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.

RAT PRINTS IN THE SAND!

As humans leave their foot prints in the sands of time, so do RATS. These rodents of various species have superseded us on the wall of lifetime achievements (as early as 1347 AD - Black death (plague) and 2009 - Lassa Fever). They have a shorter life span than we do but are more efficient in leaving a trail. Yes, A trail! These cosmopolitan rats migrated decades ago from the wilds to the cities where they join humans in creating viable businesses for themselves.

I would like to believe however that they are unaware of the disaster they leave on their trail. Such disasters include disease carriage, property destruction and food contamination to mention a few. Diseases contacted from these rodents depending on the specie include Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, Leptospirosis, Eosinophilic meningitis and Lassa fever to mention just a few. Some of these diseases are deadly and are easily contacted through consumption of food and water contaminated by the rat’s urine, droppings and saliva.

The Lassa fever which is one of the most recently occurring diseases in Nigeria is particularly worrisome. Lassa fever is a viral haemorrhagic disease caused by the mutlimammate rat otherwise known as the Black Rat. Infection of Lassa fever may pass unnoticed in some people who come in contact with the virus, but in others, symptoms start from fever, to increased body weakness, headache, sore throat, chest pain, to diarrhoea, breathing problems and ultimately bleeding from every opening in the body. You might find the Black rat in dirty, overcrowded communities. The saddest part about this Lassa fever issue is that there are no vaccines for prevention but drugs exist for treatment at an early stage of detection.

It is expedient then that we keep our environment clean to prevent these diseases. If you have a rat problem in your home, I urge you to use all the method that you can think of to get rid of them. There are different catchers such as the gum board, metal trapper which have proven effective over the years. However, you must agree with me that these rats update their knowledge on technologies humans use to trap them so I press further that you use rat poisons too (but keep away from children. When you have done your best, you can be assured that the rat prints in the sand will disappear gradually and you can be healthy enough to put your own foot prints in the same of time.

My Heart, Your Heart!

The official shape of the heart is the love shape albeit when you look at anatomy textbooks you’ll see something close to an upside down pear. The love shape of the heart makes us have romantic views about it. The pumping of the heart and its overdrive is often misconstrued as a display of emotion to the one the heart cares about. On the other hand you also feel your heart in motion when you have done something you shouldn’t have done and you are about to get caught – albeit some people don’t. Between working for love and slaving to hide your guilt, the heart works effortlessly and tirelessly. In an average lifetime, the heart beats more than two and a half billion times and only stops when we die. Like a pumping machine, the heart provides the power needed for life.

This 300grams lifesaver does a lot of work for you. It keeps you going day and night, holds you together during good and bad times and what do you give back to your heart? What is the composition of that mix you call a meal? Cholesterol? Did I hear someone say salt? Healthy meat? I do not mean to come across as being harsh but it is expedient that I drive a point here. That point is this: Garbage in, Garbage out. Before you put your fork filled with a sumptuous diet into your mouth, please pause to look at it for a second and ask yourself these questions, ‘Is this morsel of food good for my heart?, does it contain a lot of cholesterol and fat? Is it high in salt? And other things bad for the heart?’, then put your morsel into your mouth and swallow. Your questions shouldn’t stop there; ask yourself ‘Am I eating grains, fruits and vegetables? Am I doing some exercises? ‘These are things that are good for the heart. They will help to keep you in top shape and keep you generally healthy. I must warn that if you have had a problem with your heart in the past consult a physician before you embark on any form of exercise. It might save you an early trip to the world beyond. Do you also engage in filling your lungs with smoky nicotine? You could cut down the number of sticks till they are down to zero. This might be hard to do but the future of your heart, your life, might be at risk because of the cigarettes.

The products of incorporating these healthy behaviours into our daily routine are
1. We get to be healthy
2. We get to let our heart run into over drive when we see our loved ones without having to check our pacemaker
3. We get to live better and freer from illnesses generally because these rules apply to a lot of other diseases such as cancer.

In all, there are lots of benefits attached to eating healthy and doing exercises. The heart, whether love or pear shaped, would always do its duty, which is to give you 72 wonderful beats every minute of your life to keep blood flowing through your wonderfully crafted veins and arteries that keep you logged on to reality. I implore you to eat, flex and live well.

The Pain of Rain

The past weeks have been characterized by the hot weather. The intensity of the heat has been excruciating to the extent that people started to think they would suddenly be struck down by a stroke or some unimaginable diseases and their prayers have been ‘let the rain come, oh Lord’. We all know however that the man upstairs does things in order. He granted the rain at the appointed time.

When the sprinklers of heaven were turned on, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The days were gentler on the brain and skin while the nights caressed us till we floated into the dreamlands. The rain came down to wash our pain away. Some folks however use the rain to their advantage. They expect the rain to wash their physical pain as well. They toss their refuse into the rain so that the flowing waters will carry them away. And it does. The major setback however is that the rain washes it away from them to the streets blocking the drainage and causing the flooding of the streets. When the clouds are clear again and the sun starts to peep, the refuse are seen on the streets constituting a nuisance. The rain is then made an accomplice in propagating disease everywhere. This is really sad because these selfish folks will always be around. Do we then pray; ‘let the rain go, oh lord’? If we did and it was granted, the crops would suffer, rain water harvesters have to find another means of water supply and we would be toasted like the smoked fish Mallam Adamu sells to his customers; darkened and stiffened by heat.

Let us appreciate the rain because it is a gift. Encourage a neighbour to stop the habit of throwing dirt in the rain, to be more kind to the earth and to respect everyone’s right to live free from diseases and unnecessary pain.

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. ~Langston Hughes

Somebody's Butt

When I was young (I still am by the way), there were lots of jokes flying around. Every kid knew how to crack one. I would hear my brothers crack jokes and I’ll cram them repeating it to myself in other not to forget. When it was play time at school the next day, I would crack the jokes and make my friends laugh. There were different kinds of jokes moving around back then. Some were related to the physique of people, some the mother tongue and others were country related. I remember one that goes thus:
There were three men in an airplane. One was an American; the second was Japanese and the last, a Nigerian. The American wanted to know when the airplane reached America so he brought out his hands and felt the snow. ‘Yes’ he said ‘this is America’ and he notified the pilot who let him alight. The Japanese put his hand out of the window and his hi-tech wrist watch exclaimed ‘This is Japan.’ When it was the turn of the Nigerian, he didn’t know what exactly to do because the weather varied across states and there were no development of hi-tech wristwatches. So he pondered until he got an idea, he put on his wristwatch and put his hand out the window. Within twenty seconds the wrist watch was snatched off his wrist and he exclaimed, ‘pilot, this is Nigeria.’

It was so funny back then. We would laugh and roll on the floor. There were many more like it over the years. As I grew I moved on to more productive jokes. All the jokes about Nigeria being the centre of robbery, indiscipline and stupidity wore out like tired expressions. Some were still hilarious but trite nonetheless.

Recently, I was watching a favourite program, Saturday Night Live, and the guest artist was Anne Hathaway. She started by telling us a joke of how she broke off with her Italian boyfriend who was some days later arrested for fraud. After a while she met this Nigerian prince on the internet who made her happy. She shared things about herself with him including her social security number. She also sent him a CD plus a hundred Dollar bill as a birthday gift.

The audience in the show laughed. It seemed funny to them but I couldn’t laugh. It was more of a reality check for me. She said that about my people. I was upset at first, almost attempting to dislike her but then I thought ‘I don’t blame her, that’s what some Nigerians do.’ They have tarnished our image at home and abroad and the poor, unproductive and crippled system that we have has not made enough effort to revive it. We have become the butt of many jokes. Nobody likes to be made fun off except in situations when it is a matter so trivial and there is nothing that can be done about it. As a kid it was cruel, as an adult it is childish. But when you give people reason to make fun of you then I think they are justified.
I look forward to the day when Nigerians would be respected, when we can hold our heads high at home and abroad. When different people from different walks of life would see a Nigerian and say ‘you are a Nigerian? Wow, that’s great.’ Personally I look forward to hearing jokes like this:

There were three men in an airplane. One was a Nigerian, the second, Japanese and the third an American. The Nigerian wanted to know when the airplane reached Nigeria so he brought out his made-in-Nigeria Mobile phone that displayed the coordinates to indicate that they were flying over Nigeria. ‘Yes’ he said ‘Pilot, this is Nigeria.’ The Japanese put his hands out the window and his hi-tech wrist watch announced ‘this is Japan’. When it was the turn of the American, he brought out his terrorist-detecting device which was made in china that said ‘你说阿富汗?’
‘That must mean America.’ he said and alighted only to find out that he was in Afghanistan. The pilot had already flown away and young able-bodied men with turbans on their heads surrounded him shouted ‘Allahu arkbar.’

(The joke is not exactly funny but it just gave me an opportunity to get back at Anne Hathaway in my mind. Bear in mind that I love her dearly.)

Paraskevidekatriaphobia

Have you heard the word ‘Paraskevidekatriaphobia’or ‘Friggatriskaidekaphobia’? Well, if you haven't, it is a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the thirteenth. That’s today’s date. Don’t get spooked yet, an event that will occur today would do that. Let me call it Frigga for short because the full name of the phobia requires a lot of mouth muscle manipulation.

Frigga is the most popular myth of our century. Do you know that there is no real origin of this myth? According to Wikipedia, there is no written evidence for a "Friday the 13th" superstition before the 19th century. The earliest documentation occurs in an 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini:
[Rossini] was surrounded to the last by admiring and affectionate friends; and if it be true that, like so many other Italians, he regarded Friday as an unlucky day, and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that on Friday, the 13th of November, he died.

Do you know that many hospitals have no room 13 (not in Naija anyway, we don’t even have enough hospital rooms); while some tall buildings skip the 13th floor and some airline terminals omit Gate 13?

I’m sure, if we went down to the dusty and creepy libraries of old we would find something concrete about Frigga's history. What you wouldn’t find in the library is me.
That’s enough on the history (or no history) of ‘Friday the thirteenth’ superstition. If you get spooked in any way today or you witnessed any unusual occurrence – like a dog wearing sunglasses or a monkey beckoning to you - please feel free to tell us about it. Don’t get spooked, just have a great day.