The Root Of All Evil

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” – Verbal Kint/Keyser Soze

It is common place to place blame for evil on the devil. Everything that is bad about the world can be heaped on his shoulders, and that’s all well and good. But who is the devil really? What is his mission? Where did he come from?

Now, Christians believe that God is good, God is perfect, and God is all-seeing, and all-knowing. He knows what you’re going to do before you do it and He has never changed His nature. God made man and gave him free will, and God also made angels, who have no free will. And therein lies the rub.

For you see, Satan aka Lucifer, aka the devil, used to be an angel. Then, as the story goes, he rebelled and was cast out, falling to earth where he began to use his angelic powers to oppose the will of the Creator, tempting mankind, and scoring an instant success with Eve and the forbidden fruit.

Now, angels have no free will, they do as they’re told, carrying messages to mankind and occasionally slaughtering a few hundred thousand Egyptian children to make the point that their boss is not to be fucked with and when He says “Let my people go” you let them go (despite shoving His hand up Pharaoh’s arse and working his mouth like a puppet so the poor man said no all the time). But I digress.

The point is, if there was no evil before Lucifer was made, and God is perfect, and Lucifer has no free will, then all he has ever done is follow his programming like any properly made machine. And follow it perfectly because his maker is perfect. Therefore, God deliberately created an evil angel, and is simultaneously the source of good and evil.

And like any good soldier, the devil remembers to check in with central command for updates to his mission and any special assignments. The best illustration of this occurs in the book of Job. The sons of God came to present themselves before Him, and Satan came among them, and God asked him where he had been, and he replied that he’d been travelling the world. Whereupon God asked him if in his travels he’d seen a man as faithful as Job, and Satan replied that Job was faithful only because God had blessed him with riches and a good family. And then God basically ordered Satan to go whack Job’s children, and destroy his business to prove that his faithfulness came from much deeper roots.

Now, get this: Satan not only has free access to Heaven, he is still considered to be one of the sons of God. And when he showed up God didn’t demand to know who let him in or what he was doing there, then throw him out, and fire whoever was on gate duty, oh no. Rather, God demanded to know where the heck he’d been, then gave him a special job. All of which makes Satan an elite general who is permitted to pick and choose his missions, but is working toward a general strategic objective.

The Bible tells you that ultimately, God will triumph over Satan. Which means the creation of Satan was a Machiavellian power play that the man himself would be extremely appreciative of. For one important piece of advice Niccolo gave the Prince was that he ought to create an enemy for himself that he could defeat, but make sure this enemy was not perceived as too weak to be a challenge to himself. Thus, when this enemy is defeated, the Prince’s prestige would rise.

So, Satan serves two purposes: firstly, he’s an “enemy” who has been created so he can be defeated at some point in the future. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, he serves as a figure everyone can blame their inherent character flaws on, and blame for all the ills that assail them. For, if I personally came by your house one day and gave you a million dollars and then the next day I personally came by and burned your house to the ground and murdered your children, you’d say I was one crazy, twisted, fucking bastard, and you’d never want to have anything to do with me.

However, if I sent someone to burn your house down and murder your children, you’d still think I was a good guy, as long as you don’t connect me to the murdering arsonist I unleashed on you. And if you do, I can always claim that he’s a former associate who went rogue. Why would I do that to you? Well, because I can.

And that, is perhaps Satan’s greatest purpose. He’s ostensibly the ex-servant of God who turned evil, defied his master and came down here to screw up this perfect creation of His. He’s not of God, he’s just a twisted, sick bastard and one day God is going to punch his ticket and put an end to his reign over the world.

When you read between the lines, you discover that Satan is no more than a highly dedicated servant carrying out the instructions of his master, and even though those instructions make him appear to be opposed to his master, he fits into an overall game plan.

I say the greatest trick God ever pulled was convincing the world that the devil isn’t actually working for Him, and has been the entire time. Which makes Satan the world’s greatest and most successful double agent, for he isn’t actually playing for "the other side." The other side doesn’t exist.

Much Ado About a Name

19 years ago, an election was held in Nigeria in which a Yoruba muslim by the name of Moshood Abiola, won the majority of votes in both the north and south of the country. Stunned at the unexpected development, the then junta decided to annul the elections, plunging the country into a crisis from which it is yet to fully emerge.

The winner of that election was arrested and tossed into a dungeon to await the pleasure of Khalifa. His wife, who carried on the fight for him on the outside, was brutally murdered for having the gall to demand that her husband’s victory be recognized and his mandate restored.

Khalifa, then began his own transition program, with the aim of emerging from the cocoon of military dictatorship as a beautiful, dark-goggled civilian butterfly. The plan was going smoothly, the people had to endure being told that Khalifa was the key to their future, and the only man “the cap fit”. And then, one day, right out of the blue, Khalifa died. To this day, speculation surrounds his death, ranging from a poisoned apple wielded by a nubile assassin of Asian origin, to his heart giving out because he ignored the warnings on Viagra packets about mixing the erectile dysfunction medication with alcohol.

Either way, Khalifa passed on, and we held our breath to see if now, finally, Abiola would be granted his mandate. Alas, it was not to be. In the midst of discussions with the new junta, Abiola slumped and passed on, conveniently solving a rather knotty problem, but that is a discussion for another day.

The new junta quickly organized elections, and on May 29, 1999, a civilian President was sworn in. Calls began for MKO to be recognized as a hero of the struggle for democracy, and immortalised as such. These calls were largely ignored by the new rulers who, it quickly emerged, had by and large come from the ranks of the sycophants, apologists, and collaborators who had done their level best to prevent the return of democracy to the country. It was also quickly established that these new rulers had little patience for the rule of the ballot, preferring rigging and outright brutality as their route to attaining and retaining power. For these people, Abiola remains a reminder of what they could never hope to achieve: power through legitimate, free and fair elections.

In 2011, Nigerians trooped to the polls to elect Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as their President. It is safe to say that his administration has been an unmitigated disaster, and we still have 3 years to go. The GEJ administration has lurched from one crisis to another, with flagrant corruption and stupefying incompetence as its hallmarks.

Surprisingly, on May 29, 2012, 19 years after the election he won was annulled, GEJ decided to do something for Abiola, announcing that the University of Lagos would be renamed the Moshood Abiola University. Cue bedlam.

Students took to the streets to protest the renaming of “their” university with poorly-spelled placards. Twitter erupted, some people taking to their handles to question whether there weren’t more important things to deal with than the names of universities. Some simply poured scorn on the man. Others pontificated on the value of the name of the university, saying that it had to do with its heritage. In short, there were so many soapboxes “clumb” upon, it is a wonder that there was any space left for listeners. It is a measure of just how unpopular this administration is that a move meant to recognize a hero of the country swiftly became another stick to beat the President with.

One particular accusation that has been leveled at Mr. President is that this decision was taken to distract Nigerians from the epic failure his administration has been thus far. And I must wonder, have we, as a people, not yet reached that stage in our development in which we can say to Mr. President, “We are glad that you have finally decided to recognize the contribution of Abiola to your being in office today, and we say thank you. Now, how about implementing the recommendations of the subsidy probe report, and firing your hopelessly inept Minister of Petroleum? And oh, while you’re at it, where in nine hells are the allowances for our Youth Corps members?”

Are we not capable of engaging multiple issues in this manner? The furore over the name change of UNILAG ignores one fundamental factor, which is that UNILAG is owned, operated, and funded by the Federal Government of Nigeria, which can consequently call “UNILAG” whatever the hell it wants. As such, those saying that similar protests would occur if the US Government decided to rename Harvard University completely miss the point as Harvard isn’t owned by the US government. Others say that GEJ does not have the power to change the name of a University by executive fiat, but nothing stops Mr. President from submitting a bill to the National Assembly seeking to amend the University of Lagos Act accordingly. (Where it may well wallow for another 20 years.)

We have complained for over a decade that our “democratic” Federal Government had signally failed to recognize Abiola's contributions to democracy. We argued that June 12, not May 29, should be recognized as Democracy Day. We said recognizing Abiola had to go far beyond naming one road after him in Abuja.

At long last, the man receives official recognition and this is how people react? I am willing to wager that many of the students protesting have no idea who Abiola was, or know that Lagos was the epicenter of the protests for the man’s mandate to be restored. I wish the ghosts of those UNILAG students who were killed for daring to protest the annulment of the freest and fairest election in our history, could rise up and give these kids a history lesson they would never forget.

Indeed, if the objective of renaming UNILAG after Abiola was to distract people from the fact that one year into his first full tenure, GEJ is yet to give Nigerians any reason to smile about their choice at the polls, and instead has foisted increasing hardship, unprecedented levels of corruption, and Keystone Kops-esque ineptitude on the country, then I must congratulate GEJ for finally achieving something he set out to do. People are so busy preparing arguments and counter-arguments over what should have been brushed aside with a “that’s nice”, that they have lost sight of the fact that once again, our President has given us a speech with zero substance to it. He did not unveil anything in that speech that we can say was aimed at checking the rot in the security situation. He didn’t say anything about the corruption that has risen to eye-popping levels under his care. He hasn’t told us how he intends to tackle the members of his party who are sponsoring terrorists, a situation that prompted his NSA to speak out in frustration. Hell, the man even refused to say “Amen” to a prayer against corruption and corrupt politicians a couple of days prior to this speech, and in our uber-religious society, that should have raised all sorts of red flags.

Instead, we have once again demonstrated our unmatched capacity for supremely energetic shadow chasing. GEJ and his advisors must be thrilled.

I say to GEJ, “Thank you Mr. President, for recognizing a hero of democracy. Now, how about doing something substantial for once in your administration, like implementing the recommendations of the subsidy probe report, doing something about the Boko Haram sponsors in your party, or are you only capable of bending your knees to terrorists and telling us to endure their actions?”

Of Sacrifices and Gods

Back in the old days, offerings brought to the temple of a deity automatically became the property of the deity’s priest. This is so because by their very nature, deities do not have bodies requiring sustenance. They do not eat, drink, or sleep. They do not require houses or clothes, or money.

Therefore, when you brought a goat to the shrine, the priest automatically knew that there would be no shortage of goat meat around the house for a while. And, seeing as it was such a sweet deal, no priest was actually going to tell you that his god didn’t need your goats or yams or cowries. Or that his god really didn’t exist and couldn’t make it rain no matter how many cows and chickens were slaughtered in his name. Or that placing food in a calabash by a junction was a waste of your time and your food, and that you were a fucking moron for going hungry while providing flies with a rich environment for breeding.

The invasion and conquest of Africa by the white man dealt the old gods a blow from which they would never fully recover. The sheer technological superiority of the invading forces turned all “cursed” forests into shortcuts, and the idols of our forefathers were brutally swept aside by those newfangled repeating rifles and cannons. Afterward, the white man introduced his god, and told our forefathers that his was the true faith. This god didn’t reside in carvings of wood and stone, promised you eternal life if you served well, and didn’t believe in human sacrifice. Naturally, they glossed over the fact that their god didn’t mind the odd human sacrifice himself as long as it was tastefully done, of course.

No, their god was so benevolent, he sent his only son to die for the entire world, believers and infidels alike, to save them all. And oh, the son would be back one day, so best behavior was required. It also turned out that this god didn’t mind sacrifices of money, yams, goats, cows, etc. In fact, from the spread of his reach, it should have been apparent rather quickly that this god had one voracious appetite.

Men flocked to be priests of the new god, and found that much like the old gods, the sharing formula was the same. Anything brought to the church and handed over to God, was now yours to do with as you saw fit. Some branches of the new faith believed that a man should hand himself over to the religion and forsake such earthly whims as family. Others believed that serving God didn’t require that step. Whichever branch you joined, you had your sheep to tend to, and your sheep supported “the ministry” through their contributions in cash or kind.

Churches soon began to accumulate the kind of wealth that would make Midas salivate with raging envy. And it was only natural that men would begin to question the wisdom of gathering all this cash only to send it off to some headquarters and receiving a pat on the head and a “good boy” for all your trouble. As history is littered with men who saw visions and were hailed as prophets, it was only natural that one would see a vision, receive a personal command from God, and start one’s own church with all the attendant benefits of “headquarters” being the room behind the church.

Before you could say “ka-ching!” men of God began to accumulate the kind of wealth that would make Midas rend his robes and weep at his poverty. Mansions and flashy cars became the order of the day, for these men do not serve a poor God, and all they’re doing is display the benefits of working in the Lord’s vineyard.

The focus of these one-man churches is simple: spread the word, and that word is “cash”. Their followers are admonished to “tithe”, “sow seeds”, “give generously” and so on and so forth. The pastors are no longer mere men of God, they become “Daddy” to their followers. You hardly hear their flock talk about the Bible or Jesus, but all they’re concerned with is what Daddy said about whatever subject.

People then begin to see themselves as vicarious property owners through their pastors, much the same way your father’s house was “your” house when you were a child. The suits, the houses, the cars, the private jets, are all theirs because they belong to Daddy. And they’re all signs of the blessings Daddy could send their way if they made that seed just a wee bit bigger.

In a nation of soul-crushing poverty, men of God are the wealthiest citizens. Their displays of wealth would make your average hedge fund manager look like he hasn’t got two nickels to rub together, and there is no sign of things slowing down, not with the gauntlet Bishop Oyedepo (Daddy to his followers) threw down last week. You see, the man already owns four private jets, but apparently private jets are for the poor, so he started his own airline. And, in case you were wondering, the four private jets aren’t going commercial.

Starting a new airline is a massively capital-intensive business, and may require you to pull off stunt after stunt to build up some brand recognition (just ask Richard Branson what he had to go through with Virgin). It would take years of operating at full capacity just to break even, and your more established competitors aren’t going to mothball their operations so you can catch up. So, in order to shorten the period you’re going to be making a loss, you’ll have to be hyper-aggressive in terms of opening up new routes (like Arik Air is doing) or offering competitive fares to passengers (like Aero Contractors did until the gimmick threatened to bankrupt them). In other words, the airline business is not for the shallow of pocket.

Oyedepo, however, is reputedly Africa’s richest pastor, and the money is still rolling in from his books, CDs, DVDs, conventions, tithes, seeds, etc. With rampant poverty pushing more and more desperate people into churches in order to secure themselves mansions in heaven, the situation is unlikely to change. And just like the priests of the old gods, it’s not in his interest to tell you that a god who created the world in 7 days using nothing other than the sound of his voice couldn’t possibly buy anything with your money. Or that this god who is everywhere has no need of a car or private jet. Or that he has no body and so doesn’t eat yams. Or goats. Or cows.

The gods don’t need your sacrifices and offerings because they can’t bloody use them. Men, however, are a different story. We have bodies, so we need food. We can’t be everywhere at once, so we need transportation. And we love the finer things in life, so we acquire them by any means necessary. And what better way to do that than as the servants of a “powerful” deity? And, the more powerful your deity, the wealthier you become.

It’s so brilliantly simple, anyone can get in on the action, and anyone does. Today, we have churches on every street, sometimes two or three per street. Each one with a name chosen to imply that God himself wrote the signboard, and each with a Daddy within, waiting for his children to come obey his commands.

Religion may be the opium of the masses, but Nigerians have upgraded to heroin. Opium is for the poor, and our god is not poor.

Punch Drunk

The Nigerian citizen is hardly given time to absorb one scandal and work him/herself up into a rage over it before it is replaced by something even more grievous. On an almost daily basis, we are subjected to tales of brazen excess from our rulers, mind-boggling corruption, and staggering incompetence.

The fuel subsidy removal protests forced the government to begin a long-overdue inquest into the rot in the petroleum sector. It was not long before our officials began buck-passing like it was an Olympic event and they were gunning for gold. We heard that it was the Petroleum Minister who authorised payments over and above the budgetary allocation. Then we heard that it was the Finance Minister. Then the Customs people came and told us that the Finance Minister ordered them to waive documentation procedures for petrol imports. We heard that the NNPC uses third-party storage facilities despite having its own. Independent marketers came and complained about being sidelined by people with access.

Then, just like that, the noise about the subsidy regime disappeared. Where has it gone? Probably into a committee which will take time to prepare a report which will shortly thereafter take its place in the pantheon of forgotten reports.

We're not bothered though because we have bigger fish to fry. It wasn't too long ago that our Commander-in-Chief came out and declared that Boko Haram had infiltrated his government. Now, to my admittedly slow and dim-witted mind, it appeared that the man had a ready-made solution: identify the Boko Haram members in the cabinet, sack them, and charge them with treason. Round them up one night and squeeze them for locations, names, etc. But then, like I said, I'm kind of slow and GEJ must have had something even better up his sleeve.

 

So, what did the man do about the terrorists in his cabinet? Try sweet fuck all. That's right, after telling the world that terrorists had infiltrated the government, the President and his security forces have not been able to publicly identify these people and prove to the country and her enemies that we are capable of handling the situation. Instead, GEJ went and got some MOSSAD agents to provide his personal protection.

In other words, the President was telling us, "You're all fucked if you seriously believe the police and SSS can protect you."

Needless to say that this apparent paralysis only served to embolden the terrorists who quickly scaled up their targets, adding major police and military installations to churches and mosques. After each atrocity, we are treated to the same statement of how those behind the dastardly acts would be fished out, no stone left unturned, and most galling of all, how we only had to endure these things for a little while because the terrorists would soon get tired of all the bombings and go home.

 

And for his sterling performance in piloting national affairs, GEJ has had a district in Abuja named after him.

 

Brilliant.

A Magnificent Shame

Following the scandal which attended the purchase of Peugeot 407s by the NASS a few years ago, I wrote an article based on my own research which demonstrated that the contract for the supply of those vehicles had been inflated by several hundred million naira. Of course, this is Nigeria, and nobody goes to jail for corruption unless they’ve seriously pissed off whoever happens to be Boss Hogg at that point in time so the storm passed very quickly and quietly.

Shortly after winning his election in 2011, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ for short) our new resident Boss Hogg, declared that the subsidy on imported petroleum products was going to have to go. He and his economic team headed by Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (NOI for short) and CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (SLS for short) told us that the subsidy was crippling the government’s ability to spend on capital projects. The old arguments which had been trotted out by then-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s (OBJ for short) economic team which was headed by (surprise-surprise) NOI against the retention of the subsidy were dusted off and trotted out to do their thing once more.

We couldn’t subsidise consumption, there was corruption in the system, removing the subsidy would lead to deregulation and we would see a sudden and sharp improvement in the ability of the government to execute projects. Removing the subsidy would be the magic bullet that would solve all our economic woes.

Naturally, people kicked against removing the one thing that allowed the entire country benefit from the staggering wealth produced by the Niger-Delta and largely salted away in the foreign accounts of a few well-connected people over the years. So, we were told that the date hadn’t been set, nut the government was looking at April 2012 or thereabouts.

On January 1 2012, the PPPRA announced that the subsidy on petrol (PMS for short) had been removed, PMS had therefore been deregulated and would now be sold at ₦141 per litre or such other price as the agency would announce from time to time. My immediate reaction was to wonder how you "deregulated" a product but still set its price, but that is just a little corner of the picture. There was widespread outrage at the timing of the announcement and the incredible deception of the government. Transportation costs immediately skyrocketed, stranding several people who had travelled for the holidays. Commodities prices doubled. By January 2, people were in the streets protesting loudly against the callousness of the government’s decision.

Since then we’ve been treated to the usual governmental hogwash, culminating in the most useless Presidential gesture towards hard times since “Let them eat cake”. GEJ got on national TV and announced that basic salaries of office holders would be cut by 25%. Without going into the fact that it’s actually the horrendously hedonistic allowances of these people that bloat their salaries and not the basic pay, GEJ didn’t really say anything of substance in his speech.

NOI appeared on TV to tell us that we were massively in debt, facing hard times, and removing the subsidy would free up funds to tackle national development. I don’t know about the rest of you, but as far as I’m concerned, a Finance Minister who can draw up a budget allocating ₦1 billion to the feeding of the President and VP and their families in 2012, ₦300 million to buy cutlery, ₦200 million to water a garden, and ₦48 million to buy newspapers and magazines for the VP and then turn around and tell the country we need to prepare for austerity measures simply can’t be taken seriously.

SLS then came on air and told us all (with nary a blink in his eye) that he’d been raising alarms about corruption and rot in the subsidy regime for over a year. He told us that there was massive fraud going on, with people falsifying documents and transhipping petrol and so on. And then he threw up his hands and wailed that there was so much money involved, people could be bribed and there was more or less nothing the government could do to stop these fiends.

Ignoring the fact that the CBN Governor himself had just told the world that the administration he worked in lacked the will power to tackle corruption, the proposed solution surely flew in the face of common sense. We all remember when OBJ told us people were stealing money from toll gates and the solution was to demolish the toll gates. Surely, the proper thing to do was to launch an investigation into the theft, and prosecute a few people, thus letting everyone know that stealing from the FG would not be tolerated? I marvelled at the special brand of lunatic logic that one had to possess in order to see his solution as the right one. However, before anyone could debate the matter, all toll gates on federal highways were demolished at the cost of ₦360 million. I did however believe that with the transition of OBJ’s administration, that insane way of thinking was behind us for good. I was sorely mistaken.

We have been told that the subsidy bill for 2011 was ₦1.3 trillion. However, what was budgeted to cover the subsidy was ₦248 billion. From SLS’ pronouncements, we can safely conclude that the higher figure is the result of monumental, staggering corruption. Surely the proper thing to do is to tackle the corruption and bring any perpetrators to book? Wouldn’t that save the country billions and make the subsidy immediately more affordable?

But no, the government’s solution is to abolish the fund altogether. We have been told that there is a powerful “cabal” bent on retaining the subsidy for their own evil ends. We are told that we’ve been borrowing to fund the subsidy and this can no longer continue. Accordingly, this administration is basically telling us that it has been borrowing to finance corruption and not only is it aware of what is going on, it has no intention of solving the problems it has identified, and would rather abdicate its responsibilities altogether.

Now, I am economist, I hated maths in school and it hated me right back. I’m just a simple fellow with a simple brain but thanks to the marvels of modern science, I can rely on software to crunch really big numbers for me, so here goes.

If we assume an average production in 2011 of 1.5 million bpd of crude oil, sold at the government’s budgeted price of $70 per barrel (and we all know the real figure is higher than that) we can calculate that Nigeria earned around $38 billion selling crude oil in 2011. That’s ₦5.7 trillion using ₦150 to a dollar. Our total budget for 2011 was (wait for it) ₦4.4 trillion or thereabouts. That means that even using the government’s traditionally lower than actual price, we should have a surplus of over ₦2 trillion in last year’s budget from crude oil sales alone. This calculation doesn’t take internally generated revenue into account, and I have it on good authority that the FIRS had what one would call a phenomenal year. So, by my rudimentary calculations, although overshooting the budgeted subsidy in 2011 by almost over a trillion buckaroos is extremely alarming, we actually earned enough dosh to cover the amount and have a bit left over.

So, I challenge SLS and NOI with their fancy degrees and letters after their names to tell me that I am wrong. I want them to explain how we’re operating a deficit budget despite earning staggering sums of money. Did the world crude market tank in 2011? Did Nigeria's crude production fall to around 10,000 bpd? Didn’t we collect any income or corporate taxes? I want them to tell me that there is some justification for the rapacious borrowing that has seen our sovereign debt rise to over $33 billion dollars, our foreign reserves fall to $27 billion, and seen the ECA balance drop to $0.00. I want them to tell us all how they justify paying our federal legislators more money than the President of the United States of America.

I especially want them to explain the magnificent shame of Nigeria being the only oil producer in the world which relies on imported petrol.

Can they?

Too Much Energy

Recently, the Nigerian Senate passed a law banning gay marriage in Nigeria and stipulating a term in prison of 14 years for anyone guilty of the act. It further laid down stiff penalties for any religious establishment which dared to carry out a gay marriage. The Senate President dared the Brits and the Nortamericanos to challenge our right to legislate on how we wish to live, and the people cheered.

There is just one problem with this law: it is totally unnecessary. Nigerian law already only recognises as valid marriages between a man and a woman or two. (Two women, that is. We're not Indians.) As such, passing a law to ban that which was already not allowed was pointless in the extreme, and a waste of energy, time, and resources which could certainly have been put to better use. It's like the Senate passing a law to criminalise armed robbery.

I am no fan of homosexuals, and in my personal opinion, there has to be something seriously wrong with your wiring if takes the thought of sticking your penis into a man's ass to make you hard, but that's my opinion. And what two adults decide to do to each other in the privacy of their own home is hardly the sort of area any sane government would make a priority. It is certainly not the sort of thing a sane Nigerian legislature should be passing, in this climate, anyway.

We have far more pressing problems with our laws in general than gay marriage. For instance, did you know that by Nigerian law, the compensation due to a worker injured in the course of his work is 12 weeks pay or N1,280.00 (which ever is less)? That's what our Labour Act provides. The same Labour Act that has not been updated since it was passed in the 1970s. Also, a police officer wounded in the line of duty is entitled to N5,000.00.Yes, Five Thousand Naira is what a Nigerian cop can expect to be paid should he be stupid enough to get shot doing his job. Will that amount pay for an hour in a hospital? Is it any wonder then that our cops flee at the first sign of trouble?

Or how about the fact that bank statements are not admissible as evidence in a Nigerian court of law in the 21st century? Yes, our Evidence Act requires the provision of the "Banker's Book", you know, that ledger where they used to write down deposits and withdrawals against a person's name. The sort of thing that was in popular use until the 1800s or so when the rest of the world decided to embrace modern techniques of doing business and Nigeria was happy to remain behind.

Or how about the fact that a man is still more or less allowed to beat the living hell out of his wife in this country? A bill to prohibit domestic violence against women was thrown out by the Edo state House of Assembly in 2001 and I do believe one legislator remarked that domestic abuse was a foreign concept, and questioned how else a man was supposed to maintain discipline in his home if stripped of the tool of regular beatings. I agree with him, if there's not enough salt in the soup, she deserves a visit from Dr. Cat O'Nine Tails.

These are just some of the problem areas that can be redressed by the swift updating of our laws, but instead, our Senators are focused on gay marriage.

We have issues.

Mr. Mom

“Women and children can be careless but not men.” – Don Vito Corleone

The image of what a father should be as espoused by Hollywood is certainly interesting. By their reckoning, a father should be a mother as well. He should be willing to cheerlead for his kids, kiss their bandages when they have scrapes, and blow off important business meetings so he can attend school plays. It is also implied in the movies that if you don’t do all the above, you’re a bad father.

I was watching Kramer vs. Kramer the other day, and I was struck by how Mr Kramer, on being abandoned by his wife, struggled to combine the duties of father, mother, provider and carer for his son. Of course, being America, when the child behaved like a total jackass, Mr Kramer was not allowed to give him the backhand he so richly deserved.

His work performance began to suffer; he began missing deadlines, and was soon fired. His boss was portrayed as an unfeeling, uncaring son-of-a-bitch who refused to understand that raising a child was more important than keeping clients happy. The movie made it clear that Kramer was putting his child’s demands ahead of his career, and implied that you were meant to applaud him.

Gradually, Kramer became his son’s mother and movie audiences oohed and aahed. Career is not important, family is. Never mind that the career is what allowed him to afford the nice apartment and toys and clothes and food and that at one point he was faced with the very real prospect of being unable to do so anymore. We are meant to watch such movies and say, “Yes, this is what fatherhood is about.”

And what about Mrs Kramer? She walked out on her husband because she felt misunderstood. He wasn’t abusive, wasn’t failing to provide for her and his son, wasn’t running around with other women, wasn’t an alcoholic. The movie never explored the fact that her reasons for walking out on her husband AND her son were superfluous at best, and at worst extremely stupid. Had it been Mr Kramer who walked out on his wife in those circumstances, the movie would have gone out of its way to pillory him as the worst possible father and held him up as what not to be.

In her case, the movie expects you to understand her reasons and even sympathise with her. And, naturally, despite her walking out on her family without so much as a by your leave and disappearing for 18 months, the judge awards her custody of the child and orders Mr Kramer (who has at this point sacrificed his career for his son) to pay child support and maintenance. The movie ends with her acknowledging that she can’t really take care of the boy, but puts her refusal to take him down to her realisation that he is already home.

Anyone remember the episode of The Fresh Prince where Will’s father unexpectedly shows up, promises to take Will on a road trip and then bails at the last minute? That episode never explores why Will’s father left his mother in the first place, never tells us if he realised he wasn’t capable of doing right by his boy and so decided to let the capable parent handle the job. Instead, it conveys that this man is a deadbeat dad for not being around his son and for coming up with some “flimsy” excuse for not taking Will on that road trip like he promised. (The man said he had a job, but it’s made pretty clear that we are not supposed to believe him.)

I’m not saying deadbeat dads don’t exist, but you can contrast the treatment men who walk out on their families get against women who do the same. The man is always a bum, and the woman is always some tragic figure and it’s her husband’s fault that she left. If he had been more understanding, she would have stayed with him and they would have been one big happy family. In simpler terms, no matter what happens, it is always the man’s fault that his marriage broke up. If he cheated on her, he’s a bastard, but if she cheated on him it’s his fault for not having a good enough sex game. In Ray, Ray Charles’ mother watches her blind son stumbling around and refuses to step in and help him, forcing him to adapt to the situation by using his ears. We applaud her for teaching him how to cope, but had it been a man, they would have found some way to make the act appear callous.

Movies tell us that a father should be there for all the little moments, even if it means putting his career on the line. He should be willing to say, “Fuck the job and the salary, I’m going to be at that kindergarten recital.” How then does this father figure teach his son how to be a man? To take care of his family, and see that they are provided for? How does the Hollywood dad teach his son to take his career seriously when his own example is of blowing off his career so he can hold up a camcorder at a Thanksgiving pageant? The simple answer is that he can’t.

I read online that the current generation of women is outstripping men in terms of career achievement, and women are now complaining that the current generation of men, well, don’t know how to be men. How could they when the examples they saw growing up told them that things like careers and job responsibilities don’t matter? Kramer took a lower paying and less stressful job so he could spend more time with his son and this was very noble, to be sure, but what happens when the kid wants to go to college in 8 years?

I am not yet a father, but I don’t subscribe to the view that blowing off an important meeting so I can grab a pair of pom-poms and cheerlead at football practice means I’m a good dad. What does doing that teach my son about being a man? Wouldn’t he be better served by me teaching him self-reliance? Showing him that he has to be strong for his own family? In fact, jeopardising my career would be the very height of irresponsibility. It would mean that I am abandoning my responsibility to my family, and jeopardising the futures of my children.

The only movie dads who teach their kids about strength, responsibility, and the importance of family tend to be criminals. There’s something terribly wrong with this picture.

The Nigerian Highway Code

When the white devils ruled over and oppressed the people of this land, they created something called the Highway Code. This special code was meant to regulate the behavior of drivers on the country’s many roadways, and it was rigidly enforced by the relevant agencies.

Eventually, our ancestors rose up and chased these white oppressors away. In the aftermath of the successful liberation of our land, it was decided to jettison the ways of the white devils. Some things were too deeply ingrained in our people and couldn’t be rooted out. For instance, the display of the full breasts of our women caused many of the male white devils to stray from their homes and the female white devils, jealous of our women and their gifts, forced their men to make our young ladies cover up.

Other things however, could be rooted out. Our people have always had a deep distrust of those strange markings the white devils called writing, and their claim that this was the best way to ensure that events were recorded and passed down to future generations. Our people have always believed in the oral way of handing down records, and if a few stories became slightly embellished in the retelling, it was fine by us.

It was decided that if our people were to travel in the strange mechanical beasts of the white devils, we would need a code of our own, which would be handed down from generation to generation in the finest oral traditions of our people. This would both ensure that the code survived for centuries untold, and free our people from having to view the writing of the white devils.

As a humanitarian service, I have decided to put down some of our own code in the style of the white devils, to ensure that foreigners who wish to come down here and drive on our roads will be aware of our rules, and follow them accordingly.

1.) Right of Way: This belongs to the most expensive car at any junction. Where two or more vehicles of equally expensive valuation meet at a junction, ROW belongs to the vehicle containing the highest number of fully armed mobile policemen.

2.) Speed Limit: This is dictated entirely by your ability to control your bladder. As such, the speed limit is the speed just below that at which you would involuntarily piss yourself. If you happen to be a passenger in a vehicle travelling at a speed limit greater than your own, feel free to ask the driver to stop so that you may empty your bladder. Frequently calling on the driver to stop will however earn you the hatred of passengers with higher speed limits than yours.

3.) Turn Signals: When a vehicle veers suddenly in a direction different from that in which it was previously travelling, the act of turning is deemed to be a sufficient signal.

4.) Particulars: This is a set of papers required to be held by every driver. The exact composition of this sheaf of documents varies according to the size of the pot-belly of the Inspector in charge of the checkpoint at which you have been stopped, and your willingness to part with N200.

5.) Traffic Signs: These works of art were commissioned by the government to demonstrate the proficiency of our people with metalwork and spray paint and have been installed along most major roadways to freshen up the landscape.

6.) Traffic Lights: Following the success experienced with the signs, the government decided to show off to the world that we had also mastered the ability to combine metal, spray paint and electronics. These superb masterpieces can be found in every major city in the country. Further, in a demonstration of our keen awareness of the need to protect the environment, the lights inside these works of art are only switched on in honor of visiting dignitaries, thereby conserving electricity.

7.) Hand Signals: These are used to demonstrate displeasure at the behavior of fellow road users and may be accompanied by verbal affirmation. Acknowledging the fact that we now live in a global village, the traditional five-finger salute is gradually being replaced by the more universally recognized single-finger salute.

The above list is by no means exhaustive and there are some roads in the country such as the world-famous Ring Road in Benin City, which have their own special rules. Memorizing the 7 rules above will however ensure that your driving experience is a pleasant one.

Mo' Cheddar

“There is no god like the throat: it demands sacrifices daily.” – The Tortoise

In our dear country, we are inundated everyday with messages from our pastors. These “men of God” declare that we must give, and give cheerfully “unto the Lord”. They teach their congregations that the more they give, the more blessings they shall receive from their “Father in heaven”. They then proceed to hold themselves out as living examples of the rewards of life in service to God.

And believe me, the life is very fucking good, what with the mansions, posh cars, and (more recently) private jets. Life couldn’t be sweeter for these men, and the sheep keep lining up to get fleeced. In a nation where the bulk of the national wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few government officials, where corruption is rife, and where the vast majority live in penury, one would think that it behoves church leaders to rail against the inherent immorality involved in stealing from the public to donate the money to God. Surely God is no fence, delighting in the receiving of stolen goods and, surely, God will strike down any who dares to offer Him a slice of criminal activity? Does God demand to “wet His beak”?

There was no equivocation in Exodus 20: 15, where God declares “Thou shalt not steal.” It is then difficult to imagine that a God who declared, expressly, that stealing is a grave offence to Him, condones the high elevation of corrupt men in His churches. Where are the messages from the pastors notifying those men who sit in the front rows of their churches that God will not accept donations sourced from theft? Where are the messages telling them that God does not support the theft of the will of voters via rigging? I dare one pastor to announce that any Senator seated in his church should kindly show himself the door, as God does not approve of men who steal from the public by awarding themselves ever larger salaries while their constituents go hungry and lack basic amenities. Will that ever happen? Fuck no. Where will the next private jet come from, if such a message is passed across? Or the next $4,000 suit, come to that?

Therefore, we must ask the question: if the God of the Bible does not support theft, and Nigerian pastors do, then which God, exactly, are they serving? In the midst of my musings on the subject, came news that Christ Embassy, one of the largest churches in Nigeria, actually charged people N1,000 to get into the premises for its Christmas services. And that, my friends, is the last fucking straw.

For too long most Nigerian churches, especially those of the Pentecostal bent, have marketed (no, that’s not a typo) themselves as venues of entertainment. The most common complaint about orthodox churches is that they are “boring”, hence the need for pastors possessing charisma and stage presence. For indeed, the pulpit is prop, a fixture, required only for the actor to have a place wherein to fix his other prop: his Bible, while he mesmerises his audience (yourselves) to part with their cash. And you lot are so completely in thrall, that when the pastor prays that God shall increase you as you increase the church, you thunder “Amen!” without pausing to consider that you’re praying that thieves shall continue to steal so they too may “increase” the church.

So, you guys keep on praying while around you your country goes to hell in a hand basket. After all, God will take care of everything for you as long as you remember to tithe, and sow seeds, pay your gate fees, and whatever the fuck else Pastor, sorry “Daddy” says you should do. “Daddy” does need that new Rolls Royce, doesn’t he? Imagine if he showed up to a pastors’ convention and he was the only one who didn’t have one? The shame! The humiliation! The embarrassment!

Real Partnership

There’s a scene in the Godfather Part II, where the heads of the major Mafioso families are meeting at a luxurious hotel in Cuba. Hyman Roth there announces to his fellow criminals that Cuba is paradise for them because there they have what they have always wanted: real partnership with a government.

The Cuban government was not naive or stupid, it knew that it was dealing with criminals, men under investigation in their home country for crimes ranging from racketeering, prostitution, and drug dealing, to murder. It is safe to say that every man at that meeting had “made his bones” in his respective family, and indeed, to rise as high as they did, each man present there must have had a collection of skeletons that would make any graveyard jealous. However, I digress.

The other day, Dimeji Bankole, Speaker of the House of Representatives declared that the generator importation industry to be a billion dollar industry worthy of protection from the effects of power sector reform. In other words, Dimeji Bankole, in his official capacity, considers the interests of generator importers to be more important than those of the millions of his countrymen who cannot afford generators and must live in darkness.

My first reaction was that either the man was high or he had spoken tongue firmly in cheek. Surely, no sane elected official would declare himself opposed to the interests of the electorate? But then again, this is Nigeria we’re talking about, and anything goes in the mad country we call home.

For starters, generators are not manufactured in Nigeria. If it was a generator manufacturing industry that he declared worthy of protection, one could attach more merit to his position. As it is, Nigerians spend billions of Naira each year importing generators from all over the place. The attendant capital flight doesn’t bother our Speaker, oh no. The fact that he’s not even concerned about it tells you how insulated he is in his lofty position.

The true function of a generator is to serve as a back-up to main power. Generators are accordingly in use in developed countries in sensitive institutions like hospitals where electricity cannot be done without for any extended period of time. It is Nigeria where main power is now the back-up to the generator, but Bankole clearly sees nothing absurd in that situation. Besides, he doesn’t pay for diesel, does he?

In Nigeria, we cannot have a working rail transport system because long haul transporters would lose business to a far more efficient system. In Onitsha, we cannot build an airport because operators of luxurious buses would lose business as people happily take to the skies to avoid the death traps that roads have become. Our local refineries cannot work because fuel importers (a breed largely unknown to Nigerians until the regime of Khalifa) would lose business. And we cannot generate and supply enough electricity because generator importers would lose business.

Something similar happened when mobile phones were introduced. At the time, we had NITEL payphones which used smart cards, installed in several places. To make a call, one had to buy a card with units on it. It should come as no surprise to your average Nigerian therefore, that with the mobile phone revolution, the card phones stopped working while the call centres set up a few feet away did a roaring trade. In some cases, the handsets were actually ripped out of the phones. Why? Because if the card phones worked, the call centres would lose business. The only force at work here is pure insanity. And Nigerians, so used to accepting the absolute worst in terms of rulership, will quietly swallow this latest insult and move on with their lives.

The really funny thing here is that in the developed world, they have railways, and long haul truckers. They have airports in major cities, and people still take the bus. They have constant electricity, and the generators serve as back-ups.

Generator importers are no doubt a powerful cabal, and going by Bankole’s comment, they are in real partnership with a government too, just like la cosa nostra in Cuba. The glee with which they supply traffic control boxes for police officers to use at junctions containing traffic lights which depend on PHCN tells you all you need to know about how entrenched they have become.

If someone finds a way to import the air Nigerians breathe...