Thought Picnic: A heart that feels

A heart that feels, a heart of flesh,

Two hearts unsure and absent from a thinking head,

Beating with great rapidity,

Like African drums in readiness for a cannibal feast,

The tales we heard once before, a truth untold.

A heart that feels, a heart that yearns,

For a love that seemed once there but unaware,

Giving all for very little,

Like an infatuated adolescent only twice that age,

To have and to hold, if only one were so bold.

A heart that feels, a heart that bleeds,

Bruised by hurt and disappointments too many,

Healing fast to forgetfulness,

You return like a battered wife to the arms that did harm,

Is one so completely sold out to one so cold.

A heart that feels, a heart that breaks,

Love found but so out of reach,

Remembering the dust and the ashes,

Of the one who stole your heart long ago,

The story will fold with no love again past old.

A fire drill to nil

They’re out we’re in

The day at the office was not supposed to be as eventful as this. My main system at home had a major hiccup such that what I used to be able to do at home now had to be done at the office.

The hours of the mid-afternoon, I looked out from the window of my fifth floor office to see people trooping out of the building as if for a fire drill.

It had me wondering why people from one wing were being ushered out and the rest of us being left to burn, in fact I did surmise to colleagues about their testing the firewalls just to ascertain that they were fire-proof.

Beckoning our charred remains

A few minutes afterwards the alarm did sound at our end of the building and an announcement was made in Dutch for us to vacate the building with the instruction not to use the lift.

I picked up my hat and cane and made for the stairwell walking down at pace in order not to hold anyone up; on the ground floor we were held back by the automated pass-entry system which each of us had to use to step out to the reception where another crowd waited to get out.

Once we were out we were herded like sheep, no instructions, no guidance just taking the cue from those who had gone one before.

After we crossed the road to the other side we noticed a fire engine, a fireman disembarked with a portable fire-extinguisher and entered the building we none the wiser about why we had to leave the building.

No (E)mergency in this Respons

Soon afterwards a Quick Respons Team vehicle arrived, it made me wonder whether the sign-painter was trying Dutch, English or a Dutchified version of Response without the “e” and there was no space for the “e” in case you thought the “e” had fallen off.

The fireman came out of the building a few minutes after and we were ushered back into the building in what might well have been a fire drill but not by any standards brilliant.

Why it failed

The questions I had in mind were many:

Why the alarm had been going on at in one wing of the building without notifying the other parts of the office block.

Why the announcements were only made in Dutch when it is clear that most functionaries in the building work in a bilingual situation with the possibility that a good few did not speak Dutch but at least manage English.

Why the exit gates were monitored when they should have been open especially if the exit process involved panic or a stampede.

And what for?

Why no one bothered to explain what the reason was for evacuating the building – even if it was a fire-drill, it would have been to simulate the process to managing emergancies that could be fires, bombs, leakages or any dangers that would have necessitated conducting the exercise.

In my view, for all the people in high-visibility vests appearing to know what they were doing and probably returning to some debriefing to pat themselves on the back for a job well done; this was a farce at best and I really do not pray I am in this building when something really serious happens because I honestly cannot trust the “Quick Respons Team” to get me out quickly, safely and securely.

Fire drill assessment – Fail.

Night cycling

The nostalgia of food

The fact is nostalgia runs thick when you have left home for another place. The degree to which you might feel nostalgia might however differ for all sorts of people.

Whilst I have no particular inclination to return to Nigeria, I do enjoy Nigerian food that I either get to cook for myself or order from the gradually improving Obalade Suya in Amsterdam South which seems to have exceeded the African Kitchen in organisation, sophistication and sense of service by far – they even have a website.

Also there is fare from England that you cannot find in Amsterdam supermarkets, from the ordinary things like sliced white bread, through certain cereals and then pork pies amongst other goods – teas, biscuits, puddings, soups to name but a few.

The British shop (Absolutely British) in Amsterdam moved to Amstelveen over a year ago and I usually get there by tram and metro, a journey taking about 45 minutes.

Getting the bike out

This time, I thought I would get on my bicycle and ride out there, the estimated distance using Google Maps was about 11 kilometres from my home but that was using the pedestrian calculation, the journey by car could not be afforded bicycles and the directions by bicycles have not been fully integrated.

So, I thought I had to go due West, then due South keeping a general idea of Amsterdam’s cartography in my head, I did not really miss a turn though I could have made my journey more efficient.

I avoided a mishap where a car that had passed the traffic lights but had been caught in a tailback that was at an intersection, the road cleared in front of the car just when the traffic lights gave me right of way and it was just half a metre from broken bones or a dented bonnet.

The journey took just short of an hour and the ride was leisurely enough not to leave me panting and I stocked up on home goods.

The sleight of lights

On my return journey I got to a sign pointing to Amsterdam Centre but in opposite directions, to the right I could have a river-view ride with less vehicular traffic but it was getting dark.

I pedalled gaining a rhythm that was not too exhausting but met with my pet peeves again and again, the lawless cyclists of Amsterdam.

I would that the police conducted more checks on cyclists at traffic lights who ignore the signs and most especially the ones that ride at night without lights.

It was bad enough that you could not see oncoming bicycles approaching at speed or those coming up from behind so as to take them into consideration, then there were the ones in front who rode oblivious of other road users without high-visibility clothing.

Rules for cyclists broken

The worst situation was with cyclists riding up the wrong way without giving way to those who had right-of-way and I met up with many as I cursed under my breath at the irresponsibility and carelessness of the riders.

I remember that it was my care and concern from a lady cyclist in front of me on a foggy night without lights that held me up the day I got beaten up by drink-and-drug fuelled Moroccans.

It is utterly unacceptable but in Amsterdam cyclists ride as if there are no rules, no laws and they had right of way in all circumstances against cars and public transport.

There is this underlying vice of impatience that pushes them on, they just cannot been seen to stop but some to get stopped and wheeled away, then between the feelings of sympathy and indifference you realise that no matter how fast you are, you are not going beyond your destination – so why the rush?

Nigeria: Addressing sports corruption

They pulled it off

The Commonwealth Games 2010 in New Delhi, India have finally come to an end as what had all the makings of a farce suddenly transmogrified into a miracle of possibilities we never thought India could pull off.

The very first gold medal of the games went to Nigeria and it almost persuaded me to get interested in the events, I watched the swimming qualifiers, some of the running, a little of the cycling.

It never occurred to me that the selected national anthem for England was interminably long; at least twice I thought we were at the end and we were just about halfway through.

Sometimes, it makes you wonder why the English should be singing “Jerusalem” instead of the more rousing “Land of Hope and Glory” or the more solemn “I vow to thee my country.”

Won, lost and disgraced

In any case it was not the winning of medals that captured the news but the losing of supposed wins, the 100m female final that had the winner adjudged a false-start after she had taken the lap of honour and the spoils going to the Nigerian, who after her own lap of honour lost it for the dishonourable conduct of drug doping [1].

The pain threshold of the Nigerian had been tested since she apparently had toothache and took a “remedy” for this condition which then happened to a banned substance.

The jury might be out between the inadvertent and the deliberate but one is left rather deflated after the elated victory by technical default turned into ignominy, infamy and shame for being caught out as a cheat.

The pain of stimulation

To all the protestations of the Nigerian officials as the lady was stripped of her medal and ready for the impending disgrace I could find no place where Methylhexanamine [2] is used as an analgesic and if needed for medication is used as a nasal decongestant, might well be used for hypertrophied (swelling) or hyperplasic (cell multiplication) oral tissues which could be as a result of toothache but is no indication this drug has that therapeutic property.

It is more generally used as a stimulant and hence can give the users undue advantage in sports competition. As that matter was being handled, another Nigerian tested positive and though he did not lose a medal having come sixth, he had compounded the ignominy that Nigeria had already been subjected to.

The doping and testing chase

The issue here is that people try to cut corners, gain advantage and short-cut their way to success without the hard graft with the hope that they do not get caught out.

Testing is getting more sophisticated just as doping is taking on a more scientific bent that leaves testers in a catch-up game.

Maybe the Nigerians were already behind the curve on the doping game and having been promised the possibility of getting past the testers for victories that could bring amazing rewards; they threw caution to the winds and dared to do the ignoble.

Helping the sportspersons

One would think sportspersons and their handlers were quite conversant of the requirements for sportsmanship and the stringent testing procedures that attend to professional athletes.

Maybe sportspersons can no longer use over-the-counter medication for the fear of being caught doping and maybe certain foods need to be reviewed for doping content but the sports officials should be in close supervision of their wards and ensure they are not endangered by either ignorance or temptation.

It would unfortunate if sportspersons are not allowed to use medication for pain relief, common colds or flu just because they might gain undue competitive advantage.

In fact, along with the list of banned substances, there should be a list of commonly accepted medication for ailments that require self-medicated relief without the compromise of cleanliness in sport.

The aftermath

Much as other nationals were also caught doping, the third Nigerian caught probably did the greatest damage to our reputation because that disgraceful act cost us 2 silver medals, the one she won as an individual and that as part of a relay team.

In this case, this was an outright doping case of using testosterone prohormone and in the case of the second and third culprits they waived the option to have their B samples tested – they had been caught out, fair and square.

Probably the rewards for sporting success are great from the accolades of adulation to monetary gain and honours but at what cost?

Some have said maybe doping should be allowed to see exactly to what limits the body can be exerted in the pursuit of glory and the breaking of heretofore unbroken records but do we want to see people or drugged up constructs of flesh, blood and bones masquerading as human doing the impossible?

Retribution

Whichever way the people decide to vote, the battering Nigeria continues to suffer by reason of its representatives in international competitions or on the political stage has to stop; there is no reason for our sportspersons to imitate the kleptomaniacs, cheats and corrupt people who have saddled Nigeria with disrepute.

For change should come from all of us, especially sportspersons who are exposed and are role models whose positive image would in some ways inspire others to excellence through hard work rather than through cheating.

We probably need a sporting crimes body to manage that part of human endeavour in Nigeria as we have for financial crimes, a body to investigate and adjudicate on these matters with regards to Nigerians.

They would have a docket full of corruption investigations into our football management, sports doping, and the matters of selection, participation, loyalty and patriotism in service to Nigeria. These people are supposed to be the standard bearers of the National Pledge inspiring others to national duty.

Culprits should know that there is a lot more at stake than losing medals and facing bans – this is another part of the rebranding Nigerian exercise that needs looking into.

Sources

[1] BBC Sport - Commonwealth Games: Damola Osayemi loses gold medal

[2] Methylhexanamine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] BBC Sport - Commonwealth Games 2010: Third Nigerian tests positive

The National Anthem of England

I vow to thee, my country

Nigeria: Our way about things

Reviewing old events

I found myself in a phone call yesterday evening that developed into a post-mortem of an event I attended the weekend before.

One had castigated the arrangements and organisation of the event but this was now a time to offer excuses for failings in the hope that the focus would be taken off those that were clearly responsible for the atrocious circumstances we found ourselves in.

Time and again, we find ourselves short-changed by our leadership, the people selected to represent us and the others they choose to surround themselves with.

Business as usual

Patronage, nepotism and familiarity offers a sense of comfort in lieu of efficiency and competence, the result of which the parties end up in a situation where they cannot challenge each other to do better and achieve any level of excellence.

Good money can be paid to get professionals to do a job but the scent of money amongst a cabal of sycophants in the sight of power leaves charlatans pretending to ability and after the debacle they are never in fear of being made accountable having pocketed a tidy sum for doing the barest minimum.

When mothers speak

But like every educated middle-class Nigerian mother might have once said to their kids, their approval of other company usually ranges from – “Too good for my liking.” to “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.”

In both cases, those statements were never ones of approval but they rarely get to the point where they proscribe the relationships but the point is clearly made.

It is with regret also that our official representative having excelled academically still has the village and marketplace atmosphere re-enacted with stomach-churning nostalgia in the northern European climes of The Netherlands.

Maintaining the poor impressions

There is no clamber to improve rather the selfsame narrative is reaffirmed leaving many disappointed but then in the mood of a party the subjective jollity might just distract from objective scrutiny.

Culpability of the dastardly organisation lies with those at the top and to think a religious leader was involved in the arrangements but made a complete hash of the event – you can only begin to imagine the chaos that accompanies the matins and the congregants in fervent supplication.

We deserve better

Did the conversation end with the put-down that should not be repeated? Something along the lines of by translation – A village girl who just happens to have a PhD – good breeding and the penchant for understanding the consequence of wrong delegation and assignment of duties does not come with the accumulation of letters.

When it comes to these people, “of whom little is expected much less is desired.” Nigeria deserves a lot better than this, she surely does.

Getting Adam's apple but missing Eve's bite

Not a job for machines

I have many a time been at loggerheads with management at the workplace where they have refused to manage and tried to use technology to do the job they should be doing as managers.

I could very well remember once when I was asked to monitor the traffic of a particular employee because his manager thought he was not being productive.

My candid view was that the manager should call the person in for a chat and involve Human Resources if required but this was not a job for technology to do.

It is unfortunate that many organisations tend to inject technology into what should be effective interaction with people; it gets so bad that people sitting next to each other spam each other with unnecessarily cumbersome emails to the point that they begin to misunderstand each other and conflict brews.

Bosses using SMS messages to convey serious life-impact decisions because they have no nerve to address the matter face-to-face.

Who says what is?

However, the most amusing development of this kind of abstraction is exemplified in the patent that Apple was granted [1] to censure “age-inappropriate” messages between youngsters on iPhones.

I found that quite amusing because it infers that technology would identify all so-called “age-inappropriate” language with missing the context of the usage of multi-purpose and multi-contextual words like virgin (new, green, immature) cock (bird, prime), sex (gender, spruce), pussy (cat), kiss (proximity, give-up) to give just a few examples.

False security

Obviously, with this patent which is a sop to the angst-ridden parents or guardians and do-gooder child-protection activists there is the assumption that youngsters cannot develop their own parlance and communication to convey meanings uncommon to adults.

One good example of this variation of meaning was given by a commentator a few months ago, “My step-mother is wicked” would traditionally mean she is bad but could well mean that she is fantastic – I see a patent to confusion giving a sense of false security and protection where once the youngsters realise the censorship they’ll either switch phones or extend their vocabulary.

Shirking the right deed

What is required to good education about healthy communication to develop commendable habits not a filter of communication that would no doubt have big holes in to soon even if the filter is adapt to catch changes in usage and context over time.

It could well be used to prevent communication altogether and what is to say in American someone would not challenge the curtailment of free speech because some decency police squad is sat in Apple’s Cupertino Headquarters getting titillated with youngster expression of adult intent.

Apple might well offer a “freedom from porn” guarantee but I am not as convinced that having gotten Adam’s apple they have prevented Eve’s bite.

Source

[1] Apple awarded 'sexting' patent - Telegraph

Nigeria: Louis Theroux: Law and Disorder in Lagos - Review

This was first published at NigeriansTalk.Org

Law and Disorder in Lagos

Louis Theroux the documentary maker and social commentator was in Lagos, Nigeria and his subject was Law and Disorder in Lagos [1], shown on BBC2 on Sunday the 10^th of October 2010.

There had been announcements on the social networking forums so a good number of Nigerians were ready to view programme; I had set my digital video recorder to capture the hour in interesting insight into life in Lagos.

Getting the Context

After the first viewing, I scanned Twitter & Facebook to see the initial reactions to the show and they varied between people who seemed to understand the context of the documentary and those who thought Nigerians were again being portrayed in very bad light.

I decided to have a second viewing of the recorded programme, updated my notes and on the 3^rd viewing began writing this review.

A union and a task force

The first thing to understand about this programme is the context that Mr. Theroux is framing, this was about how Lagos polices itself looking at both sides of the law between the activities of the supposed area chieftains who are members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and the paramilitary Task Force named the Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) given the task of cleaning up Lagos.

The first local chieftain was an androgynous lady called Tawa who being the local chairman of her branch of the NURTW was a heavy of sorts who collected daily union dues from transport operators and illegal levies from shop keepers in the area who were press ganged into paying up or forced to suffer serious consequences by duress and possible violence.

Area boys on the loose

Whilst there might well be a valid case for the union activities in terms of transport workers and union dues, the case for extorting money from shop keepers could not be legally made, it was a protection racket.

These local chieftains had their authority and influence exerted through jobless, rowdy and raucous youths called “area boys” who all apparently bore surgical scars of violent assault that they all said were caused by accidents – they were menacing but considered tough and hence never to be challenged.

It appeared the local chieftains all seemed to have spokespersons that seemed to be quite articulate and oblivious of the sensitivity of their commentary or the daring comparisons they made with the Queen, the Pope or other Western countries.

The Big-man in Oshodi

MC the chieftain in Oshodi who was also the treasurer of the Lagos State NURTW seemed to be a wily political animal that had photo opportunities with various celebrities and even the state government.

His demeanour was that of ostentation and hedonism exemplified in the revelation that he bought his shoes from Milan and Naples in Italy. He seemed to be a benevolent absolute monarch over his entire exerting absolute control and having everyone genuflect in obeisance and fear of his reach and domineering influence.

His residence was the epitome of “bling” with no one questioning why a union boss or a treasurer at that should be doling out wads of cash with no discernable industry supporting the funds he seemed to have to hand out.

A denial too palpable

The menacing nature of these local chieftains who seemed aloof of the fray but with enough to instil fear in the populace was self-evident and the underlings all seemed to be ready for a fight with one of the guides conceding that they do not take stock of the loss of life in the event of violence.

This part of the disorder which had the “area boys” volatile and easily provoked that for each gathering there was some sudden unexplained fracas had MC maintain that “area boys” were neither hoodlums nor hooligans, they were boys in an area and they were not jobless.

The “area boys” themselves in their own words wanted jobs, peace and the ability to do something with their hands – I cannot say I saw any impetus by the chieftains or the government to provide opportunities to these youth, so the life of crime and the toleration of protection rackets thrives in Lagos, and that is the truth about the disorder.

Out to do law

The KAI Task Force were uniformed paramilitary personnel with the powers of arrest, the authority to demolish illegal structures built on state property, detain street traders and hawkers and to ensure that people adhered to the mandatory environmental sanitation cleaning exercise on the last Saturday of the month.

The KAI Task Force had apparently served notices on people in structures to be demolished but many seemed to ignore those notices until they were met with the desperate and heart-rending situation of moving their goods as the bulldozers moved in.

In some ways, the victims of these clear-outs might have been duped into thinking they were legal tenants of unscrupulous landlords and others were none the wiser as to what constituted a legal structure and the definition of legality seemed to be decided on the whim and exuberance of the KAI Task Force.

Inverted logic

Dreaded as the KAI Task Force were with the ability to call on armed reinforcements, the leader of the Task Force did show some mercy and compassion on arrested violators of the cleaning exercise who had children.

However, the logic around using the arrest of small fry violator street hawkers to get at the godfathers of the activities who could easily ignore their insignificant little troops whilst perpetrating their trade was a bit stretched.

The Task Force did not think it was their business to get to the bottom of the problem, as long as they took people off the street, they were duly enforcing the law of the land.

Culpability of the government

What came out of this documentary was how the government seemed to sanction the illegal and legal parts of maintaining a modicum of order in Lagos and the way they mollified the volatility of the “area boy” network by conferring some legitimacy on these “Mafia-like godfather” trade union executives whose remit continually crossed into illegal and violent conduct without the people being able to question their activities.

It did not appear that they were answerable to anyone and they were all hypocritically in denial of the obvious that the “area boys” were a menace, hoodlums, hooligans, jobless, violent and the basis of their areas of influence.

Law and disorder, it was

What this documentary exposed was a clear situation of order and chaos, law and disorder, and violence meted out with impunity and no recourse for justice.

Where a man seemed to question the activities of the “area boys” he was deemed crazy, but then this was not about the respectable who could see the illegalities but to highlight the underbelly of law enforcement outside the usual purview of the police whose cameo appearance in this documentary was quaffing down bottles of alcohol provided by – well, MC.

Sources

[1] BBC News - Law and disorder in Lagos

YouTube - Hard Law in Lagos-Nigeria BBC Documentary by Louis Theroux (Part 1 of 5) - TheInfoStrides.com This link is courtesy of a tweet by @nkemifejika but with Finnish sub-titles.

For those not in Britain who couldn't catch Law and Disorder in Lagos, here's a shaky version on YouTube. http://bit.ly/9VaX7g