactical nous.

Leo was the gate-keeper to the President and he ensured that only the most relevant discussions and decisions were tabled before the President. He knew what the President’s vision was and was the chief strategist for making sure it was achieved. He was also the one who guided the President in matters where he had less experience. Guided. Not led. Areas like foreign affairs and military action. He was the one the veteran generals looked towards, to explain the nuts and bolts of military strategy to the Commander in Chief.

Leo was probably not as smart as his boss. But he knew how to get things done and had a track record of doing so. President Bartlett trusted him implicitly.

One of my favourite scenes from the series was when a new deputy communications director was appointed. A note was planted on his desk to find out his true views on a speech that the President was going to give. His opinion directly contravened what the President thought. He was later pulled into the Oval office and the President asked if there were any other thoughts on his speech.

The new appointee baulked and didn't speak up and it was revealed that he had been set up to see if he could speak the truth to power. The President only wanted people who would actively challenge him. And oh how they did! His senior staff members challenged him and argued vociferously for their sometimes directly opposing views and the President welcomed it. Because he knew it came from a place of shared vision. And from a place of trust built over a grueling campaign.

There is a decided lack of first rate minds in the present government of Nigeria.

Some three weeks ago over 200 girls were abducted from the North Eastern part of Nigeria. They were apparently abducted by the terrorist organization Boko Haram whose name loosely translates as Western Education is forbidden/a sin.

The level of ineptitude demonstrated by the people who are supposed to make decisions at the highest level in the Nigerian government has been gut-wrenching to watch.

The apparent apathy to the abduction initially has only been compounded by the total lack of a visible plan by the Nigerian authorities ever since social media has (finally) exploded the issue onto the consciousness of the world.

While much better placed individuals and writers have analysed the inaction of the current government, I would like to look at this from another angle.

Why are our best minds not attracted to politics and public policy in Nigeria?

Nigeria is blessed with not just practitioners but trail blazers in every single facet of life. From commerce, to business, the arts, medicine, science and technology. There are Nigerian born achievers wherever you look.

Except in present day politics.

The example I gave above is of a fictional American Presidency but there are several real life examples of erudite and deep thinkers committing their lives to public service. Bill Clinton is considered by friends and foes alike to be the finest political mind of his generation. One need only hear him speak to understand why. Barack Obama was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Ed Miliband, leader of the Opposition in the UK was a policy researcher and speechwriter and graduated from the University of Oxford as well as the London School of Economics. Angela Merkel is a former research scientist with a doctorate in physical chemistry. John Key the current prime minister of New Zealand was an investment banker and had made millions before entering politics. The list goes on.

And in saying this, there have been a few exceptions in the Nigerian polity. Obafemi Awolowo. Bola Ige. The Sardauna of Sokoto. Tafewa Balewa. Nnamdi Azikwe. Our founding fathers by all accounts were titans of their age who made many mistakes but were passionate men who had the mental fortitude to navigate the times into which they had been born.

More recently, we have had individuals like Pat Utomi and Governor Fashola who have (with varying degrees of success) brought a refreshing take to the art of politics. We have technocrats like the former governor of the central bank Lamido Sanusi. And I am sure there are very many more examples.

But they are too few and far in between.

Ayo Sogunro explains here why everything in Nigeria will kill you. And he makes a powerful point about most people just not caring anymore.

The attitude of the upper middle class Nigerian to politics is one of extreme disdain and there is a universal agreement that politics as it is played in Nigeria is dirty. And it is. Just like in any other country. But while the best minds are still attracted to it in other climes, our finest minds eschew the cut-throat and rough world of politics and instead gravitate towards the private sector. Or in my case, move abroad and be condemned to watching from afar as things deteriorate.

This needs to change.

The nadir of the whole episode of the abducted girls for me, came when I watched a news segment featuring the wife of the President. Barely able to string an articulate sentence together, it wasn’t so much her lack of Queen’s English that saddened me but the obvious lack of any critical thinking that had gone into her presentation.

The wife of the fictional President in the West Wing was a heart surgeon who had her own agenda and engaged her husband in issues that were dear to her heart. Issues like child welfare, health and women’s issues. And if we want to discount this as fiction, one need only look at the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2016 elections who was once the spouse of a President.

And if it is argued that the wife of the President should (rightly) hold no policy authority, then the performance of Ebele Goodluck Jonathan himself in a Presidential media chat showed that not only did he lack even the false emotion his wife had shown on national TV he was very poorly prepared by his aides on the nuances to strike in his tone and manner indeed the seriousness of the situation.

The best leaders surround themselves with people smarter than themselves.

Public Policy encompasses a wide breadth of society and affects everything from personal choices to private enterprise to how a society retools and equips itself to tackle the challenges of the day. It is too bloody important to leave to incompetents. Nigerian politicians right now devote time and resources to winning power. With no clear idea of what to do with it once they get it. The level of debate in politics is restricted to zoning agreements and on whose ‘turn’ it is to gain political office.

We need to figure out a way to transform the perception of politics. I am not naïve to think that a knowledge of grassroots mobilisation, backroom deals and yes even money will not continue to be a feature of politics. But my point is that we need more first rate minds willing and able to jump into the fray. We cannot continue to leave it to miscreants. And thugs. And people bereft of any kind of vision or plan.

We need to get involved.

We need to get people to see public office not as a means to riches but as what it truly should be. A call to serve something greater than yourself. Where you give your maximum output and then leave to give the next generation a chance as well. And we don’t all have to be in executive positions. But we need more policy analysts, technocrats and people directly advising those in the executive positions. We need the critical thinking of those one step below those in executive power to be world class. And we need it to reach a critical mass across state local and federal level.

We need to raise the level of political discourse in Nigeria to what power will be used for rather than to who wields power.

We need to get involved.

We need to get off Facebook and twitter and bring the discourse to forums that matter. We need to stop pontificating and posting pictures of ourselves with hashtags and think we are making a real difference.

The focus will fade. The camera men will move to other assignments. Op-Ed writers will no longer devote column space to it. Those that matter in Nigeria NEED to use this as a springboard for a wider conversation. And we need to start being the people that matter.

We need to get involved. 

Movie Review: Half of a Yellow Sun

I have always wanted to time travel.

The past has always been fascinating to me and I have often dreamed of going back in time to meet great historical figures like Winston Churchill or Gandhi. I imagined what I would say to them and what sort of questions I would ask. Even more fascinating to me is imagining meeting the younger selves of people I know right now. Like my Dad. What I would do to meet my dad as a 20 year old whilst I am in my 30’s. And whilst Michael J. Fox did exactly this in the classic Back to the Future movies, I have to say I kind of felt transported back in time at the media screening event of the screen adaptation of the book, ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ by the erudite Chiamamanda Adichie

The invitation had come 2 weeks before and I actually went out and borrowed the book planning to read it before I watched the movie. But then I never actually got round to reading it. Which was a shame because screen adaptations are usually constrained by having to fit rich flowing narratives into 2 hours of on-screen story-telling. Screen adaptations take huge creative licenses and it’s always hit and miss, especially with fans of the books who build diverse and different (but no less valid) landscapes in their mind’s eye. It’s inevitable that some fans are left bitterly disappointed with the execution of their favourite story on the movie medium.

I would not be hampered by this and had to take the story at face value. Which is what a lot of people seeing this movie are going to do anyway. My review includes minor spoilers so be warned.

Back to time travel.

The movie opens with actual news reports doubtless gotten from the archives, of the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Lagos in celebration of the independence of the Nigerian state from its colonial masters the British in 1960. The 60’s were swinging in so many ways and more so for the young Nigerian nation. The opening black and white montage made me wish I could time-travel to the streets of Lagos with its colonial style buildings, funny looking cars and even funnier fashion. The montage segues perfectly into the homes of the 2 young sisters of a prominent and successful business man. The opening scenes manages to capture the upper middle class lifestyle of a newly emerging nation who had the world at its feet and hope in its heart. From the butler-attended dinner hosting the Finance minister to the independence party the twin girls later attend, that sense of privilege, education and snobbery is perfectly captured.

Thandie Newton plays the female lead, Olanna and one half of the twins whilst Anika Noni Rose plays Kainene. Their British and American accents are accounted for early on when it is revealed they are Yale and Oxford graduates. Ms Newton attempts to affect an Ibo accent and I immediately wished she would stop. To my Nigerian ear, it felt forced, not at all correct and a little bit phony. But I guess to non-native speakers, it might seem to be a plausible attempt. But Leonardo Di Caprio as a South African diamond smuggler in Blood Diamond, she was NOT.

Noni never made a stab at sounding like a Nigerian born and raised girl, keeping her Oxford trained British accent for the entire length of the film. What these two actresses did well however was capture the essence of that bourgeoisie class that permeates a country like Nigeria and sits on one side of a wide gulf between the haves and have nots.

This bourgeoisie theme runs through the entire film and is demonstrated as well in the University surroundings depicted in the movie. Here Odenigbo played by the supremely talented Chiwetel Ejiofor entertains his friends in his university quarters and they debate Marx and the effects of tribalism on economic development of the fledging country. Odenigbo has a ‘house help’ Ugwu who is a teenage boy from the ‘village’ and who acts sort of like a major-domo to Odenigbo. Their interactions were some of the highlights of the movie for me and I would have liked to see a bit more character development for Ugwu. The movie hints at how easily the two strata of society interact but are separated by the aforementioned gulf in social class.

A word on Chiwetel Ejiofor. I have now seen him in Kinky boots, where he plays a London drag queen who saves a shoe factory; in Inside Man as an American detective alongside Denzel Washington in the American crime thriller; and now as the lead role in this movie. He proves once again his considerable talent and a very strong connection to his Nigerian roots. His depiction of Odenigbo is nuanced and shows the quite seemingly diverse (but not mutually exclusive) character traits of an African man who is probably the first graduate in his family and not just a graduate but a doctorate degree holder. He is brilliant, passionate about national politics and well read. He drinks brandy and smokes stylish cigarettes and is quite ready to blame another person for his own inadequacies and irresponsibility. Mr Ejiofor’s performance has convinced me to finally go and see the movie: 12 Years a Slave.

The role of Odenigbo’s mother is played by the timeless Nigerian actress and musician Onyeka Onwenu. “Mama” is an illiterate busy-body who knows beyond a shadow of a doubt what is best for her son. She embarrasses her son’s live in lover in the person of Thandie Newton and calls her a witch before raising a ruckus with the neighbours. And whilst at times, she seemed a little bit of comic relief and a caricature, I whispered to my seat partner that her over the top pronouncements and aggressive actions were typical of mothers in Nigeria. Literate or Illiterate.

Her manipulations in Odenigbo’s life leads to him being unfaithful to Olanna and fathering a child with the ‘cousin’ from the village who accompanies his mother on her visits to Nsukka. He freely confesses his lapse to Olanna and tries to organize an abortion but his mother is having none of it and when the child is born and revealed to be a girl, Odenigbo’s mother abandons the baby with him and Olanna takes in the child and raises her as her own. Reconciliation is to be had between the two women a few years after and it is touching to see Odenigbo’s mother ask Olanna to marry her son.

This is essentially a love story set against the backdrop of the Nigerian civil war and the maxim that all war is a crime is shown when after fleeing the University town Nsukka for Odenigbo’s home town in Aba and then again to another smaller village, Odenigbo’s and Olanna’s wedding reception is bombed out by advancing Federal forces determined to stop the breakaway nation of Biafra from seceding from Nigeria. The Nigerian civil war was a 30 month conflict that killed millions (mostly through starvation) and still reverberates down in the Nigerian polity today.

The politics of the time are however incidental to our story and only serve as a backdrop for the interactions between the twins and their lovers. One is the afore-mentioned Odenigbo, a fiery young intellectual and the other an Englishman Richard who falls in love with the erudite Kainene. Richard’s horror and distress at the airport when the counter-coup of 1966 sees armed military personnel enter an airport and slaughter people of a certain ethnic group is reminiscent of the scenes from the movie Hotel Rwanda. Africa has had its fair share of genocides and outsiders with no understanding of the underlying context would stare in horror at otherwise benign groups of people committing atrocities in a manner as to suggest mass psychosis.

SO when you watch this movie – and I would strongly recommend it – do not expect to be fully informed on the complexities of the Nigerian political situation. But you will be convinced of the horror of war and how it tears families and the fabric of society apart. It is nice to see so many local talent in the film and the director acquits himself very well with the pacing of the movie and telling the story. The ending was a bit ambiguous but I understand this is how the original book was set. I am not sure how much oversight the author had over the screenplay but she should be happy at this version of her wartime love story.

The Art of Rugby

I met a lot Nigerians living in London during my time there and I was always struck at how they seemed to be walking advertisements for the non-integration of immigrant communities.

Some of them had lived in the United Kingdom for years and had never been to see a West End play. Or hardly glanced up at the Tower of London when driving past. Or been to Baker street to imagine Conan Doyle's greatest character striding along to his residence. Or residents of Edinburgh who have never been to a comedy festival.

Or the ultimate sin, never been to watch a live football game.

Ok there are a lot of native Londoners who have never done any of these things either but the point is that when you live in the 10th most liveable city in the world, (and here I am back to myself now) there are some things you shouldn't take for granted.

Like Rugby.

Anyone who knows me even slightly knows I am a football buff. I watch, I follow and now I even play. Which is why living in NZ isnt exactly nirvana. How do I put this delicately...well... NZ is completely Rugby mad. It is the number one sport in the country and is played at all levels by various people of different ages.

The ultimate pinnacle of playing Rugby in NZ is to one day pull on a black jersy and play for the eponymously named NZ rugby team, the All Blacks. Rated as one of the top three teams (if not the top) in the world at any time, NZ is considered to have a proud history of rugby playing teams.

And of having won only one world cup trophy. The inagural edition hosted by NZ in 1987. Despite dominating the rankings in between the show piece events since then, NZ has acquired the tag of 'chokers'. They seem unable to win the World Cup despite going into every single tournament as "favorites".

But anyway, come September 9, the world (such as it is) will be coming to NZ as New Zealand hosts the Rugby World Cup. South Africa, Australia, England, France are the established heavy weights. But countries like Italy, Argentina, Scotland, Tonga, Samoa and Canada will be aiming to cause upsets.

So considering the fact that a major sporting tournament is coming to New Zealand, isn't it pitiful that I dont even know the rules of the game? Well... I know how points are scored and what the overall objective of the game is (to win), I still find myself turning to my workmates asking why the referee is pointing in the opposite direction the ball is kicked.

So my task over the next month, apart from getting into the spirit of the RWC is to learn the rules and nitty gritty of the game of rugby. By the time the All Blacks captain Richie McCaw hoists the cup on the final day, I want to be able to explain the game to all my northern hemisphere friends who dont care that Sonny Bill Williams will probably leave New Zealand next year.

PS
First post in ten months. What a loser!

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses! You can also underline if it was so long ago you can't say for sure, LOL!

I Ladi Ajayi have read only 32! Not even half!!! Well...gives me a target before I turn 35.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights
8 1984– George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Travellers Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina –Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Willaim Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabrial Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far from the Madding Crowd _ Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan51 Life of Pi - Yann Martell
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love in the time of Cholera - Gabriel garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On the Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson
74 Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses-James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylivia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - Charles Mitchell
83 The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert (en francais)
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie & the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Day 4 - Yoga

I figured from my first crack at P90X that Yoga wasnt going to work for me. I kept falling over. So in the absence of a professional yoga instructor keeping me from tipping over, I will be doing the stretch routine in place of yoga.

But today, since I missed Shoulders and Arms from yesterday as I was down with the flu (manflu as Anahi insists it is) I dragged my coughing, sniffing self to the gym at 7pm and ran through that Shoulders and Arms! For the record, this is my favorite routine for the first three weeks. I keep coming close to hurling my protein shake when I do Chest and Back, feel a little bit like a sissy in Legs and Back and almost pass out with Plyometrics.

But Shoulders and Arms is the glamour workout. You do it and pretty girls walk up to you asking for tips on how to tone their arms. Guys steal sideways glances at you and inevitably compare their puny arrms to my shining sweaty guns! (ahem..)

But seriously, I am just glad and stoked I was able to do this. Loading Legs and Back on to my iPhone now so I can do it tomorrow Friday and I am back in line with the program.

Spent the day drinking lots of tea and honey and had to look after the tiger cub who was still persona-non grata at the day care. Took him to the GP in afternoon and she said he seemed fine to go back tomorrow. Sweet.

Had a phone interview today that seemed to go well. Will know tomorrow or early next week. Melbourne anyone?

Day 1

Day 1 started out a bit on the downside. Chelsea lost to Liverpool 2 goals to nil. Damn Torres to find form against us. Plus side is we ARE still top of the table and the Goners lost at home to Newcastle!

Tiger cub cut his first tooth last week. Me suspects it was why he was a bit down in the pits over the weekend. Might be a couple more teeth on the way. At 9 months, he is a bit late but they say the later the stronger! Tops called while I was in the middle of Round two at the gym that he' s got conjuctivitis. Means he wiped some snot into his eyes (wasnt me! Honest!) have to get home and decide who stays home with him tomorrow. Daycare wont take him with the conjuctivitis.

Suspected I might be getting a sore throat before hitting the gym but kept my focus and paced myself really well with the Chest and Back. Got nauseous slightly more than halfway through but sucked it up, drank some water and completed it. Could have been more intense but I think I will take good form with a successful completion rate than hard out, wuss out and demotivate myself. Consistency is key!

I also surprised myself with actual pull-ups! how cool is that? I have a good feeling about this.

I still need to figure out how to incorporate some running into all this. Day 91 is in early Feb but need to start on a 16 week running program from Jan 24 for the Half-Marathon in May. I figure I better start getting some endurance runs into the kitty from now.

Ah well... Day 1 ending with a 2 hour study for a Quantitative Analysis test I have tomorrow! 25% of total paper. Jeepers!

What Do Nigerians Really Want?

In a previous article, I made a wish-list of the qualities I wanted to see in the next Nigerian President. I posted the article on my facebook page and I got quite a number of comments on it. Comments that ranged from sheer derision and disbelief that any one individual could possess such attributes to more thoughtful comments by individuals who indicated they might start assessing potential presidential aspirants based on a more rigorous set of expectations.

One comment however that caught my attention in particular was one that questioned if Nigerians were indeed ready for such a leader. It is an old saying that a people will get the leader they deserve. If a people have absolutely no interest in the process that produces the leader of the nation and a thief and charlatan is voted in, one could argue that is the kind of leader the people deserve. If however, people take the time to understand what each candidate is offering, compares and weighs all the options, goes out to vote and then ensures that their votes are counted… well... you get the idea.

But this above scenario is an advanced stage of a process. Before we can assess what each aspirant at local, state and national level is offering, Nigerians need to define and clarify a few fundamental issues about what they really want. It is when one knows what one really wants that one is better equipped to identify who will best provide this to you and exactly how they intend to do this. I will give an illustration.

American politics can be very partisan and broad lines are drawn between Republicans and Democrats. With decades of political rivalry between them some of the lines have deepened into chasms that stretch and divide opinion on social, economic and political issues. Do we allow private citizens to bear arms? Do we want to allow gay couples to get married? Should abortions be legal and available for free? Do we want to increase taxes and provide more funds to programs such as Medicaid? Or reduce taxes and let market forces determine who gets the best type of health care insurance? How much interference do we want the government to have in our affairs? Is Lady gaga truly reflective of how we want to be portrayed in the world?

Depending on how you answer the above questions usually determines which part of the political spectrum you will be buttonholed in. Polls indicate that a lot Americans consider themselves centre of the spectrum (Independents) lurching a little to the right or left on specific issues.

Underlining this whole process is a common theme. Despite the sometimes bitter debates and hot air blown about by Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike, Americans are united in the pursuit of a common goal. They call it, ‘The American Dream’. This is more than just a single goal or objective. It is rather more a philosophy and way of life. It is the belief that no matter where you come from or what god you believe in, if you work really hard and take your opportunities you WILL build a better life for yourself and your family. If you plan properly and make a few sacrifices, your children will go to a better school than you did and attain one higher level of educational achievement, thereby getting a better job than you did. If you display exceptional talent in an area of life, that talent is nurtured and built upon and celebrated when it reaches its full potential.

Of course the above is a gross simplification and there will be any number of groups who complain that the American dream has passed them by. Or that some segments of society have hijacked the dream and don’t want to let it go. But the fact is that the American dream remains the goal and the how to achieve the goal is what dominates political discourse.

I believe political discourse in Nigeria is severely limited to how to acquire political power. The attainment of political office is an end in itself and not a means to an end. Politicians in Nigeria spend lots of money, energy and manpower to gain political power and then once they have it, have absolutely no idea what to do with it. In countries with a bit more maturity in its political theatre, the election to office of a group of politicians is a sanscrosant contract between the government and the people. The people say, ‘this is what we want to do with our lives. We want to work hard, send our children to good schools and watch a good football game at the weekend’. Do not interfere with where I go to worship on Sundays, provide me with the roads to get to work, affordable schools for my children and deal with those noisy neighbouring countries on our behalf’. The government in turn says, ‘No problem, it will cost you this much to build those roads, maintain those schools and ensure that the banks are able to give you a good loan for that business you want to start’.

Once the government in power forgets or refuses to listen to the demands of the people, they are quietly (sometimes loudly) told to pack their bags at the next election and let someone who will listen to them take over. And sometimes, the people just tire of the same group and say, ‘Give the other chaps a chance’.

I sincerely believe the lack of a common goal/dream/objective for Nigerians is a severe limitation in how we choose our leaders. If we don’t know where we want to get to, how do we know the type of person to lead us there? Nigeria like the rest of Africa suffers from the legacy of the colonial masters who drew arbitrary lines across the continent and mashed up diverse nations into contraptions that served their economic interests at the time. This however fails to become a valid argument in the task of nation-building. The USA as an example again is made up of a potpourri of nations and peoples. Diversity is celebrated and woven into the unique fabric that is the American dream. Do you want to work hard, buy a house in suburbia and drive an SUV? Call yourself African-American, Italian-American, Irish-American or Mexican-American you are and will always be an American.

I have lived with Igbos, Hausas, Ebiras and Tivs. In the day-to-day grind of everyday life our aspirations were remarkably the same. We wanted to succeed at whatever it is we did. We wanted to gain a university qualification and get a really good job that would enable us to splash out on a big society wedding and move into a fully furnished house, furnishings that didn’t include a generator because the power supply was constant, reliable and affordable. We wanted to take holidays to the UK and enjoy the beaches of Cornwall and the Edinburgh comedy festival but be eager to return and still catch the Star-Mega Jamz at the Bar Beach and attend the Night of a thousand laughs in Muson Centre. We wanted to be able to drive to the Muson Centre in VI and return back to the mainland without having to avoid the Ikoyi link bridge because of the fear of a thrown tyre rim. We wanted to have kids safely in hospital and be secure in the fact that the teaching hospital was up to any complications or conditions in our health.

This isn’t too much to ask is it?

But time and time again, the political elite exacerbate divisions of ethnicity and religion in a bid to acquire power. It would probably be more satisfying if a section of the country was a nirvana because a son of the soil had acquired power and accelerated development in that region. But this is not the case. Power is acquired and used for self enrichment. Mansions are built with high fences around them while the gutters right outside the gate contain the dregs of society hoping for a handout and the mansion owner dares not go out freely in the fear that he will be targeted by the victims of his corrupt practices. Or he goes out in a protective security bubble, ignoring the world around him.

I just wonder about one thing. The different ethnic groups I lived with were in cosmopolitan Lagos and also the melting pot of the University of Ibadan. One could argue that these individuals were like me and constitute just one part of society. That of the urban middle class. An urban middle class that has been decimated true but that is a story for another day.

What about the 60% of Nigerians that live below the poverty line? Does the mechanic in Beere Oje in Ibadan share similar aspirations with the shoemaker in Langtan in Jos? Would the almarijis who cluster round the big man's house every Friday abandon a life of handouts if the opportunity to go to school or learn a trade was offered? Would the area boys in Idumota Lagos, rather set a goal of becoming master craftsmen rather than dealers of violence and thuggery?

I sincerely do not the answers to these questions. At least not yet.

What I do know beyond a shadow of doubt is that Nigerians have to define what we want. We need to identify those who are most likely to lead us to that desired state and ensure they have a chance to lead. And I choose my words very carefully. Lead us there. Moses led his people to the promised land. But the people still had to follow. They did not sit in Egypt and send Moses out to look for the land and come back with Ekenedilichukwu buses to ferry them there. They braved 40 years in the wilderness before arriving at their destination. Nigeria has added on an extra 10 years to that record. And Canaan is still not on the horizon.

So yes we are still in the wilderness. We need to start defining the things that unite us, pool our aspirations into cohesive plans and lay out road maps on how to achieve them. Only then would we be able to start fulfilling our potential and be recognized as a true giant of Africa.