ktravula - a travelogue! » Soliloquy

Village Boy

Kola — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:27:36 +0000

Evenings come with breeze, silence and dust. Across the sky are slivers of brown rustiness finally settling on the town after a long day’s work. A road passes in front of the wooden shack where men young and old sit down to banter in merriment, often with their shirts off. The women sit in groups petting children. When darkness falls and all that lights the day is the moon up in the sky, voices move up and down in modulations that carry the weight of their vain deliberations.

The village is a study of contrasts. On the one side of it is a sprawling mass of huts covered with brown rusted roofs. In the middle of this side of town, also called Aba, was the Christ Apostolic Church – perhaps the only modern building there. Aba burns the eyes with the brown of its thatched huts and of its children’s feet. In a bustling afternoon, the sound of goats and chicken compete with the trail of their smell from one street to another up until the foot of the agbalumo tree…

One hour of traipsing around these edges of the village eventually finds a seven year old boy back at home – a different part of the town. The house overlooks a long equally dusty street that runs from a clinic down to the right hand of the observer to the other part of the village where the barber lives. There is a certain magic in living around here. Grown folks played practical jokes on little children and on each other. A day earlier, on his way back from wandering around the village, he was stopped on the pavement of a certain house where another young boy was being shaven. His head was already bald.

“It’s your lucky day, young man.” A man volunteers. “Stay right where you are. What are you doing around here all by yourself?”

“I was coming from around there. I am going home over there.”

“Why were you staring?”

It is always hard to know where adult conversations were leaning.

“I wasn’t staring. I was on my way home.”

“Like I said, it is your lucky day. All young men your age are being circumcised today.”

What?

“You look frightened. Come closer and sit down here. We’ve been told to go around circumcising all young men like you around town.”

It took a whole minute, then he took off as fast as he could. He never looked back until he got home, panting like a dog. For a long time that evening, he would wonder how grown people managed to make such brutal jokes that seemed at the expense of poor helpless kids scared half to death. And for a longer time after that, he would begin to take a different route home while wandering around the village, but always with a lingering fear that he was not totally out of the grip of mentally bullying elders.

Kano, Nigeria.

Kola — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:52:20 +0000

News from the BBC, and Reuters, at the moment says that there have been about 20 bomb blasts in the northern Nigerian city of Kano. A phone call to a friend in Kaduna confirmed the story of smokes and gun fires in police stations. The culprit is Boko Haram, the shadowy terrorist group mortally opposed to everything western, except guns and explosives.

Just a week ago, the federal government had sent soldiers to the streets in many cities to prevent the peaceful “Occupy Nigeria” protesters from becoming a nuisance to government business. This news of renewed violence by the real threat to the nation’s progress only highlights the negligence that everyone have long decried. It shows the out-of-touchedness of those that sleep in the government house in Abuja.

Whatever happens as that country goes through this violent wringer of a reform, here is hoping that what remains is still recognizable to those of us who still call it home.

Monolingualism Worries

Kola — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:35:27 +0000

This article in the New York times examines the oft-repeated claim that Americans are mostly monolingual, monolingual by choice, and fare worse in the world precisely because of it.

The claim, it seems, is the same as (or similar to) an old argument between whether literacy equals sophistication, or whether someone without (Western) education in a developing country is smart enough to correctly adjust to the complexity of the (21st century) world. There is no substantial evidence to support the “for” argument, of course, as those with brilliant, sophisticated yet uneducated grandparents will attest, but the discussion is one that underlies much of today’s governmental and social intervention in local, traditional ways of life.

I am a linguist, however, and thus will remain on the side of multilingualism – and multiculturalism – as an important, yet fascinating, catalyst of social change.

The Whole Picture

Kola — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:20:14 +0000

The last couple of days has brought a record number of new visitors to this blog. That brings with it a certain kind of delight. (Welcome people!) I may yet resume a regular dump of my thoughts on you once again as I have been doing for the past two years. Sitting here for the past few hours has brought me into a few ideas none of which have furthered the work into my thesis beyond a few sentences. On one screen is my twitter feed that shows me diverse opinions of trending topics, from the Golden Globes to the Fuel Subsidy fights in Nigeria (in which my heart absolutely resides), and the Republican Primary fight in which another video has shown up with frontrunner Mitt Romney offering an unbelievably cold response to a sick man who had asked for his opinion on medical marijuana.

As I have discovered many times over, coming back to the empty page of a new blogpost always brought words back to my fingertips, bringing me back to a required level head to continue my work. In any case, here is what I thought: a solution to an old puzzle. All the (about three thousand) pictures that I have taken since this travelogue began need to go somewhere. As from today, I will be putting one (or two) of them per week out on the blog’s Facebook page with a little back story. If I never eventually make it to writing/completing that travel book of all those experiences, pictures and short back stories would have to do. Of course, you would be missing out on this if you are not already following the page.

Alright, that is out. Back to wondering how to successfully measure the progress of second language tonal acquisition, and communicate same to a thesis committee.

Occupy Nigeria, Occupy Ibadan, Occupy Mapo, Occupy your NEIGHBOURHOOD!

Kola — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 23:27:17 +0000

by Ayodele Olofintuade

I used to consider myself an armchair critic, and then I graduated to a social website critic. I constantly moan and groan about Nigeria and the myriad problems her government has plunged her into over the years. The overbloated, corruption-riddled central government, ruling over 160 million people of ‘the most populous black country’ in Africa.

Aside from crude oil Nigeria is also blessed with other natural resources like coal, gold, bitumen, silicone etc. but the government is only concerned with the crude oil, which is exported in HUGE quantities without proper monitoring.

Now to the point of this article. Over the past 2years I have joined several groups hoping that something will happen, there was always talk of mass protests, I remember a particular year when I joined a particular group and they had a rally in Abuja I was hopeful … well until they turned into a campaign team for Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, that name that gets my blood boiling.

Late in 2011 the president of Nigeria Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (henceforth called Badluck, Egbere, Jo-lantern and other expletives), Diezani Allison Madueke, the Minister for Petroleum Resources ( the bimbo) and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Minister of Finance (the banshee) started talking about removing subsidy on Petrol according to them, in order to prevent the country from plunging into an abyss of Economic instability we would NEVER recover from, in fact it will be worse than the one Greece is in presently.

My first reaction was stunned amazement, are these guys living in la-la-land? Don’t they know Nigeria’s economy has already collapsed as far as the average Nigerian is concerned? Do they realize how little the minimum wage of N18, 000 can do? In addition, these are government workers, I know people who earn N4, 000 per month. Already kerosene, which is the fuel most people use, sells for N120 per litre. Government hospitals are bare of equipments and drugs, most people resort to using either overpriced private clinics or ‘cheap’ butcher houses called clinics. There is no power supply, the roads are death traps, the ills are endless. Pray tell me, what the heck is economy collapse?

Then I saw the 2012 budget and realized that once again the government is spending over 70% of the budget on itself, as successive governments have done over the years. That was when I reached boiling point.

I immediately joined another group on Facebook called ‘Nationwide anti-fuel subsidy removal’ but there was lots of talk and trying to get people to join, for me I had reached boiling point and was ready to go to Abuja and start a one man march all by myself.

On January 1, I woke up to the news that our President, Jonathan the idiot, has removed fuel subsidy. Petrol price jumped from N65 to N145 per litre. The effect was immediate, transportation immediately more than doubled, which of course affected everything else, it was utter madness.

Then I joined twitter and that was the turning point for me. I saw a group called OccupyNigeria and followed immediately, then a tweet came in that Occupy Nigeria members are to meet at Mokola Roundabout in Ibadan, I did not hesitate, the following morning I was at roundabout. I met up with about 20people. And that was how it started. Every day we went protesting. Secretariat, Mapo, Beere, Gate, Yemetu, Ogunpa, Ring-Road, Challenge, Toll Gate, Iwo road. The list is endless, everywhere we went people joined us. From a trickle we grew into a stream, now we are a flood.

We have people occupying their neighbourhoods now.

Our first strategy was to educate people about the fuel subsidy, the fact that the protests are beyond the restoration of the subsidy that we want good governance and transparency. A cut in the amount of money these people spend. Their non-taxable allowances that allows them to list furniture, computers, scanners and software as recurrent expenditure. That we want to scrutinize the documents of the method by which the government is giving away our crude oil and importing it as petrol. We want a voice. A week after we started NLC called a nationwide strike, which gave our group more impetus.

I wake up as early as possible, feed and water my children, give stern instructions (which are promptly ignored), put some money in my pocket, fetch my sunshades, my trainers and hit the road. I have led a rally, been lost in the midst of a crowd, trailed behind a crowd, trampled, pushed, hugged, kissed, chased. I have faced the barrel of guns twice by gun totting army personnel intent on shooting on the crowd. I have been rude to the governor of Oyo state, been interviewed by the SSS.

Through all these one emotion that stands true and that keeps me going is the anger of the crowd, the fact that Nigerians have realized that there is power in the multitude. It is us against them. There are only, at most, one million people in government nationwide. There are over 159 million of us.

We are the people, we shall win!

______________________

Ayodele is the author of the LNLG-Nominated children’s book “Eno’s Story”. She writes from Ibadan.

Occupied. Now What?

Kola — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:06:20 +0000

From snippets I get on social media (more than a handful of pictures from Facebook and Twitter), Nigeria is effectively grounded. People occupied (that word again) the streets demanding change. I’d been bothered about one thing all along – having been incapable of joining the protest because of inevitable distance: the capacity of public protests (with tendency to turn violent and take innocent lives) to make a significant difference. At the last count, more than six people have now been shot dead by overzealous policemen sent to the streets to “restore order”.

The case for oil in Nigeria has become much of a curse nowadays, with total government reliance on exports to get revenue. Underneath that over-reliance however is a corrupt establishment that has used the country’s status as a global oil player to enrich themselves. Just today, I realized that the subsidy now suddenly removed by the government has actually been the cash cow of an addicted group of greedy middlemen in whose interest it has continued to be that the state subsidized the importing of fuel. I can’t think of any other country that produces so much as we do, yet has this much retarded development.

There is a sad, lingering realization, that this revolution will not solve all the nation’s problems. (It didn’t solve all of the problems in Libya, Syria, Iran, America, Tunisia and Egypt either). If the government subsidy removal would be beneficial to the citizenry, government would have begun to put structures in place for people to see and feel BEFORE removing the only benefit that many enjoy as citizens of such naturally endowed country. Now here is a better thought: LET US ERADICATE CORRUPTION. Where are the new ideas for a different country to arise when this revolution dies? Where is the new direction? Where is the new leadership that will take us from here? In ten to twenty years from now, most of the visionaries and pioneers of Nigerian independence would most likely be dead and gone. Who would take their place? What new ideas would they bring to the table?

I had a long discussion this afternoon with a family member about the progress now celebrated in Rwanda. After a brutal civil war that tore the country into pieces in 1994, bold new steps have been taken (including adopting English, abolishing “tribe” and instituting a host of reforms that has now made the little African country one of the best places to live on the continent). We had our chance in Nigeria (and much of West Africa) after “independence” from the British, it was squandered. We had a different chance after military rule in 1999, some progress was made, and then slowly foundered. Is this another chance? What emerges from here when the tyre bonfires are well burnt out and things return to normal? What will that normal be, and will it be good enough?

It should never be. The world is evolving. So should we. For the better.

For Subsideen the Gnome

Kola — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:42:07 +0000

Shigidi – a cursed African gnome – lay spread in an acid rain

bedraggled to the teeth, to the last hair on its wiggling tail.

Across from the junction where it lay in the throes of pain

are the broken bones of toothless men, skulls, splintered shale.

Little kids pace around with hands across their nose, disgust -

the ugly bastard once ruled the night like a fierce, rabid skunk.

They kick him around now with the dung around its wooden bust,

and laugh in the rain to mothers’ delight. Old men play drunk.

The year began a dream – country luck hanging on a bilious rock;

a finger in the eye of the poor, struggling village. A buyover man.

A silver spoon flashes here in the light. This time a non-shod shock

rips through an angry country, silence morphing into a flash-pan.

Red eyes cohere and all that remains are burnt remnants of tare

as rain clears out painful drains. Shigidi withers into its nightmare.

The Mayans Have It

Kola — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:54:26 +0000

I’ve been trying to find the right words to sum up this year. When I look back, there is an enormous bank of memories (some of them very personal) that I carry. There is that very first day of the year spent in the good merry company of my a friend, a Fulbright colleague, and my friend and fellow blogger Clarissa (and her husband). We had the most delicious cake, a great food, and a merry time into the night. Then there is that delightful trip to Chicago in July which changed my life in a remarkably delightful way.

It was this year when we protested against Mubarak using social media. I wrote this poem for him in January a few days before he was actually kicked out. Fun times. Little did I know that other tyrants would fall after him: Gaddafi, Osama, Laurent Gbagbo, and Kim Jong Il. Two of those dying tyrants were mentioned in the title of the poem. If I was a betting man, I could be rich by now. I also remember 2011 for The King’s Speech, one of my most favourite movies of all time.

This year, I met Ken Burns and Niel deGrasse Tyson – two brilliant writers opinion makers. I also visited Joplin in what will remain one of my year’s most enduring memory. I’ll also remember the year for losing my last surviving grandmother in January, then an aunt in March. Not very happy feelings about that. In 2011, the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series, a surprise. I did not write as many posts this year as I did in previous years, deliberately. Academics have taken much of my attention, inevitably. Thank you for forgiving . Now, if we listen to the Mayans, all the remaining negatives on the world’s plate point only to one conclusion: this will be our last New Year celebration. (I haven’t seen that movie 2012, but I’m very familiar with its apocalyptic premise).

So here we are: Iran on the way to nuclear armament, the US selling new arms to Saudi Arabia, a small but skilled group of homicidal religious maniacs are blowing people up in Nigeria with the hopes of setting up an islamic government, Syria is on a murderous rampage on its protesting citizens, Egypt is unstable, and the Isreali-Palestinian conflict is not any nearer to resolution than it was fifty years ago. If the Mayans are to be believed, whatever needs to happen will begin to happen when the new president of the United States takes office in November 2012. Ron Paul? That’s a scary thought. But by then, I will be as far away from this place as possible, most likely in the arms of someone I love. Is there a shuttle service out of this planet?

So, there it is, a sum of my thought for the dying year. My favourite posts in the year was The News Paradox (and perhaps Advances in Indigenous Language Technology). Cool visits: Lewis and Clark.

May the coming year bring a smile to your face.

What were your favourite memories, posts, news?

A Nigerian Tragedy

Kola — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:08:47 +0000

There comes a time when talking about the same kind of tragedy, or idiocy, over and over again becomes a futile act. Once is an aberration, twice is a trend. When it happens a third time, it has definitely settled into a most horrific pattern. I speak, of course, of the terrorist acts in Nigeria committed by a small radical Islamist group*, as well as the inability of the government to respond in a satisfactory way. It has almost become an annual Christmas idiocy.

In 2009, just around Christmas, the idiot from Katsina Abdul Mutallab got on a plane from London headed for Detroit, and almost took all the lives on an airplane. He put the country’s name on the world map for terrorism, and the outrage from citizens was unprecedented. “He doesn’t represent us”, we shouted, as the United States placed the country on a terror watch list. In December 2010, a bomb blast in Jos killed about 32 people and wounded dozens more (along with another one in October sponsored by the Movement of the Emancipation of Niger Delta, to mark the October independent celebrations). This year, bombs placed strategically in churches where faithfuls were celebrating the Christmas holiday has now claimed another number of innocent people.

However, beyond the deserved rage against the deranged people to whom violence is an acceptable way of making a point, and the gross ineptitude of a government unable to provide adequate security for the citizenry when they need it the most, I have realized that what should be most deplored is also the lack of fast and competent emergency response. A common sentence to all the news about the recent attacks is a variation of this: ”Nigeria’s Emergency services acknowledged they didn’t have enough ambulances immediately on hand to cope with the wounded.” If the government entrusted with the security of the country could not provide that security, it should at least provide emergency help whenever crises happens. This one did not, and thus the tragedy. I am outraged.

NEMA should either be made efficient, or be disbanded and its funding money given to non-governmental organisations that will provide real emergency response whenever citizens need help. It is anyone’s guess how many lives would have been saved if there was prompt emergency response by capable people on the ground rather than finger-pointing and vain tough-talking rhetoric by an incompetent government. When I’m in an accident and dying on the street, I do not want my government on television saying “(this is) a dastardly act that must attract the rebuke of all peace-loving Nigerians… These acts of violence against innocent citizens are an unwarranted affront on our collective safety and freedom” as Mr. Jonathan did last week. I want a president that directs all emergency vans to my help as soon as possible. I don’t know about you, but I would appreciate that a whole lot more.

* The crises in the country are not caused only by radical Islamists. Other radical minorities like the said Movement of the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) have also been credited with many acts of violence on innocent public structures, and killed countless innocent people. Then there are vehicular accidents, maternal mortality, and armed robbery. An undeniable fact is the decline of that country into chaos. A more heartbreaking one is the ineptitude of government response either in prevention, and in crises management.

PS: There is a new KTravula poll on the right sidebar. Please tell me what you think. —->>

The Third Winter

Kola — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 07:53:48 +0000

Browning tar, a rote of car zoom noises around my window. The sun sets in a distance, a lot earlier than before, to a now conditioned amazement. Afternoon and night share a neighbourly block on the street of a dying year. Tick, tock, the clock hand counts the moments again in memories of times gone before. At a different time but in a similar pose, time counted down. The geese quacked. The refrigerator hummed creaky tunes in the middle of night. Ice formed into layers of sweat balls around the glass, and everything else stayed still.

The world has not changed since then, or has it? Many months of movements follow each other in steps of ease, and texts, and work, and revolts. And here we are, another winter, another dark evening at four o’ clock. It is a short remove from those quiet times, just two years ago, in the sober remove of a rustic village, but here it is. A year winds down with the last paces of its easing rote, crank and all.

ktravula - a travelogue! » Soliloquy

Village Boy

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