ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing ktravula – a travelogue! blog archives for the day Friday, January 1st, 2010.

Politically Incorrect

I was not too surprised when I checked out the Facebook group created to denounce the Nigerian Terrorist today and found that from a meagre 700 members on Friday when I first blogged about it, there are now over 56,o00 members on the group. This is very nice, right?. Very impressive. It shows that we care about the implication of this unscrupulous scandal, or at least about our public image. It is not surprising. We are a patriotic people when something has to do with our image, most of the time. Right? Today on the BBC Focus on Africa, Mr Henry Omoregie, the creator of the group was interviewed for his perspective on the matter. In a matter of days, he has become the voice of “concerned Nigerians” eager to distance themselves from one unthinking act of an idiot. While speaking with my American friend, Chris, a few days after the incident, he told me how impressed he was by the Nigerian reaction. Few days after 9/11, he told me, there were televised celebrations of the event in some parts of Pakistan. Young men went to the streets jubilating that America was being attacked, he says. But in Nigeria, people are rising up to condemn the fool. It shows responsibility, or at least a form of liberality and freedom that is rare in other countries with a multi-religious population, he concludes, and I agree. That was until I heard in a line of comment on the same Facebook group that another Facebook group has been created titled “Free Umar Abdulmutallab. He is not a terrorist!”. I have not been able to find the group page so I am keeping my fingers crossed. But I won’t be surprised if such group now already exists. It’s still a matter of freedom of speech, I guess.

So now that Umar Abdulmutallab has got his fair share of vile from all “concerned Nigerians”, let us return to face the hard truths of the matter. We are not a nation of terrorists, but we have our own mammoth of problems which include poverty, drug trafficking, bad governments, militia unrest and financial crime, which are neither better than terrorism nor good for our global image as well. There are lots of things to do with my time now that the University’s resumption date is still over a week away, and the cold weather has confined the traveller to his now king-sized bed in a cozy Cougar Village apartment so I am discovering humour and satire, both as instruments of social transformation as well as personal coping device against inevitable idleness. Over the past couple of days, I have come up with a theme which would no doubt make some folks wince over there around the Niger river. But they are not just jokes. They are nuggets that should force a re-examination of the current state of the Nigerian polity.  Feel free to copy them if you dare, design them with Corel Draw and appropriate caricatures, paste them on your car or shirts, and share them with your Nigerian friends on Facebook. Include, if it makes you feel better, the texts: “KTravula.com’s Politically Incorrect”  or “KTravula.com’s Terror Humour“. This is for Nigeria.

After all, self-examination is really the best first cure for most anomalies.

Bumper Stickers You Will Never See

  • “I’m Nigerian, not a terrorist. I don’t kill people that’re not from another part of my country.”
  • “I‘m a Nigerian. I kidnap foreigners, but I don’t blow them up. That’s not my style!”
  • “I’m a Nigerian. I’m a 419 Internet Scam artist, not a terrorist. Don’t spoil my image!”
  • “I’m a Nigerian. I destroy oil pipelines, not airplanes.”
  • “I’m a Nigerian. Whenever we blow ourselves, we are actually coming, not going.”
  • “I’m a Nigerian. I smuggle cocaine, heroine and weed in my pants. Not explosives!”
  • “I’m a Nigerian. I would kill and die for political positions, not for martyrdom.”
  • “I’m a Nigerian. I murder for tribe, and not for cause. I can never make a good terrorist!”
  • “I’m a Nigerian. The only virgins I want are the ones I can marry, or make into mistresses.”
  • “I’m a Nigerian. I get my virgins before they head out to Italy. They’re not in Yemen, or Heaven.”
  • “I’m a Nigerian. The only cause I support is the one that fills my tummy, not blow off my junk!”
  • “I can never blow myself (up) to save my life. I’m a Nigerian, and not a terrorist!”

There could be many more ways to make them more sarcastic, and if possible, more biting. The more acerbic, the better. Talk about subversive self-humour! I would recommend this beyond the usual cry for the head of Abdulmutallab which by now should be nearing its climax. When all is said and done, it is who we are that would matter as we return to our routine lives in the course of the coming weeks and months. What will stand the test of time? Do we move forward in some way or do we return to the inner inequalities and lesser evils that make this particular case just a case of the first among equals of evil?

NOTE: This post is meant to be throughly politically incorrect, so I would not be expecting nor accepting any pats on the back this time.

Politically Incorrect was published on January 1st, 2010, with the tags , , , , , , , under the News, Opinion category. There are currently 11 comments on this article so far.

I Hope You Dance

Away from the first two depressing posts of this year, here’s really how this decade will begin on ktravula.com: fun.

Hat tip to Bukola O, a regular commenter on this blog from Aberdeen, Scotland, who sent me this lovely song, along with a mail of appreciation, and who called me her favourite blogger of 2009. What can I say? It has been good for me as well. Thank you so very much.

I have downloaded the song from iTunes and is now on constant replay on my laptop.

I Hope You Dance was published on January 1st, 2010, with the tags , , , under the Fun category. There are currently 5 comments on this article so far.

Two Poems for Wenger

I wrote this poem last January for Susanne Wenger when news broke that she had passed, and sent it to a couple of friends.

LIKE CHALK IN THE RIVER
For Susanne, Olorisha!

They said it rained when Susanne was buried.
It poured.
They spoke of a rumble of the heavens
as the orisa osun swam back, again, to her pristine source.

They talked of art.
They spoke of beauty.
They mentioned hands
That sculpted spirits.

But now when the forests have stopped dancing with the rain,
See the wind escape from that storied grove.
Look, amid the hallowed haze,
at a turning twirl of her spirit gaze.

Gone is the eye that looked out for the standing stems
When greed called for arms, and men scorned sense, and all she wove.

Today, the Spirit it was that left, again,
To return. To return: a time-bound god, or else a traveling dove.

NOTE: Susanne Wenger was the Austrian artist who lived most of her life in Osogbo Nigeria as a priestess of the river Osun. Born in Austria and was married to the artist Ulli Beier who brought her to Nigeria in the 60s. She died last January at the age of

Two Poems for Wenger was published on January 1st, 2010, under the Uncategorized category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Re-Reading Myself

Re-reading oneself can be such a boring chore that I’ve always tried to avoid because of the emotions it inevitably brings back. Most times, one is just too glad to be rid of the overwhelming feelings that make one write in the first place to go back at will. I’ve just finished looking through all the poems that make up my first collection of poetry and all of a sudden I’m back with the overwhelming nostalgia of pre-University and University life. Maybe this year would be a good time to re-issue the collection into the public after five years of hibernating fermentation.

I am now officially looking for publishers for the electronic and print reissue in America, Europe and in Nigeria. Here, below were the lines I penned for the year 2000, written a few hours into that year while I sat in church on that December evening, bored to my bones.

The Year of the bug

It’s a new dawn because a year is born,
But are hours years for zero to mark one?
Men have flown to realms of high imagination
with anxiety and snippets of loose contrite illusions.
Of human clock, a stroke of the thin long second hand,
Or the gradual droop till the final grain of sand
Marks a whole new start – a thunderous landmark.
And new time commences, yes it remains dark.
Here begins a new dull span of restless days
Of ends unseen, unsure even when one strongly prays.
Called it a new phase, named it a new rolling life –
new day into pay; new life into more human strife.
And yet remains too cryptic and strange remnants
of words, thoughts, fears and imagination parts,
And of pregnant signs, sights and sighs unblown –
of things not yet seen and yet all unknown.

(c) All rights reserved.

Re-Reading Myself was published on January 1st, 2010, with the tags , , , , , , , under the Art, Soliloquy category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

This I Promise…

in the new year 2010…

This I Promise… was published on January 1st, 2010, with the tags , , under the Art, Fun category. There are currently 4 comments on this article so far.