Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Oga, anything for the boys?

If you happen to be driving down a road in Nigeria, or happen to be on an okada, or even just pounding the streets in your very own, custom-built, fully accesorised leggediz-benz, you may have heard the question asked,"Anything for the boys?" Some variations on this may be,"Bros, your bois dey hech o!" and "Oga, make bois drink small tin na."

Who are these boys, and why on earth are you always being asked to assist them, you may wonder. Should you be a charitable soul, and intent on making a formal donation, you may be well advised to perform a quick check at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) which will reveal (to your great surprise) that there is currently no charitable organisation in Nigeria bearing the name "The Boys", neither has one ever been registered.

Perhaps it is an unregistered NGO of some sort then? Again, this search is likely to turn up blank. Before you scratch your head in puzzlement, and begin to wonder how you can assist such an ovbiously needy organisation, I can help you out.

The Boys is a nationwide charitable organisation which is yet to undergo the formal rigours of registeration with the CAC. It's members dress in black, and are assigned numbers and stretches of territory within which to raise funds to keep this noble organisation going. They mount various collection points along highways and within cities. Should you happen to have donated at one, and suddenly run into another collection point a few meters ahead, don't bother pointing out that you've already made a donation, as you've most likely run into a fresh territory.

Everyone donates cheerfully to The Boys. Commercial bus drivers and motorcyclists (also known as Okada) are the biggests donors. At every collection point mounted by The Boys, these kind and generous souls are seen dropping 20 naira notes into the collection plates. The bus drivers are so generous they may donate at the same spot up to 10 times in one day. Storing up riches in heaven for sure.

As for you, the private citizen, who may or may not have an assured source of income, donating to the lean purse of The Boys is strictly optional.

They do have some very powerful methods of persuasion however, such as the AK47s strapped to their backs.

5 comments:

Anti said...

I have made donations to the local 'boys', voluntary of course.

Anyway, mate, go to your template, search for Blog header, and enter the URL of your pic, but you'll have to play with the size to get it right.

Should look something like this

#blog-header {
color: #ffe;
background: #8b2 url(http://www.blogblog.com/moto_son/headbotborder.gif) bottom left repeat-x;


Change the address to that where your pic is situated.

The Law said...

Thanks.

Anonymous said...

nice blog man.

Anonymous said...

nice blog man

Anonymous said...

i have a question for you. I saw your contributions at Arsenal WTF.

I have been offered a job in Yola, at the new American University in Nigeria. Yola is closer to Chad than Abuja, but it seems to me Abuja is the nearest city.

I am not a Nigerian, nor am I an American actually; but I just realized that Language may be barrier I had not quite anticipated, all the Nigerians I know speak English as well as the dilectisized version, that every country that has been colonized seems to have developed an own version.

How do Nigerians react to black people who don't speak the dialect or local languages?

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I love my country, enjoy a cold beer once in a while, rabidly support Arsenal FC, but I don't get Diet Coke...