ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing ktravula – a travelogue! blog archives for February, 2010.

10 Reasons Why Nigeria Might NOT Be Screwed Beyond Repair

The first part of this is 10 Reasons Why Nigeria Might Be Screwed Beyond Repair. But here goes this…

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10. We still have a constitution and a strong judiciary.

9. The economy is (being) deregulated; and even though progress towards this is slow, true federalism might eventually come to help bring the right foreign investment in alternative means of energy.

8. We still have the Nigerian football to unite us once every two years when there is a major tournament, just as long as there are no local coaches. Maybe we’ll win the World Cup someday. Surely it’s not in 2010.

7. We have a strong press that keeps the security agencies on their toes. It is a slow progress, but it helps.

6. Our greatest export is not just our natural and agricultural resources as it is our human resources. There are many Nigerians of repute making the country proud in areas of endeavour all over the world

5. We still have some sane people living in there.

4. In spite of occasional bursts of violence, it is actually not that bad. The probability of getting killed in ethnic violence is really very low. Most people are smart enough to know when to leave a place when a situation begins to look combustible.

3. We still have the power to vote out corrupt politicians and replace them with real hardworking people. As the situation in Lagos has shown, there are leaders who can get things done.

2. Those people who want to be politicians by all means are not in the majority.

1. I’m going back there, soon.

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This is my last post for this month, folks. Thank you for reading. Watch out for more interesting guest-posts in the coming weeks.

10 Reasons Why Nigeria Might NOT Be Screwed Beyond Repair was published on February 28th, 2010, with the tags , , under the Observations, Opinion, Soliloquy category. There are currently 18 comments on this article so far.

10 Reasons Why Nigeria Might Be Screwed Beyond Repair

10. Its very sickly president without a solid constitutional recognition at the moment still lives within the State House.

9. Electricity is comatose, even in 2010. Without stable electricity, nothing developmental can go on.

8. Tribalism still holds fort there as much we hope it doesn’t. Why should it matter where Goodluck is from? There still is no mutual trust among citizens of different, or even same ethnic groups, and citizens could not live peacefully anywhere in the country as they should. See Jos as a case study.

7. There is no adequate security for lives and property. Meeting a policeman on the street at 10pm is not always a good sign.

6. Dependence on oil has crippled other aspects of the economy that used to bring huge foreign exchange. E.g Agriculture.

5. We have produced at least one international terrorist.

4. In spite of much progress made in civil rule/democracy, current politicians still believe in the do-or-die doctrine, which would explain why more people have been assassinated during “democracy” than during military rule.

3. We have the worst culture of waste disposal I’ve ever seen: plastic bags, metals and other trash disposed anywhere without adequate recycling methods. (I’ve also been guilty of this)

2. Half of us want to become political office holders like the nation’s president or a state governor before they can contribute and effect change – and they’re ready to kill to get there – rather than starting small right at the door of our residences. “If everyone sweeps his backyard, the town will be clean,” the old quote reads.

1. Education is not given the priority it deserves in terms of funding or government attention.

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It’s going to be real hard to find a flipside to this argument, but I’ll try. That’d be tomorrow.

10 Reasons Why Nigeria Might Be Screwed Beyond Repair was published on February 27th, 2010, with the tags , , under the Observations, Opinion, Soliloquy category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

Nostalgia – A Not So Old Poem

Do men really feel or just believe? In wandering afterthoughts from your sonic alter-ego,
Love, my belly tickles to a distant bell in childhood paces around our childish lusts.
See me there on the streets of dustland, with heels on the playground of luckless rants.
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Am I supposed to feel this way again, muse? Your voice spins me to a thousand memories.
I do not stir, nor do the droplets in my eye move beyond their range of steam. No. Muse,
I do not control this softness that drives me across a beaten path towards your taken arms.
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It is the voice of the night, or else a green-eyed beacon that pushes these fingers to work, and
To stalk: “Traveller, your love has not always been without the crawl of blunt senseless drive.”
It is the delirious dope of distance then, or caprice, or a flighty strong wind of love’s nostalgia.

Nostalgia – A Not So Old Poem was published on February 26th, 2010, with the tags , , , under the Art, Fun, Soliloquy category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Twurai Undercover

There is much to cope with when you are the wife of a sick and/or dying president. There is even more to cope with if said husband has now been evicted from a better working hospital in Saudi Arabia and is now back in the government house, causing commotion and/or being some sort of nuisance to the rule of law that has vested political authority albeit in acting capacity in the Vice-President for the time being. As a woman in the unenviable position of balancing loyalty to a dying man, taking care of said man and his political capital, and keeping sane within a barrage of flak from the citizenry, there must be much to cope with. If we could step back a little from personal disagreement with her personality (which we don’t know much about, except hearsay) and what the government represents, could we perhaps find in Turai Yar’adua a woman of substance who’s just being a loyal wife to a dying husband? I wondered.

Read up the full text of my guest-post on Nigerianstalk.org. It was enlightening even for me.

Twurai Undercover was published on February 25th, 2010, with the tags , , , , , under the Fun, Observations, Opinion category. There are currently 11 comments on this article so far.

A Photo

I saw this picture on the wall of the Meridian Ballroom where the African Night Dinner took place on Sunday. It shows the writer Maya Angelou in one of her animated moments, and I couldn’t resist taking the picture. It was definitely one of the liveliest portraits on the wall that night.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.  – Maya Angelou

A Photo was published on February 25th, 2010, with the tags , , , under the Academic, Art, Observations category. There are currently 4 comments on this article so far.