GHOST OF VALENTINE PRESENT

I looked into my wardrobe this morning and I made a few notes. There are things that should be in there staring at me in the face, making me grin like the cat that got the cream or the mouse that ate the chef’s Caciocavallo cheese. And there are things that are in there that should be replaced like my little black dress that I have worn so often that I could easily be described as ‘the pretty lady that often wears the short black sleeveless dress that hugs her bum nicely and has one big black button that rests a little above her right chest.’ etcetera. After my wardrobe scrutiny, I went on to my dressing table and I was not pleased at what I saw. My bottle of cherished perfume, the one that makes me feel like a well looked-upon Mona Lisa, just lies on the dresser almost empty. I sighed and glanced at my shoe rack. Let me not divulge the state of my shoes. The only words that come to mind about my shoes are ‘yuck! Yuck! Yuck!’ A good red would brighten up that department though.

I ask myself, what can I do to change my situation? I experience neglect all of a sudden. Can’t I have someone to pamper me more than the usual? A real McCoy to make me feel like the queen of Sheba. My cousin calls me just at that time ‘Hey Coz, what is happening this valentine’s day?’

Yes! Valentine’s day! In time past, I would have made sure that I was in the good books of many to ensure that my gifts show up as scheduled but these days I keep my head straight. As I sit I remember my chocolate days and I ask myself ‘were they trying to make me fat and insecure so that they can move on to other girls?’ A ridiculous thought because chocolates make excellent valentine gifts albeit every lady wants something they can hold on to and not something that would end up in the famous pathway for human waste – the toilet bowl. Of course dark chocolates are great for the heart, so the doctors say but give me a bottle of scented water or alcohol and I would remember you for as long as I smell great and even beyond because I would forever remember that I had once used that particular fragrance.

I look forward to an upgrade when I would receive gifts of immeasurable wealth. Gifts that would make eyeballs come out of their sockets, turn enemies army green with envy and make friends utter words such as ‘you know, what is mine is yours, what is yours is mine.’ Sigh! Dreams do come true and as the saying goes ‘anything can happen if you just believe.’ Laugh! Enough day dreaming!

Of all the gifts one can receive on Valentine’s day, the one most valuable, most cherished and priceless is the gift of the three letter words, I- love- you, whispered to you from the lips of the one who makes your heart go ‘gbingbin.’ The magic words would do for you what a Stuart Weitzman’s strappy sandals cannot do although some would disagree with me.

Chocolate or perfume, dress or shoe, I am content to say that I love. I love without the trappings of worldly goods; although I want them so. I love those in my care and those who care for me. I love my family and friends and all those who make my heart flip just by hearing their voices and I say to all ‘I wish you a happy day of love and friendship and goodwill.’ I hope that we all get what we are looking for this Valentine’s Day and give to those who hope for something for there is great joy in giving.
Happy Valentine’s Day.

My! My! what a year!

The year 2009 was very eventful – at least for me. When I woke up on that first day of January, I did with a dream to change Nigeria, a passion to help change our mental models, world views or whatever you want to call it. I told myself that I could do this. This was not my resolution for the year; it was more like a calling I called myself to. Truth be told, I abandoned the cause before you can say Smokey Robinson because I realised that to change the world one has to change herself first and I really had to practice what I was preaching. So I made myself my personal project for the year and believe me when I say that it was not an easy project. The consequences of some action I took however yielded results, rewarding results and I am better for it, Nigeria is better for it. I remember when I decided to give fitness a chance in my life. I felt so invigorated in those months. I would jog in the wee hours of the morning and finish up with crunches and other things that might or might not be called exercise such as dancing. At that time I was encouraging people to increase their physical activity so it was necessary for me to practice what I was preaching. However I had to stop the jogging because security was an issue. It is hard to move about early in the morning when you do not know if the person walking fast behind you is set to harm you.

I worked hard in 2009 and achieved some things. If I had worked harder, I would have achieved more with the help of God. Where I did not achieve what I sought after I did not give up, just postponed them till a more convenient time. Call it procrastination if you like. It was also a year I threw caution to the wind...do not let your minds run too far, all I did was let go of myself so that I could achieve more albeit I didn’t perform too well in that task, I tried.

I met people this year, great and small alike. I brainstormed, dined and laughed and worked with some while I cussed out a few (don’t ask me questions but I did regret some of the things I said). For those I truly hurt for some abstruse reason, or cut out their hearts from their chest when they didn’t deserve it, I am truly sorry. Of course I did some things that should not be mentioned for the sake of my sanity and yours but I have learnt considerable from them. All in all, I am a better spirit, better human, better friend, sister, better everything than I was at the beginning of the year and I give glory to God who helped me in the construction.

I must admit that I am not too excited about 2010 for the much known reason that the country has cancerous growth all over her body and there is not even palliative care in place for her. It does not take a prophet of doom to prophecy that things will be tough but we have God, we have hope and we will work hard to make it a successful year.

To all of you out there, I do not know how your year went but I figure, good or bad, we shall have a better chance to start afresh. I wish you all the things that I wish myself and they are God’s divine favour, blessings, protection and guidance. I wish you success in all your endeavours and progress in all your undertakings. I also wish that you have zeal to work towards a better Nigeria. Finally, I wish you all a very Happy New Year.
Yeside Pikuda

CELEBRATING FOOD IN TIMES OF CRISIS

Food, they say, is a basic requirement of life. It is that which feeds the body that feeds the mind that feeds the soul. Food is an essential ingredient in achieving health and productivity and therefore it has a large economic and political significance. The world shall celebrate food on the 16th of October 2009 as have been done every year since 1945. The theme of this year’s celebration is achieving food security in times of crisis.

Food security has been said to exist only when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. People must not live in fear of hunger or starvation. Food insecurity is evident when household members are concerned about the adequacy of their household food supply and there are adjustments in food management such as reduced quality of food, increased unusual coping patterns, when people repeatedly experience the physical sensation of hunger. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, it is estimated that more than a billion people, one in every six human beings, may be suffering from under-nourishment.

You must agree with me that the state of being food secure is not yet in our reality. A large proportion of Nigerians cannot be certain of a complete meal at all times. The increase in food prices around the world has had people unsettled for a while now and the belief is that the governments are not doing enough. We must reflect on the statistics and the suffering behind them. We have the know-how to do something about hunger in our society. Let us all work together to alleviate this critical problem because the consequences are great.

This world food day would be an excellent time to appreciate all those who have contributed to agriculture in Nigeria. It cannot be easy producing food in a country like Nigeria where subsistent farming is still the order of the day and there are inadequate storage systems, Poor distribution channels, and inadequate food processing system to mention a few challenges. Farmers, distributors, marketers, banks, research institutes, the Nigerian government, non-governmental organizations and international agencies have been working tirelessly to ensure that the nation is food secured. This target has not yet been reached; however, we must applaud these people.

Women should be specially commended because of their important role in assuring food and nutrition security. Their roles as producers of food, as managers of natural resources, in income generation and as providers of care for their families cannot be overlooked. Though women often continue to have limited access to land, education, credit, information, technology and decision making bodies, they still fulfil their socio-economic roles in food and nutrition security and in ensuring care, health and hygiene for themselves and their families.

Finally, we must appreciate the maker, who first ensured that man was food secure in the Garden of Eden. Adam, in the beginning, did not have to worry whether he would have enough to eat or not. He had the opportunity to diversify his diet and live a healthy life. We must also thank God for the wisdom and knowledge he has given to us in this present world to guarantee that we are food secure. The hope is that we would utilize this knowledge, remove the obstacles in our paths and ensure food security. Happy world food day.

PEOPLE IN THE COCOON

Turmoil and struggle, resignation and submission- these are the things that we face each day. There are those – very few of them - that truly fight back. They fight with all their might; arms and all. We sit and ponder ‘why can’t they fight in silence like we do?’ we watch as they destroy themselves in hope that their fight would yield good fruits; as they surrender all to their cause.
We pay tributes with our lips and with our buttocks, sit still – holding fast to our soft cushions. We watch the aggression of our brothers in the Delta, Kenya, Sudan, Rwanda and outside the continent but we clamour only for peace. ‘Peace is good.’ We say to ourselves.

Boko Haram popped out of the northern air and our feathers were ruffled, Clinton said her piece and some of us gnarled at her. Instead of learning from others and from experience we fight things that do not need fighting. Who started this Boko Haram? Who had Bayo Ohu killed? Who are those really behind these things? Don’t sit and ask, shout at those who can give us answers, force their mouths open. Corruption cannot be fought with peace, or can it?

As we sit, wonder and sigh, thought of our needs consume us. We want electricity, we want good roads, and we want water, jobs and security. We want our children safe and though we crave desperately for all these things, yet our buttocks, brown and round, remain buried in our soft cushions.

The fans above our heads do not roll, we cannot do much work and we are impoverished yet we sit and shout ‘give us our due.’ We don’t want to get up because half bread is better than none and we are afraid of the loss that comes with contest. We could lose our homes and peace of mind, we justify our inactions. We also have to think of our children and what may become of them. We hope a lot and we like to live in peace.
Hope is good and peace is good too so we look forward to them for we are convinced they will come someday. In the mean time – that could mean forever – we strategize, adapt and endure.

Some say to us ‘Ko ti de oju e’ – It has not reached the eyes yet. So we sit since there is no fire under our butts. We the people in the cocoon are peaceful and hopeful.

PEOPLE IN THE COCOON

Turmoil and struggle, resignation and submission- these are the things that we face each day. There are those – very few of them - that truly fight back. They fight with all their might; arms and all. We sit and ponder ‘why can’t they fight in silence like we do?’ we watch as they destroy themselves in hope that their fight would yield good fruits; as they surrender all to their cause.
We pay tributes with our lips and with our buttocks, sit still – holding fast to our soft cushions. We watch the aggression of our brothers in the Delta, Kenya, Sudan, Rwanda and outside the continent but we clamour only for peace. ‘Peace is good.’ We say to ourselves.

Boko Haram popped out of the northern air and our feathers were ruffled, Clinton said her piece and some of us gnarled at her. Instead of learning from others and from experience we fight things that do not need fighting. Who started this Boko Haram? Who had Bayo Ohu killed? Who are those really behind these things? Don’t sit and ask, shout at those who can give us answers, force their mouths open. Corruption cannot be fought with peace, or can it?

As we sit, wonder and sigh, thought of our needs consume us. We want electricity, we want good roads, and we want water, jobs and security. We want our children safe and though we crave desperately for all these things, yet our buttocks, brown and round, remain buried in our soft cushions.

The fans above our heads do not roll, we cannot do much work and we are impoverished yet we sit and shout ‘give us our due.’ We don’t want to get up because half bread is better than none and we are afraid of the loss that comes with contest. We could lose our homes and peace of mind, we justify our inactions. We also have to think of our children and what may become of them. We hope a lot and we like to live in peace.
Hope is good and peace is good too so we look forward to them for we are convinced they will come someday. In the mean time – that could mean forever – we strategize, adapt and endure.

Some say to us ‘Ko ti de oju e’ – It has not reached the eyes yet. So we sit since there is no fire under our butts. We the people in the cocoon are peaceful and hopeful.

Mr Policeman! Put on your clothes.

What do you do when you see a plain-clothed man – probably looking untidy – strutting around carrying an old rusty gun and beckoning on you to park your vehicle? Gut instincts tell me to run; with or without my vehicle. I don’t know about you but if you follow my path – running that is – you might end up in more trouble than you bargained for because he just might be a policeman. He would definitely harass you for trying to run out on him and if you make the mistake of explaining that you thought he was an armed robber; you know how things will go for you.

Some of us have encountered armed robbers in our lives and I sure can say that you cannot tell the difference between plain-clothed policemen and the misfits of society. This does not mean that policemen are misfits or anything derogatory, I’m just trying to point out that these armed robbers are normal people.

I was sitting in a tricycle recently with an elderly couple waiting for the driver to start the engine when a man with a gun passed us by. His cloths were as I described earlier, bedraggled and the old lady beside me gasped in fear but was calmed when her husband told her that the man in question was a policeman. You know how elderly people are - full of experiences and memories – so they told the story of a friend of theirs that had an encounter with ‘policemen’, this time the reverse was the case. The friend thought that he was being stopped by a plain-clothed policeman at a check point very close to a police station so he had no reason to worry. He got robbed, stripped to bare minimums and left on the streets. He had to go the police station where he met officers that thought he was a mad man strutting around naked and he was offered cloths they stripped off criminals.

Sad story really but the point is this - if a policeman wants to carry his gun he should were his uniform. It is not enough to wear a wristband that has the police colours; it could be mistaken for the reggae colours especially for those who might be colour blind. There are already too many things wrong in our society and we do not need any extra stress that could lead to hypertension, heart attack or something graver.

We need to call a spade a spade, call a policeman a policeman and not an armed robber. I personally do not want to have any encounter with any of them and I pray that you do not. If you are in a position to make changes in the Nigerian police force, please tell them to keep their clothes on.

All The King's Men....

I got inducted into newspaper reading at an early age. In those days, I would pick up the newspaper and read from the back page starting with the crossword puzzle. Then I would proceed, like I was writing Arabic, to the fun section where I would read about funny things happening around the world or about the cartoons with potent messages. If NEPA was being itself and I had nothing to do, I would read the dear Abby or Rebecca column to find out what kind of questions people were asking about their relationships.
After performing these tasks I would have a smirk on my face feeling like an ardent newspaper reader. However, as I grew I began to look at the front page and ponder on the headlines before I delved into articles that pique my interest and even spot out grammatical errors while reading. One of the things that struck me the most in all my newspaper reading years is that the pattern of news about Nigeria has been the same. Like they say, there is no news like bad news. If a leader has not embezzled money or the house of parliament is not in a ruckus, a senior government official would be scandalized about his trip to a dibia. News about accidents, militants, strike, upheavals and all fill the news daily and I wonder, can anything good come out of Nigeria? Can Nigeria have something great to celebrate about apart from the entertainers making breaks internationally? You find good news about other countries of the world in the Nigerian newspaper but you find our worst news on the pages of international newspapers. When will the leaders sit down and make a change? When will they fight for us? When will the roads get better? And the hospitals? And the schools? And the power supply? And the Niger delta? There are so many issues for them to attend to and we have so many leaders. If only one of these problems is solved Nigerians would feel a little hope.
When are we going to talk about our country with pride, with dignity and respect? Is it when all the children have died? Or when businesses are destroyed? Or when the oil dries up? Why can’t these leaders see Nigeria as their own and try to make it work? When are we going to disprove those who believe that there is something wrong with the black skin?
These days when I go through the papers, I recall a nursery rhyme with nostalgia. Nigeria is a classic case of the humpty dumpty rhyme:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses,
And all the king's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
I certainly hope that one day, the king’s men would deviate from their lackadaisical norm and put humpty dumpty together again.