I published a GoFundMe appeal

In the public of our lives

The public of our lives is never a situation to take likely, for one, social media has such a wide expanse with the possibility of what you publish reaching audiences you may not have intended.

Indeed, much of what I have shared with my public has been varied, though more on the better experiences of life than otherwise. I guess it is unconventional to share the pain as it is necessary to keep up appearances, lest the side is let down.

Yet silence can be a limiter of advantage, prospect, or opportunity, we all meet adversity on differing scales and employ whatever resources or means we can to address those issues. Some we can handle within what we have to bear, others need the support of a wider community, and then there are circumstances where only a miracle will suffice, we probably sometimes pray more for that than anything.

Reflecting on coming through

I have had such amazingly good times; I cannot deny I have lived an enchanted life of adventure, possibility, love, discovery, progress, and excellence. I am living through a phase, like walking through a valley of the shadow of death as the Psalmist said when he encouraged himself through the fear, with the comfort of the Lord bringing him to where a table was set before him in the presence of his enemies.

It is a journey well-travelled by humankind, I just write from the midst of my storms. The separate lives we live mean viewing another in distress can evoke sympathy or glee, each person has to tackle whatever they face, the way they know how, or have to learn to, in the process.

Seeking the support of others

In view of that, I have sought the help, support, and kindness of friends and strangers to sponsor a quest to rekindle my passion, reboot my career, and reassert myself in all spheres of endeavour. All I am asking for is another chance to aim to be the best I can be.

There is no denying tough times present tough situations for which tough decisions are necessary, some decisions are difficult and humbling, exposing one’s vulnerability as much as it defines one’s stark humanity. Any pretensions to being a superman are therefore immediately dispensed of as raw reality deigns to express.

That is why I have set up a fundraising drive with GoFundMe to achieve those aims, asking the community and the public to help me get to a new place. I know that there are people who would have other interesting ideas about how best to address these circumstances, but I can assure them that this is a deeply considered and difficult activity that was not done on a whim. Thank you for your support and generosity.

Essential Snobbery 101: Devoid of Perception

He walked away from danger

This is a blog I started almost two months ago, but never got to finish because, like some blogs that I have posted before, the ideas might be pertinent, though the time and occasion are not ripe for publication.

A tweet I read this morning allows me the opportunity to finish this blog and hopefully get to post it. The tweet concerns a man who suggests he nearly got killed by a cop. He was returning from the gym, and he entered a shop to buy some things before he was accosted by the police with guns drawn, shouting at him to respond to some commands.

Here’s a story about how I nearly just got killed by this cop. pic.twitter.com/3IYZFM9Ggh

— Ziggy (@TheHipsterRebbe) January 3, 2018

He did not hear the commotion surrounding and directed at him because he had noise-cancelling headphones on; it was a matter of luck and fortitude, if not some restraint from the cops, that meant that he walked away from that encounter unharmed.

Shutting out the world

It transpired that the shop assistant had called the police about some criminal activity going on in the shop, and somehow that was read to be an armed robbery, with this man the supposed perpetrator. There is much to comment on about this, but that is of no particular concern to me.

My issue is with the headphones and noise-cancelling ones at that. The man says in a tweet, “Sometimes I like to shut the world out and listen to music.” That is the problem, you are in a public place, and you shut the world out, just imagine if he had walked into the shop and without that isolation bubble of his headphones blocking out the world, he might have seen and acknowledged the shopkeeper, who then, with that interaction, would not have suspected him of being up to no good.

I can comment on a lot of things in this thread, the one I am most concerned about is how headphones covering both ears limit your spatial awareness and sensory perception, not just in this instance but in many other situations. https://t.co/7U1bGeuaoX

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ (@forakin) January 4, 2018

For all the commentary that followed his narrative, no one picked on the fact that the situation is as much his own fault in the first place, and it could then be that of others. When you shut off any of your working senses to external stimuli in the world around you, you place the responsibility on others either to look out for you or the anxiety on others to consider you a threat.

Devoid of perception of others

The same goes for people who ride their bicycles in the streets with headphones on so that they are unaware of the sounds and movements necessary for them to anticipate and avoid danger. It is just irresponsible at best and without doubt selfish and reckless.

The other day, I got on the train, but could not get to a free seat because a lady was standing in the way. Thrice, I said 'Excuse me, please', and she neither heard me nor budged; she was too engrossed in her mobile phone to be bothered or aware of her surroundings. It took me poking her with a finger for her to respond and reluctantly step out of the way for me to pass.

This is becoming the norm, a lack of awareness and the absence of perception that reduces our humanity from that of being social beings to the exemplar of being wild animals, uncivilised, inconsiderate, unconcerned and apathetic.

Just selfish and inconsiderate

Then, on a Sunday night, in a hotel full of business guests, the fire alarm went off at 4:20 AM, because some restless and noisy young men decided to smoke in non-smoking rooms. To cover the evidence, they broke the window and lied to the night concierge about the deed. I doubt they suffered any other consequence for waking everyone up in the hotel.

For them, nothing and no one else mattered in their selfish quest for self-satisfaction at the expense of everyone else. Sitting in a railway station waiting room, a passenger thinks it is socially responsible to play their music loud to the hearing of others, unafraid of being asked to behave.

In many cases, you cannot ask them to be considerate because that infuriates them, and it could lead to violent acts committed against you, as such a challenge to their antisocial behaviour is taken as an act of disrespect.

Why does it happen?

Meanwhile, another brings a can of alcoholic beverage onto the tram platform as we await the next one. He finishes the drink, drops the can to the floor and walks away as if it had nothing to do with him. This is despite the fact that there is a wastebasket 10 yards away. Then you imagine if everyone dropped their litter without any consideration, whether we would have anywhere to walk without running the gauntlet of refuse heaps.

Too many episodes and events I observe of carefree and careless people lacking in consideration or social skill, devoid of spatial awareness and the useful utility of their senses to do the right thing.

Unschooled, uncouth, untamed, uncultured to the point of stupid existence, upsetting everyone without any sense of offence caused or bad behaviour, you do wonder if it is a deliberate act of self-expression or just the absence of social graces, breeding, tutelage and much else.

Essential Snobbery 101: Look back in anger

All the loo roles

I know I like to play with alliterations, and a visit to a place downstairs just had me wondering how beneath the veneer of faux-respectability of people milling around, as co-workers are habits that leave much to be desired.

The loo, lavatory, latrine, ladies, toilet, gents, bog, urinal, cottage, water closet (WC) or convenience is a somewhat private place for movements and activity nature intended.

That we have found systems to manage and handle the different deposits is credit to creativity and ingenuity of man to bring elements of sophisticated, yet understated finesse to the handling of foul substances.

Noticing notices of note

Once upon a time, to evacuate really did mean to let things go from the bowels, but now, it is mostly used to mean getting people out of a building, especially out of dangerous buildings or vehicles.

There are things that are expected in these places that people do not feel disposed to do, and you end up reading notices like, “Please leave this place as you will like to find it” or “Please wash your hands”.

I would like to see in the men’s urinals notices that say, “Please do not spit your chewing gum into the urinal, ureic acid does not dissolve chewing gum, and furthermore, chewing gum is not biodegradable.” Men reading this will fully understand what I mean. I don’t chew gum.

Just clean up after you

Now, I cannot say why toilet bowls are white in most cases, but white is an implicit revelation of otherness when some things are not done. Especially when there is the option to flush the toilet and a toilet brush to help, “Please leave this place as you will like to find it” – I guess this notice implicitly suggests anyone visiting a toilet expects to find it clean, no matter how many other visitors have been before, if they all clean up after use.

I swore under my breath when the revelation on white was so unmissable, the earlier user could only have been so uncultured to have taken his anti-social skills back to the day of the Palaeolithic man. Whilst someone is paid to clean up after our mess, I do not think this was the kind of mess they were engaged to clean up.

That I can promptly lose respect for those who cannot look back in anger and ensure the next person looks in with a smile is my way of putting a four-letter word into a blog.

Please, always look back in anger when you have done your thing and “Please leave this place as you will like to find it. Thank you.”

Nigeria: Roll Back These First Lady Red Carpets

A Brief History of First Ladies

The concept of First Lady and the aura of officialdom that it carries was invented in the United States of America where the spouse of the sitting President or a lady relative in the case of an unmarried or widowed President served as the hostess of the White House.

Whilst there is no constitutional provision for the First Lady, there are elements of protocol and dignities conferred on her by reason of the position her husband holds.

Lisa M. Burns in her book First Ladies and the Fourth Estate: Press Framing of Presidential Wives (2008) suggests the following themes in First Ladyship in the United States of America as public woman (1900–1929); as political celebrity (1932–1961); as political activist (1964–1977); and as political interloper (1980–2001).

A Vulgarity of First Ladies

The same idea seems to have taken hold around the world with cliques of regional First Ladies gathering for all sorts of projects spanning one, some or all of those themes and more.

Nowhere has this role become even more prominent to include another theme of political aggrandisement and abuse than in Nigeria.

Sadly, the more recent First Ladies in Nigeria have left the graces and comportment one would have expected of them to become vain as exemplified sadly in the death by misadventure of Mrs Stella Obasanjo after a botched cosmetic surgery procedure, greed as depicted in the Wikileaks exposés of Mrs Turai Yar’Adua and Mrs or rather Dame Patience Jonathan appears to combine vanity, greed and a lack of moderation that leaves one astounded beyond words.

A Truth Commission Bites

Whilst it is difficult not to catch a whiff of vendetta against the previous governor of Ogun State, the establishment of the Ogun State Truth Commission under the chairmanship of Hon. Justice Pius O. Aderemi JSC (Rtd.) has brought some focus that should hopefully start the discourse about the role of First Ladies in Nigeria, having recommended the prosecution of the wife of the erstwhile governor of Ogun State.

Justice Pius Aderemi as a former justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria I will presume is of the legal mind to properly assess these roles and even offer recommendations on how these roles should be undertaken.

Take Notice

A number of key statements in his recommendations are important to note and develop.

“The proven excesses of Mrs. Olufunke Daniel arose from the widespread abuse of spouses of Governors and Presidents when there is no legal basis for the office of First Lady in Nigeria. The State and Federal Governments should evolve an administrative mechanism that ensures that wives of Governors and Presidents carry out what they perceive to be their duties unobtrusively.”

“It is the view of the Commission that the victim established a prima facie case of criminal offence against Mrs. Olufunke Daniel,” Justice Aderemi said. “Mrs. Olufunke Daniel undoubtedly held herself out as a Public Officer by moving to the Petitioner’s house with armed police escorts and ordering the policemen to beat Mr. Odunaya.”

These two paragraphs are without doubt very lucid in the arguments that form the basis for putting the so-called First Ladies of any sitting official or even First Gentlemen, First Spouses or First Partners in their places.

The inference drawn here is that certain wives of Governors and Presidents have been given to both excess and abuse while answerable to no one, even though the immunity from prosecution their spouses have does not apply to them.

As We Stand

However the key points I want to make from these two paragraphs are the following.

• There is no legal basis for the office of any First Lady in Nigeria.
• An administrative mechanism that ensures that wives of Governors and Presidents carry out what they perceive to be their duties unobtrusively is need, more like a Code of Conduct and Ethics.
• The wife of a Governor or President can be criminally liable and is not above the law if anyone might need to seek redress for their actions.
• The wife of a Governor or President is not a Public Office, whilst they might have protective detail by reason of their status they do not have authority to use such detail to exact the law or forment activities that should be delegated and commanded by law enforcement officers.
• Now for reasons of protocol, the First Lady with her spouse present should be accorded the status, respect and dignities commensurate with her spouse when accompanying him.

Diplomacy and Courtesies

There is however nothing in the Order of Precedence Act that identifies a Nigerian First Lady of any description in her own right, no wives of any public officials are accorded any relevance in the absence of their husbands.

The fact that the wife of a Public Official is NOT a Public Official just by reason of marriage means they are not covered by the Order of Precedence.

Husbands may however confer rights of representation to non-official functions on their wives to stand in their stead and officiate thereby but not in the substantive office of their spouses.

Any dignities, graces, courtesies and respect accorded the wife of a public official is by reason of the respect given to her husband, that respect does not automatically endow a right or status of superiority on the wife when her husband is absent.

Proscribe this anomaly

However, crude this may sound, the excesses and abuses of First Ladies in Nigeria now requires we roll back the red carpets, dispense with the nauseating obsequiousness and tone down on the unnecessary genuflection and fawning.

They should return to being hostesses of the Presidential villas and Governor’s houses to be sometimes invited to cut the tape at garden bazaars. The entourages and corteges of the sycophantic apparatchiks clogging up our streets to the inconvenience of the many should stop forthwith.

In fact, we should only see or hear of the those First ladies when their husbands are out and about, this whole charade has become nuisance that even the utterly uncultured can no more abide.

Away with the Marie Antoinettes of our age.

References

Flash: Truth Commission Recommends Gbenga Daniel’s Wife, Monarch, Others For Trial « News Bytes

Nigeria: The First Lady Syndrome | AllAfrica

Order of Precedence of Public Officers in Nigeria [PDF Download]

Nigeria: A motion to pray is rejected

Motion to pray rejected

It is with utter amusement that I read the proceedings yesterday regarding a motion in the Nigerian Senate called to pray for the President [1] who supposedly is recuperating from acute pericarditis in hospital in Saudi Arabia after having apparently performed Hajj last week.

Now, I do not take the matter of prayer lightly, I believe in prayer, I am a man of faith, I would even say, I believe in the efficacy of prayer and the ability to bring that efficacy to bear on our everyday issues.

I believe in prayer

As a Christian, Jesus Christ provides a general template for prayer in the Lord’s prayer [Public Domain] which basically involves acknowledging God, submitting to His will, seeing Him as your provider, recognising the need to act justly, compassionately and considerately with your fellowman, knowing your fallibility and recognising His power to uphold you and finally recognising the eternal “God-ship” of God. Other religions might have their own examples.

However, with that template, just as we have with courts, there are procedures, processes, rules and orders, prayers cannot be frivolous for starters and generally the Christian purpose expects prayers to be aligned with the will of God generally outlined in the Bible, lest we pray amiss and in praying as one apostle proffered, we pray to consume it upon our lusts – by implication, there is a selfish intention to have prayers answered without acknowledging the how, why and who of the answered prayer.

Confusion of process

In general, it is not so much complex but confused, we have complicated the simplicity of that template into ritual evocating dramatic action without essential power and defaulted on the uncertainty of whether our prayers would even get the hearing of God.

Now, when it comes to health, anyone would indeed pray from good health and when you are sick you do need much more help in being sustained through the ordeal to the time when there is a full recovery which might be natural, sometimes with the help of medicine and that recovery can also be speeded up and result in what is a miracle – you do not have to believe in that, but the person affected does know what has happened to them and that is their fact and their truth, no matter how unbelievable it is to others.

Preponderance of God without virtue

However, the motion to pray for the President was rejected twice with a voice vote, the preamble to the motion was considered superfluous and really the President of the Senate had only 24 hours before called for nine days of prayer regarding the health of the President of the nation.

At the risk of being flippant and irreverent, Nigeria probably has more churches and mosques per capita than any other place in the world. We portend to be religious; it permeates every facet of life but the religiosity itself does not necessarily equate to any form of godly virtue, rather, it has become a facade to deploy and ward off issues of personal character and responsibility, the antagonist at the mention of God must immediately acquiesce regardless of the facts at hand.

Lifting up our voice as a nation should make much power for change available if we were doing things properly, rightly, justly, honestly, responsibly and meticulously in faith – I would not cast doubt but one wonders if those boxes are ticked when prayer is made.

Get good health but resign still

It is my hope and wish that the President recover from his condition and be nursed back to full health, however, I am not sure that the same President is equipped even if he gains his full strength to continue to operate in the office that he has held for almost 3 years.

In all honesty, the President should and must consider the good option to resign and allow other possibly capable Nigerians to steer this great ship of state, his resignation should not deflect the fact that our prayers are still out there for his full recovery.

The dearth of healthcare infrastructure in Nigeria

One interesting thing to note which was not really voiced is the fact that the Nigerian Senate does not constitute an assembly of faith healers, rejecting the motion at least helps stress that as an acknowledgement of the limit of their powers to effect that kind of change.

What is however damning of our houses of representative assembly is that our President is not in Nigeria receiving adequate treatment; implying Nigeria with all its medical doctors, teaching hospitals, hospitals, clinics and medical centres there is no expertise to attend to the critical needs of keeping our leadership well and able to do their jobs. It is unlikely you will find the leader of any Western nation seeking medical attention in a hospital outside their country, why can we in Nigeria not aspire to that kind of national pride, self-reliance and confidence?

Whilst they were debating on the budget, this might have been an opportunity to lament the fact that in a country as ours where resources abound but opportunity is restricted to the apathetic elite; people of privilege who still think having their health matters managed by foreign doctors in faraway hospitals is better than having fully equipped hospitals at home.

Give public service the determination of public office

One would think with the way people fight for public office for great personal gain some of that fervour would spill into the public service of creating institutions of excellence at home manned by nepotistic but qualified or sometimes unqualified countrymen, which is what we condone and promote for everything to do with public office but never demand for public service.

The shame is really ours and one wonders if the prayers when prayed should include that for real wisdom as to how the ship of state of Nigeria should be steered, who should be in charge, what should be their priorities and well, that they might be fully capable to despatch their duties diligently, efficiently, properly and honestly.

Whilst we contemplate, let us once again, pray.

Source

Next | Senate rejects motion seeking prayers for Yar’Adua

Dancing on their warm graves

Another week of events are consummated in this posting having lost the work-time link to the sudden uneasiness of some malevolent who found that a useful service to external consultants was just a too good thing to have.

Somehow, the Bayesian filters on the firewall links this blog site to a sexuality issue and hence gets blocks.

How it arrived at that conclusion escapes me, but there goes when you offer what should characteristically be within human judgment to some sophisticated software robot.

Aping your politicians

However, what has been nagging me all week is the commemoration of the 11 victims of a fire blaze in an Immigrant detention centre at the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.

As the story goes, a fire started with the responsible personnel adopting the hard-line indifferent stance of the hard-talking politicians of ignoring a critical issue till it had moved beyond desperate.

Well, before the inquiry set had submitted their report on what went wrong, both the Justice and Interior ministers had commended the staff for having acted adequately and appropriately.

The loss of human life be that criminal or victim had paled into insignificance for intemperate analysis and the hardening of resolve in terms of the actions rather than the actors.

This in the light of the fact that it was revealed that the alarm systems were faulty in some parts, switched off in others and too sensitive at the fire doors that they were not opened when people needed to get out of danger.

As the poor “criminals” raised alarm, their cries were probably ignored by idling guards swilling you know what and smoking what you may not desire and the “criminals” perished such that the prevailing intemperance in this rather so tolerant country concurred that criminal life might just be of no value.

Just as the bodies were released to the families of victims who in the majority were ethnic European, a service of remembrance took place with the Justice and Interior ministers crying crocodile tears of compassion and concern.

Before their graves were dug, they already had the indignity of someone dancing on their graves, it is just so despicable.

Being your public

Just as that nasty chapter closed, another minister who had approved more early aircraft activity in a nether region which involved deafening fighter aircraft flyovers got woken up at 5:00AM with the sound of such aircraft relayed to her well-appointed home far away from her disconnected approval.

My heart bled with empathy when she first expressed shock at the noise and that it could happen near her home at all. No! Never!

Well, if that does not inform everyone of the fact that politicians are beginning to come out of a gene pool of people who are not everyday people then what else?

The problem nowadays is about people who make decisions so remote from the realities of what and who would be affected on some objective premise as if human consideration does not matter.

Similarly, last year, my neighbourhood had 5 bus services withdrawn in anticipation of a tram service that was to start in over 6 months after the service was withdrawn.

The computer model might have been fine, but the reality was 40,000 people deprived of a useful service just like that. They probably consulted the neighbourhood before making the decision, but what use would that have been if the consulted rode bicycles or drive cars?

Over the last few weeks, the Interior minister has been spat at in the main street and had a projectile thrown through her office window, not that I condone any of this activity, but frankly, the mean streets of our nation are beginning to arrive at the doorsteps of the people who should be preventing the mean streets from becoming our ultimate destination socially and politically.

As someone commented in my last posting, the police are measured on the wrong set of parameters such that more time is spend issuing fines on spitting spatters and protesters over noise injustices than fight real crime.

These politicians have the police at their beck and call, well, hopefully, somewhere along the line the police would realise that they have a public duty of protecting the majority without privilege than the cocooned minority who are far from reality, purpose and ideas.