Thought Picnic: Those who resort to bastardry should answer for their claims

Refusing to bear the slur

It has occurred to me that there must be a time when you must divorce yourself from illegitimacy and the hold of bastardry predicated on an assessment of your situation with little regard for your lived life and achievements.

Obviously, there were circumstances where children born out of wedlock were considered illegitimate, but it is no fault of the child that they were born into that situation. Unfortunately, the label might dog them in terms of inheritance or entitlement, but what cannot be denied them is the right to live their own lives and set their own course to create their own story.

Other uses of the word bastard might come from attempting to address the child in terms of what they have failed to achieve for wanting of ability and sometimes it is just adversity or misfortune that can happen to anyone, just that someone somewhere seems to be keeping score.

Invariably, anyone can be a bastard, choose to be one or be seen as one. For those who for all sorts of reasons are declared so but refuse to let it define them, the path before them is clear as the light of day. Provenance is helpful, but without it, you can still go on to become the best of who you can ever be for the betterment of people and communities that see you as you are rather than where you are from.

Let them answer for their claims

It is interesting that even royal bastards even with their illegitimacy were rarely without honour or title and many were quite prominent in society without attainder for being born out of wedlock. A child of whom they have been born remains the child of, whether recognised and accepted or not.

If then after so having reached adulthood there are some that seek to lay that unfortunate appellation on you, it is for them to then support that with the evidence of why illegitimacy is their refuge of discourse apart from whatever else you have done and achieved.

Smarting from an encounter that elicited reference and allusion in the mistaken need to trigger a response to attendant concerns, it is not the need to continue engagement that comes to mind even if some advice has suggested a bit more circumspection to limited spheres of adverse commentary. 

Rather, one is inclined to cut off communication for the time being, for once again, a line was crossed and if bastardry was a last resort for one, it became the last straw that broke the laden camel’s back for another.

Blog: Thought Picnic: Battling a dimension of legitimacy

Walking in the dreams of your mind

The solitude of the sleepy world

When I dream, the people invited to participate in the dramatic and theatrical expression of my mind as I sleep probably do not know that they are in that script and if they are, they are most likely playing a different perspective from the one that gains my focus.

Even so, when I have dead relatives in living colour conversing contemporaneously until at one point my consciousness interfered and told someone who came to pick me up that they were dead and should not be here. Immediately, they got back in their car and drove off.

The mystery of individuality with the uniqueness it engenders along with the way we believe suggests a clash in many spheres of life, wherein the ideas I may present will elicit the admonition in other words implicitly telling me to come to my senses, yet like Nicodemus in The Chosen, “I have never been closer to my senses.” Even if from an observer’s point of view, I am crazy and bordering on demented.

In my hearing and wearing

I have many friends from whom I take long and considered counsel; their views are sometimes as distant as the east is from the west to what I have going on in my mind. We must at certain times have the courage of our convictions despite the contrary wisdom being proffered.

For all intents and purposes, each man has to walk their own long hard road and climb to subdue their own mountains; the succour and comfort you get along the way is rarely from those walking in the same shoes on the same path. What we endure affects people differently. I know the pain of cancer and probably my pain threshold, but I will not compare my appreciation of pain to that being suffered by another, be it a headache or something considerably worse.

Let me ply my course

When I came to the conclusion that involved the decisions I have made, it would be uncharitable for anyone to think that anything was done without due and considered contemplation. Coming to the harvest to reap knowledge rarely involves knowing who tilled the ground, sowed the seeds, watered the grain, pulled the weeds, and kept away the pests until the crop was ready to be harvested for the barns.

What you see today did not begin in some instant just measure in the few hours past, the crying of the soul, the pain in the heart, the weariness of the bones, the loss of sleep that presages a sense of peace at the point of acting has already taken its tenuous toll. The force of hope trundling on like a perpetual engine fuelled by life and living.

There is at least one who seems to understand where opinion should be silent and support should be unstinting, and for that alone, I am grateful that I am no stranded in the wilderness of threat, danger, and a forlorn absence of direction. The story remains the one you tell of what you have lived.

Thought Picnic: Moderating my decision tree

Deep reflection

Gracious Lord, I am at the crossroads of opportunity and advantage, let me be wiser about the decisions and choices I make this time.

In my career of over 25 years in the Information Technology industry, I have been presented with so many choices that I seized and ran away with. This gave me so many opportunities to do things all too similar to an enchanted life.

Then came times when I could make no choices because the options were not there. In the midst of that turmoil, I made really smart decisions for that particular moment that were long term foolish decisions that hurt me more than I can easily quantify.

When I danced

The most important thing as I write this is to understand with review and reflection what I did when I had many options, what were the results of the choices I made and the long term consequences if I had taken to heart other considerations.

Yet, I must accept that we are where we are now, we cannot turn back time but we can learn from experience and hopefully in learning learn the right lessons to act on the body of knowledge, wisdom, insight and expectation one has to draw on.

Critically, one must not take the immediate comforts that becloud future discomforts if on the main some balance can be achieved to provide a smoother existence.

Find balance

In short, I am calling on my sense of proportion, the spirit of contentment and desire for commitment based on calculated, reasoned and rational thinking.

The undulating lifestyles of mountain top to the bottom of the abyss as the biorhythm of life borne out of immediately satisfactory outcomes and a future existence of incapability is what informs why one should be smarter.

Therefore, for what I have been blessed with, even though much can be gained now to the detriment of much later, I’ll give myself to good today for a manageable bad, if that happens, than to sell myself to the best for the impending worst to come.

Decade Blogs - Monike Charles-Binitie - Taking the leap

Decade Blogs

I do not know how many people visit and read my blog; the statistics suggest there is some traffic, but I guess as a friend suggested recently, I do not write for effective engagement or interaction.

Yet, every once in a while, I am inspired to write something that shows I am just human with feelings and hopefully some expression that resonates with others.

That is how I found out that Monike Charles-Binitie reads my blog, because she left a comment to that effect when I wrote a moving birthday message to a friend of almost 30 years. To think, she had been reading my blog for almost three years before she left her first comment.

In this piece to commemorate my Decade of Blogging, Monike speaks of faith, time, decision, action, goals and implementation.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

I guess it would not be long before we can celebrate Monike Charles-Binitie, PhD, Business and Management Guru amongst other wonderful things that has made her one of the interesting personalities that I have come to know through my blog and on Twitter. Thank you for #YourBlogOnMyBlog.

On Twitter, Monike Charles-Binitie is @apeke75, this is an interesting story and I wish her the very best.

It was during the miracle service on Sunday; the pastor had just finished preaching, that for you to receive a miracle, you must trust God and realise that only He can do that which you cannot do. Then the image comes to you, including the sound, May 2001, NYSC camp in Ipaja, on the parade ground, the platoon commandant, calling out ‘Lep high! Lep high! Lep high! (A corruption of Left – Right, used to mark time for marching in formation.) And it came to you, suddenly, without warning, akin to an epiphany, you have been marking time!

Marking time, waiting for everything to be just right; for you to get more money, for your hubby to get a better job, to have all the kids, for all the stars to align right, for the constellation to be in sync, for as the economists will say, for ‘other things to be equal’. Then you realise, the time will never be right, other things will never be equal.

Other things will never be equal, and you know, in your heart, like the still small voice of your Father whispering to you, child, trust me. You must take that leap; take the leap of faith. Two things will happen, you will soar, or you will fall, but you are assured that He will catch you. Both ways, you win, and He is glorified.

Therefore, I have taken the leap, the leap of faith, and I have applied for my third academic degree, a doctorate degree in Business Administration, and I am so excited, it is a new level of faith for me.

Decade Blogs - Babatunde Rosanwo - The Market‏

The Decade Blogs

This is the first of blogs written to celebrate my 10 years of blogging, my friend, Babatunde Rosanwo has honoured me with a piece about the market and life as a market place of many interactions of decision, determination, discrimination and discernment.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

In this, I find a story, one I had never written before, for when we lived in Kaduna, my mother too did have a market stall.

@Rosanwo is his Twitter handle or you can read his blogs here.

This is Babatunde’s story, please read on.

There are many routes leading to the market
Depending on your mission to the market
I dreaded going to Oja Oba (King’s Market) with my mother
It was a confluence of all manners of men and women
From the rich who bought the produce in bulk
To the average ones who came for their daily supplements
Those who came for the leftovers stretched across the market
Yet the was a constant buzz and noise across the market

I wondered why my mother spent such considerable time at the market stalls
Greeting the sellers and exchanging banter
I thought we should buy from the first stalls and leave
I would often look away to catch the expressions of the market
Intrigued by the alabarus (market porters) who labored to make a meaning out of life
My mother would insist that I accord everyone with greetings and courtesy
I wondered why it was so difficult for her to make up her mind
Why do we have to move from stall to stall, from bargain to bargain?

I would wonder where my father was at that moment
The one who worked all day was saved from the theatre of this market
The contrast between his alakowe (academic) office and the market
The contrast between our modest home on Ring Road and Oja Oba
I wondered what my father would make of this market
Would his job afford him the daily encounters of engaging so many people?

My mother said the market had many reflections
That one day I would understand that life itself is a market
People come and go but the market remains
I would have to bargain to get the best of the market one day
The bargains would determine how far I go
Some spend the whole day at the market without a bargain
Some spend just few minutes at the market with the best bargain

Again, I asked, why have your stalls inside the market?
Why not at the entrance to catch the customers as they arrive
My mother laughed at me, she held me in her arms
She said one day I would start my own journey in the market of life
I would never be satisfied with the first things that come my way
Neither would my first love end up as my wife
There would be days I would love to curse the market
And there would be days I would love to bless the market
In all, the market remains part of me

Now I reflect upon those days with my mother and our sojourn to the market
I look at the journey I have embarked on in life
I am no longer satisfied with the first bargains I have made
Sometimes I am confused
Sometimes I have cried
Sometimes I danced away my sorrows
Sometimes I have made poor bargains based on my poor judgment
It has dawned on me that life is a market
That my father had his own version of the market in his alakowe way

I don’t know if I am lost in the market
I don’t know if I am making the best bargains
I don’t know if the tinned tomatoes are better than fresh tomatoes
I don’t know if cooking with olive oil is better than my mother’s palm oil soup
I don’t know which route is best to leave the market
I don’t know if the market even knows I am here

The only thing I know is the market is still open
I am still looking for the best bargain
One day I will exit the market
I shall be gone but the market shall remain

Thought Picnic: Start that journey now

The journey

There are some difficult journeys we need to embark on in our lifetimes and making that decision to go on that journey can take time, resource and sometimes daring and courage – that little reserve you have left.

The amazing thing is when you start that journey, the foreboding of dragons and threats that seemed to seize your thoughts that you procrastinated and hoped for an alternative miracle just dissipate.

You might well find the dragons but having prepared for that journey you realise you are equipped to slay it if need be or befriend it and have to carry you through even more menacing jungles – like the Psalmist says – Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me.

The journey is a story

There is that destination that you can only get to by embarking on that journey, you are given assurances beyond your capability that you will not only complete that journey but also complete it well.

Never forget to tell the story of your journey because the journey of life ticking away in seconds, jumping ahead in minutes and marking time in hours that days seem so long but months end so soon reveals in splendour the joy of living.

As bright days follow the darkest nights, the power of hope to expect, faith to attain and love to be secured can never be held back. I took the first step on my difficult journey and a world has opened before me that I would never have seen if I remained where I was.

Nigeria: The What About Us Presidential Debate

This blog was first published at NigeriansTalk.Org with the title, Nigeria: The Youth and the What About Us Presidential Debate

Update (25/03/2011)

The Nigerian Youth “What About Us?” Presidential Debate will hold on the 25^th of March 2011 at 7:00 PM (GMT) at the Shehu Musa Yar'adua Centre, Abuja, Nigeria.

The following presidential contenders will attend Chief Dele Momodu (NCP), Mr. Nuhu Ribadu (ACN), Governor Ibrahim Shekarau (ANPP) and Professor Pat Utomi (SDMP). The incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan (PDP) and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (CPC) have so far declined invitations.

Channels TV Nigeria and Youtube will collaborate to stream this debate online at http://www.youtube.com/channelsweb

Additional details about the event can be found here.

Setting the stage

Writing for the Guardian yesterday with the title A Nigerian revolution [1], the celebrated writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said she will be a moderator of the Nigerian presidential debate arranged under the auspices of youth groups with the theme, “What About Us” on the 25^th of March, 2011.

She starts off is identifying the issues of eternal incumbency amongst certain African leaders who have been in power from long before we could read until now and that fact that the leadership structure was quite different from those of the North African countries now in flux because Nigeria had become a democracy since 1999.

The plurality of our democracy needs to have its potency from the generally accepted statistic that 70% of the Nigerian population is under the age of 35 and hence needs genuine representation with regards to their needs and their aspirations.

Pride in our nationhood

That list of things that encapsulates the outlook of the Nigerian youth can simply be defined in terms of what would make any Nigerian proud to be a Nigerian in the brotherhood and sisterhood of the many and diverse elements of our nationhood regardless of tribe, creed or religion whilst offering the equality of opportunity to all to rise to be all that they could be.

We have come to a time when the youth should and must have a voice that can be heard and responded to with consideration, responsibility and sense of duty – our leaders can no more reign as demigods whose ideas and lifestyles are completely removed from the realities of those they represent.

A constituency to listen to

The first rung in the need for accountability in our representation can only be achieved in a forum where those who seek electoral mandate are ready to listen to and answer questions regarding what they intend to do to make the promise of Nigeria a realisation that exudes pride and praise.

The hope is when the debates come all representatives of the parties vying for election would present themselves for scrutiny, for tough assessment and the healthy debate of ideas, vision, mission and realisable goals.

The write-up also offered the opportunity for commentary that ranged from the well-worn issues of poor leadership and corruption to the historical landmarks that very few of the youth can truly identify with.

Memories we have not experienced

Interestingly, one non-Nigerian could remember Biafra, what I remember of that was it ended in 1970 and I was hardly 5 years old then – it is unlikely that that informs the dreams and aspirations of the youth of today but it represents one of those possible wedge issues that could take our focus off the critical issues that our country faces.

We keep being reminded of the North-South divide and the religious divisions which pale in insignificance with many people who live in mixed environments of varied allegiances, it would be very unfortunate if the youth allow their views of Nigerianness to be defined in those terms when the entity is still Nigeria and the identity is Nigerian – we have something that is worth fighting for and we should not allow selfish interests to usurp the agenda and the so-called politicians and power-brokers are mostly responsible for this travesty.

Education is the foundation

One particular comment dwelt on the broader issue of education and the need for all to recognise the value of education in raising the quality of life and status of all Nigerians. The ignorance that allows for preventable diseases to contribute to high mortality rates is unforgivable, the need for our generally patriarchal society to accord women and females equality and the right to education and the need for a language that allows for our citizenry to engage in the political process making the right decisions for themselves and their communities.

Too often politicians have exploited the citizenry and the preponderance of a type of vassality to the political class with the ulterior and inadvertent aim of keeping the uneducated or powerless oblivious and ignorant of their rights and hence the force of agitation to bring change.

The youth are here

This time, the youth are coming to the fore and they would probably decide who takes the political spoils and the politicians better have a good few answers to the question, What About Us? The youth would not be ignored, let alone patronised and one is hopeful that they are making seriously informed decisions based on track record, ability, ideas and competence.

If the result of April’s elections rest in the hands of the youth, whoever gets to power without being properly tested and assessed would in terms be representatives of the youth and they would have assume a modicum of responsibility in deciding the future Nigeria faces.

The pledge of the youth must be to use their votes well and not commit to allegiances based on sentiment or subjective criteria; we need to be able to say that when the youth asked that question they did their part in bringing a democratic revolution to Nigeria for useful change.

Surely, that is not being too optimistic, is it?

Source

[1] A Nigerian revolution | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Comment is free | The Guardian

Happy New Year - 2007

Happy New Year

To all my friends, well-wishers, relations and most of all, detractors, I wish you a very happy, prosperous, fulfilling and rewarding New Year.

You might wonder, why detractors? Well, if it was really going well for them, they would be building up other people rather than trying to bring them down. There is however, no time to concentrate on the negative when there are things to affirm and lay hold of in the New Year that would bring greater joys, interesting challenges, bigger rewards and a sense of gratifying fulfilment.

No, I do not have any New Year’s Resolutions, they fade before the sun sets on the end on the month; I jumped off that bandwagon many years ago.

When you resolve to do something, have you really prepared and decided to get it on with? Maybe not.

Whilst resolutions could mean firm decisions, we are more familiar with decisions than the seasonal resolutions.

Doomsday school

I remember one decision I made when I was 15, we were attending Sunday School on New Year’s Day in church we had not yet decided would be the home church, what I found disgusting was the cabal of Sunday School teachers who were doing nothing teaching from the Bible, rather it was like a boot camp of savage and sadistic revellers in corporal punishment.

They picked on anyone who looked the slightest bit confident and emasculated the person through whipping and punishments which simply sapped at any esteem the young person had, but it thrilled the teachers no end.

Having seen 5 injustices which would have had the Child Protection Agency taking the church and its leadership to the cleaners in utter and complete condemnation, I decided.

Decide not resolve

From that day on, I would never entertain anything designed to take my spirit, my strength, my esteem, my confidence and my assertiveness in the pursuit of somebody else’s pleasure, neither would if it was in my power allow for anybody to subjected to such abuse of power, it changed my life – it was not a resolution it was a clear-cut decision, taken on New Year’s Day.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year - 2007

Happy New Year

To all my friends, well-wishers, relations and most of all, detractors, I wish you a very happy, prosperous, fulfilling and rewarding New Year.

You might wonder, why detractors? Well, if it was really going well for them, they would be building up other people rather than trying to bring them down. There is however, no time to concentrate on the negative when there are things to affirm and lay hold of in the New Year that would bring greater joys, interesting challenges, bigger rewards and a sense of gratifying fulfilment.

No, I do not have any New Year’s Resolutions, they fade before the sun sets on the end on the month; I jumped off that bandwagon many years ago.

When you resolve to do something, have you really prepared and decided to get it on with? Maybe not.

Whilst resolutions could mean firm decisions, we are more familiar with decisions than the seasonal resolutions.

Doomsday school

I remember one decision I made when I was 15, we were attending Sunday School on New Year’s Day in church we had not yet decided would be the home church, what I found disgusting was the cabal of Sunday School teachers who were doing nothing teaching from the Bible, rather it was like a boot camp of savage and sadistic revellers in corporal punishment.

They picked on anyone who looked the slightest bit confident and emasculated the person through whipping and punishments which simply sapped at any esteem the young person had, but it thrilled the teachers no end.

Having seen 5 injustices which would have had the Child Protection Agency taking the church and its leadership to the cleaners in utter and complete condemnation, I decided.

Decide not resolve

From that day on, I would never entertain anything designed to take my spirit, my strength, my esteem, my confidence and my assertiveness in the pursuit of somebody else’s pleasure, neither would if it was in my power allow for anybody to subjected to such abuse of power, it changed my life – it was not a resolution it was a clear-cut decision, taken on New Year’s Day.

Happy New Year!