Thought Picnic: This is really heckling in church

The nuisance of mobiles

Just over a week ago, just as the New York Philharmonic were concluding Mahler’s Ninth Symphonic a mobile phone went off with its iPhone Marimba ring-tone and it became such a nuisance that the conductor stopped the orchestra to get the culprit to check and stop that ringing. [NYTimes]

The view is conductors rarely ever stop an orchestra in flow but this warranted an extraordinary action. Now, it is to be expected that when we go in to attend performances at the theatre or watch films at the cinema that people silence their phones not to constitute a nuisance and affect the enjoyment of others including themselves during the show.

There have been instances where actors have called out to people to switch off their phones in the middle of a performance though I have not heard of any occasion where such a culprit has been asked to leave the premises, but that I feel should eventually become the norm for the purposes of showing such recklessness and indifference will not be condoned in public.

Multilingualism in church

When I attend an event, I very much want to concentrate on the purpose of the event than be distracted by other attendees whose enthusiasm appears to override the social necessity to be decorous in polite company.

Nothing is as annoying as to be heckled by miscreants in the audience whatever their gripe to the discomfort of others.

My church is a young vibrant church, we can be exuberant and loud especially in the singing and the applause – it comes with the territory. There are people who dance, some jump though I have not seen anyone do cartwheels or somersaults yet, such will not be out of place for the part of the programme that will accommodate such expression.

Having stood before a church to speak before, I can understand the difficulties in maintaining flow if for every sentence spoken there is need for interpretation, my pastors are experts at this, they never skip a beat.

I was however amused with context and translation this morning when the call to prayer in Dutch had the words “U bent Heer” that the interpreter, bless his wonderful heart interpreted as “You are here” when I really think in context of the prayer what was meant was “You are Lord”. You can imagine that if native Dutch speakers mishear each other, those of us who are by no means word perfect have no chance – it did bring a wry smile to my face as this was repeated twice. It goes to show how “hier” (here) and “heer” (Lord) can be confused, then again, I might be wrong.

What we expect elsewhere

If I were to attend a lecture and for every valid point the lecturer made that sounded profound there was someone loudly acknowledging those points, I am sure the lecturer might at one point for all the compliments to his views be inclined to advise the person to be quiet and show their appreciation at the end of the lecture.

If in secular settings we maintain a modicum of consideration and behavioural adjustment with respect to people speaking to an audience it is disconcerting that church allows an almost unforgivable level of levity that is quite distracting that it can almost be considered heckling.

Speakeasy at church

I have sat through many a sermon in my church and had my attentiveness seriously disrupted by such interruptions, there are times during the preaching that certain things are said where a majority of the attendance at church interacts and responds, those are quite understandable, however, where every single sentence elicits a vocal egging on as if we are in some speakeasy environment one is caught between maintaining the peace and wanting to once and for all shut that person up.

Such was the feeling I had this morning and I am sure there were many more in church who felt just the same. In a church of a few hundred people one person cannot singularly be the most engaged and responsive to the preacher beyond everyone else that we are so annoyingly inconvenienced with the equivalent of for the purposes of churchianity – cat calls – because in any other setting, that is what they are – unnecessary, over-exuberant and inconsiderately selfish expressions of agreement with the preacher without the temperance of social graces to recognise that the setting is there for more than just the overly receptive attendee.

Something has to give

If this matter is not curtailed as it begins to irk at the level of the high-decibel grunts of female tennis players, there will be one almighty disruption of a sermon just like the conductor stopped the orchestra to deal with the ringing mobile phone hopefully to put an end to this situation.

I love my fellow church members, we are all there for reasons of fellowship and communion, but let no person use their liberty to create a stumbling block for others. I had better let my pastor read this because I am sure; I am not the only one who is beginning to feel quite strongly about this.

Nigeria: #OccupyNigeria New York townhall disruption

On Sahara Reporters

Now, I am not the greatest fan of Sahara Reporters but I realise that in a country like Nigeria the need for a guerilla news agency beyond the reach of government or powerful influences is critical and important.

I have always contended that they need to be more professional with a better editorial policy, an independent funding arrangement and some control of the quality of commentary that accompanies their stories.

As I learnt to my chagrin and annoyance, some two years ago having praised Sahara Reporters on my blog, their editorial team ripped off my article wholesale and posted it verbatim without acknowledgement or attribution and gave the impression I was a guest blogger when I was not at all.

The interesting knowledge gained from that experience was when I eventually got to see the 33 or so comments posted with relation to my write-up only one appeared to comprehend fully what I was talking about, the rest of the comments were redolent of ignorance and a strange pall of illiteracy that put keyboards at the fingertips of cretins.

Some lessons

Recently, the front-man of Sahara Reporters attended a town-hall meeting in New York where the Minister of State of Foreign Affairs was the guest of honour. He successfully disrupted the meeting which was recorded and posted on YouTube and he made some very crucial points that representatives of Nigeria going abroad will pay heed to appreciate and note.

We are well informed of activities in Nigeria and the global cachet of Nigerians is able to project and protest anywhere in the world.

The idea that Nigerian dignitaries can utilise African time when going to events abroad where we do keep to time and are punctual will no more be condoned. In this case the Minister was shamefully 90 minutes late.

We are not in thrall of people in power, if you are in public service, the element of service to your countrymen has to be paramount, the idea that you will be revered as some potentate with an air of mystique is so last century.

Patriarchy is dead, if you are expectant of respect by reason of the office you hold, you will have to earn it by merit, with competence and the honest engagement that accords respect to the people you desire respect from.

Causing serious embarrassment

The Occupy Nigeria movement has a global outreach and it is evident that despite the fact that the President in his concessional speech revisiting the fuel subsidy issues by promising to cut unnecessary travel, this minister was almost aimlessly gallivanting around the United States with the penchant for arriving late at all events she was invited to.

Though there were Nigerians in Diaspora ready to fawn in supine sycophancy in the presence of Nigerian politicians the goal of Mr Sowore was to call out this minister and in the process address the burning issues going on in Nigeria whilst embarrassing the minister seriously for her classless and reprehensible behaviour, not to talk of the inability of the government to really cut back on the profligacy that had become part of the gripes of the Occupy Nigeria movement.

Mr Sowore made his point by disrupting the meeting and he probably could have been a bit less volatile and abusive in his delivery so as to make even more reasonable points. The meeting eventually commenced after that representation of Occupy Nigerian were escorted out of the venue by the New York Police Department but not before an 11 minute recording had been made which will have the minister having to do some explaining and clarification with regards to what that video clip purports to suggest.

Reviewing the video clip

Without doubt every news organ has an agenda and it behoves them to pursue it with fervour, but it also important that the organ maintains a principle of credibility and integrity for purposes of posterity.

I cannot say if Mr Sowore’s edition of that video had sinister intentions to embarrassing all Nigerian representatives to the point that their positions become untenable. That might be scalps for Sahara Reporters but it does their cause no good at all.

At issue with that video is the idea that the minister and representatives of the Nigerian Embassy in New York sat through the recitation of the Nigerian National Anthem and a cursory viewing of that video appears to suggest that they disrespected the National Anthem and the ensuing consequences will be grave. Many of the comments I have read had both excoriated and condemned those officials but I not convinced that they did sit through that fervent expression of patriotism.

Within the first 1:07 minutes of that recording, there is enough evidence to indicate that the editing of this film clip has either deliberately or inadvertently besmirched the loyalty of these officials.

I have taken timings in playing back that video at normal speed and detailed my observations to support my view.

00:00 The lead in to this video clip introduces the subject of this recording.

00:04 The national anthem was already being sung as the narrator began to set the stage for the event.

00:14 The man at the podium was talking to the audience from what one can see of his demeanour; he could not have been doing this whilst the national anthem was being sung, indicating the audio recording of the anthem was dubbed over the video.

00:30 The lady that approaches the podium after the man also appears to be talking to the audience.

00:35 The lady glances toward the high table as if to acknowledge the people sat there.

00:38 The lady in the black jacket walked over to confer with the lady speaking at the podium.

00:42 The camera pans to the back of the lady in red who appears to be holding a microphone and maybe asking questions – at no other time are we shown the audience singing the National Anthem after the glimpse at the beginning of the clip.

00:59 The clapping at the end of the audio playback of the national anthem appears to be in acknowledgement of the man getting up on the right as he makes for the podium. The minister and the other man are clapping too, it cannot have been for the end of the national anthem.

01:05 As the man approaches the podium we hear the voice of Mr Sowore who seems to have commandeered the microphone and you can see the attention of those sat at the high table directed towards him.

My submission

I will suggest that no matter how late meetings start for Nigerian gatherings there will most probably be a call to prayer and the singing of the national anthem.

In both cases, I will expect that the master of ceremonies will expressly as all in attendance to rise for prayer and then rise for the singing of the national anthem.

It is unlikely that the singing of the national anthem will be a spontaneous activity and hence if the people are asked to rise to sing the national anthem it is almost impossible to contemplate the situation where those at the high-table with expressly ignore that request and sit through the national anthem.

By circumstance, tradition or even rarity, one has to submit that the video was an edited version of the event which inadvertently portrays a side of the story that does not represent the whole truth and by so suggesting the official disrespected the national anthem – there is no indication from that clip that those officials did not rise for the national anthem and until one expressly shows that they did not respect the anthem it will be unjust to suggest impunity.

I will be ready to review any other recordings of this event either to corroborate or dispute my views but this video by commission or omission on the matter of respecting the national anthem is unfair, unjust and heaps opprobrium on the officials to foster an ulterior and dastardly motive which is at best unconscionable if not dishonest.

Nigeria: Our acceptance of religiously sanctioned child abuse

The rights of the child

This is one subject that I have always found myself returning to – it is the dehumanisation of children by adults in society to all sorts of ends which we today have to question, contemn and condemn.

In a conversation with a friend I met in India, though born in the United States, he had a Sudanese heritage and he worried about bringing up his children in the United States because children appeared to have certain rights that he thought trammelled the control parents should have over their kids.

Now, whilst I appreciate the need for discipline in the home, it does not completely remove the right of a child to be able to respond, react or protest – in my retort I suggested that the West appears to give anyone born into their society a modicum of rights which the state does well to protect.

Child abuse in our society

If parents have not for all sorts of reasons been able to foster an atmosphere of love and care that prompts the child, the neighbours or other vested persons to report the parents to the authorities for alleged abuse, it cannot be the fault of the child that certain elements of good parenting have failed.

Child abuse remains a problem in many societies be it emotional, physical or sexual and nowhere is it more prevalent when we attempt to find cultural or religious justifications for meting it out, condoning it, tolerating it or covering it up.

In Nigeria, we have acquiesced without question the egregious abuse of children with impunity by our religious leaders who we hold in thrall and are so fearful of by reason of terror that originally derives from expected instant retribution of animist gods and fetishes than from the more reasonable and just deities of the religions we have acquired.

Recent examples

Recently, it has been child sexual abuse that has thrived and been swept under the carpet for years until the intervention of foreign law agencies intervened and brought the perpetrator to book.

There was another where a child was given in marriage and this was approved by religious bodies ready to go nuclear if the civil authorities dared to question the offender.

However, the most heart-rending has been the stigmatisation of children in South-Eastern Nigeria accused of witchcraft then physically abused with acts that will not be foreign to mediaeval torture dungeons. Sadly, even the reasonable and the powerful found it difficult to stem this atrocious heinous criminality in the name of religion that it took an NGO to publicise these nasty harmful practices for the government to attempt to curb the injustices.

The methods of determining the witchcraft abilities of these children are more than suspect, the code simply finds its strength in superstition and the wanton abuse of the vulnerable, the dramatic scenes enforcing the vague dread of the supernatural on the faithful as they lose the sense of justice and gumption in aid of these cultish and abhorrent acts of unconscionable religious abuse.

A Bishop’s strange example

The one that however causes the greater consternation is the YouTube video that went viral a few weeks ago though the recorded event happened some years before. Bishop David Oyedepo who is the presiding bishop of Living Faith Church World Wide also known as a chain of churches called Winners Chapel and the chancellor of the “Christian-based” Covenant University slapped a girl in a church service during a session of ministering to people who had come forward for spiritual help.

The bishop has gone on to boast about what he did and that is his prerogative but there is a more fundamental point that needs addressing on this matter.

One should find it incredulous that a supposed witch ready to exhibit witchcraft powers regardless of her utterances would have gone forward for an altar call to be assaulted and humiliated in what some might call deliverance but sadly, the bishop was not disposed to offer the deliverance the supposed “witch for Jesus” went forward for.

And compassion?

Now, Bishop Oyedepo holds a doctorate degree in Human Development and even from a secular perspective one would suppose he understands mental health issues that should separate the core personality of an prospective patient from the influences that alter the character of the person.

On watching the video again, the bishop appeared to be addressing two different personalities, the first with regards to whoever or whatever he might have termed the “foul devil” and the second with regards to where the girl came from.

There are many instances in the Bible during Jesus’ time where it was narrated the people were possessed and exhibited incredible and unnatural tendencies by reason of the influences they were under but fundamentally Jesus reached for the person in compassion delivering them from their afflictions because that was His mission – to set the captives free.

The bishop with his posse of almost 10 men who took the stage behind him did not feel inclined to minister grace, love, compassion or the slightest sympathy to those who stepped forward that it looked like a spectacle for the audience that would not have been out of place at the Roman Coliseum when Nero fed Christians to the lions for entertainment.

What we saw

However, the bigger issue is what example and what message this sends out to other practitioners of deliverance or exorcism in the guise of religious authority because what was evident from that video and many related to this matter is that the vulnerable are open to abuse with impunity from religious leaders and these religious leaders will face no sanction or prosecution.

Meanwhile, these sometimes helpless and vulnerable persons who have hoped and wished they will get some succour and respite from their torments or afflictions are forced back down; back into their shells twice humiliated for coming forward, then getting assaulted and left literally bereft of the possible last hope they might have had for what in our highly superstitious environment is spiritual bondage and outside the purview of medical help.

Our religious leaders are human

Religious leaders in Nigeria seem to have untrammelled fiat to act as they will as if instructed directly by omniscient deity and our supernatural dread borne of residual animist belief systems allow us to acquiesce to any of their actions without question.

The reality is, subconsciously we have allowed mortal and fallible men of God to become the gods of men, overarching in their power, overbearing in their influence and never answerable to the temporal but only to the spiritual to be absolute domineers of our will, intellect and intelligence in feckless display of appallingly supine humility.

Whilst, what a religious leader does within the setting of their followership might well be argued to be their prerogative and undergirded by the freewill of their flock, the extremes of such unquestioned followership are exemplified in the Jonestown massacre.

We have to ask ourselves time and again of our religious leaders, how closely are we so ready to follow them that we cannot cut loose if beyond the mesmerism of their control our intellect informs us that we are on the road to perdition?

Our responsibility

What is wrong is wrong and the sooner we realise that religious leaders are flesh and blood like us, suffer that same issues we do, are tempted as we are and can be as error-prone as anyone of us, our folly will get the better of us and we will only have ourselves to blame for helping to perpetrate criminality masquerading as religious activity.

The responsibility remains that of the adult and enlightened individual to have the discernment and ability to see right from wrong, question the atrocious and make independent decisions. If we lose rational thought in the pursuit of faith, I dare say we are neither rational nor in faith but stupid.

Nigeria: #OccupyNigeria and Occupy their lives

Uttering nonsense

When a man is unable to allow his utterances be controlled by his cranial matter we assume the person is drunk because alcohol has a way of loosening the tongue. If there is no sign that the person is inebriated we begin to question the mental capacity of the person and words like stupid, dolt, idiot or cretin come to mind.

However, if such a person falls into neither category because we are aware of the person’s intellect and his bearing is such that alcohol and stupidity are excluded, you are left to wonder and ponder at what the issue might be.

Running Nigeria is neither for the inebriated nor the stupid, it is a job that calls on all faculties; the exhibited ones need to be alert, sharp and commanding of the authority and bearing expected of such who dare to lead.

Taking stock

The time has come and the time is now that we can no more acquiesce to low expectations and levels of achievement that are redolent of indolence rather than hardworking effective and efficient leadership.

In our 6^th decade of independence, we have no time for people learning on the job, lacking aims, plans, mission or a vision as to where they intend to take Nigeria in the short term and at the end of their term in office.

Our democratic experiment is now close to concluding its 13^th year and what we have seen more of is profligacy, prodigality, waste, corruption and a lack of accountability. Billions of dollars have been ploughed into infrastructure as power, roads, transport, rail, health and education but there has been very little to show for those investments.

Rather our legislators have growth fat on the largesse of the country earning humongous sums that will make the eyes of real creators of jobs and masters of industry water – to think from anecdotal evidence that our federal legislators earn more than presidents or leaders of more advanced economies and then to see a paltry work rate that is self-serving rather than in the service of the people is unconscionable, dishonest, corrupt and unsustainable.

Things are NOT changing

However, the biggest question remains what plans do they all have for the progress of Nigeria and when will they stop promising and start delivering?

After the 2 weeks of Occupy Nigeria and the strikes that ended yesterday, it appears the reluctant government in perpetual inertia was forced to be responsive albeit unilateral in all their decision-making dispensing of the rule of law for expediency and convenience that the legislature is found having to exert itself as the usually careless overseer of executive excess.

And careless they have been because they have still not addressed the criminally fraudulent matter of noticing the executive budgeted N250bn for fuel subsidies in 2011 and actually had spent N1.3trn by September and they are asking for more to cover the whole of 2011.

It still beggars belief that there are no checks and moderating influences over the executive to ensure they do not overspend without recourse to the legislature and if they do, there are no sanctions and repudiations to be made to all responsible with the possibility of criminal prosecution.

It is incredible that any organ of government can overspend by 500% and the other organs of government abdicate their responsibility with impunity; it indicates how corruption has eaten into the fabric of Nigerian governance that it is impossible for it to reform without some radical act of the people or God forbid some other intervention that forcibly resets this untenable and flagrant abuse of democratic processes.

We are caught as I once said before in the grip of an unconscionable kakistocracy – it is the government by the worse people ever selected to be in leadership.

Doing the worst of the least

Just before words could be taken out of our mouths, the president when addressing certain youths who in their excellence might abdicate their initiative and innate abilities for subservience to the government we have today, he said, “If we cannot build good roads for our children; if we cannot leave hospitals for them, then one thing we must not leave for them is debt, for them to come and pay.”[1]

I have been trying to get my head round what the president really meant by this statement because try as I might, I have found it impossible to make anything positive of it.

Then to think someone thought this statement was so positively profound that is was the quote on the FrontPage advertisement of BusinessDay just shows how low our expectations of this government have precipitously fallen that the government is not even exerting itself to anything at all.

Nigeria needs roads and she needs hospitals, those will contribute to the lifeblood of our economy and wellbeing. Even theoretical economists who always tend to leave out the serious human dimension in their modelling know that road infrastructure and healthcare are critical elements of development that if we end up in debt facilitating such the long term economic benefits will eventually pay off the debts.

A race to ruin

What I read here is a man that we have in elected office as president who has no vision for the country, he is as laidback as a rug with not particular goals apart from the default of not leaving the debts to our children whilst in the 5 years that he has been running mate either as vice-president or president he has presided over such an expansion of government to no end but for the aggrandisement of their debauched lifestyles of untold opulence leaving nothing for the people.

It is a race to ruin that does not address the real problems that affect the country be it corruption, profligacy or the security deficit that allows a high-level terrorist suspect to escape from custody at a time when the country is in a heightened state of security.

Occupy their lives

This, my friends can no more continue, we have another 40 months of this regime and something must give, it cannot be the people giving in to business as usual anymore, we need to make these people responsible, accountable and earning each kobo of their keep.

Our Occupy Nigeria movement needs to spearhead a series of tenacious occupations, we must occupy their minds, occupy their thoughts, occupy their time, occupy their space, occupy their lives, audit their time, audit their spend, audit their lives, micro-manage all their activities and call each and every one who takes money from the Nigerian coffers to account.

Politics in Nigeria must stop being a cushy job of high-living in ostentatious consumption to feed insatiable hedonistic appetites, these people should be too busy to find time for such excess and if they cannot stand the heat, they should resign.

Occupy and force change for the better

If a politician is not ready to put their best forward and make Nigeria the main priority of their lives with everything Nigeria being front and centre of their focus, it is time for them to retire with no benefits, they should take to life like all other Nigerians do. Enough of this nonsense, enough of the rottenness that is eating this country to the core and enough of the clueless leadership that needs to be given a good boot kick in the backside to start performing.

Occupy Nigeria for the change we deserve and we either force these people to do it or force them out but by God, we will not wait until 2015 for this indolence to become so ingrained that the future would have been eternally mortgaged to this looming debacle and apology of a state of affairs.

Occupy! The time is now.

Source

[1] Jonathan blames politicians for Nigeria's woes | Premium Times Nigeria

Editorial: #OccupyNigeria for reforming our democracy

Personal Goodluck, Nigeria’s bad luck

Nigeria has been caught in the wave of revolutionary fervour as some might suggest and this has all been triggered by the amazing deftness of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Like King Midas of old his wish to have everything he touched turn to gold had been granted only that what has gained affinity to his touch is the Nigerian coffers. As the proverbial 1^st Lord of the Treasury he has presided over a profligate and wasteful consumption of resources all to maintain a life of unseemly opulence along with his cohorts rather than address the matter of progressive leadership of Nigeria - He is both prodigal and a spendthrift.

An overly costly government

The expansion of government that allows for three-quarters of revenue to go into recurrent expenditure is untenable, unsustainable and unconscionable but his government fattened on the largesse of Nigeria’s good have neither the discipline nor restraint for a diet that will cut government excess, government waste and corrupt expense.

For the past few months, they had set their eyes on fuel subsidy with the view to completely removing it and promising to invest those proceeds in public infrastructure, primary health and social development schemes.

The fact is the government has no track record in concluding any of those schemes in Nigeria, in most cases the government has majored in vacuous good intentions offered as promises, none of which ever get to see the light of day. Goodluck Jonathan sadly leads a hopeless and hapless clinging to forlorn hope; there is no reason or basis to find any iota of optimism in anything he has to say to the Nigerian people.

Guessing and paying off the charts

Three months ago, I wrote Editorial: Nigerian Government Dishonesty About Fuel Subsidy in which I noted the discrepancies between the estimated cost of the subsidy and the actual cost that was inflated 5 times more than the budgeted cost.

Besides, it appears no one is sure of what the cost of subsidising fuel is, the Central Bank in its MPC Meeting minutes suggested that the cost was about $6 billion, the on-going debate in the Nigerian Senate suggests the Federal Government budgeted NGN 240 billion ($1.54 billion) for subsidies in 2011 but have found that cost inflated to NGN 1.5 trillion ($9.6 billion) in what is a looking like a typical Nigerian scam. [CBN (PDF) Page 3][All Africa]

What is amazing is how the legislature or any vested party is not in apoplectic rage at this malfeasance in the executive by carpeting those involved and prosecuting the principals for the fraudulent misuse of Nigerian funds – the idea that the executive could overspend by 500% and no one be called to account beggars belief but also shows how complicit the whole democratic system is in the endemic corruption that makes the cost of this Nigerian democracy unsustainable.

Incubating #OccupyNigeria

I feared that the government might expect the so-called “resilience” of Nigerians to allow them implement this blatant corrupt enterprise to feather their over-pampered nests on the premise that they were doing Nigerians some great good that I did suggest that if the people will not take to the streets the army should come out of the barracks and reset this brigandage of wanton debauchery masquerading as the government of the people.

Goodluck Jonathan however forced his hand just like King Midas of old when he touched his beloved daughter and she turned to gold. He announced that he was removing fuel subsidy on New Years Day and that set in motion the movement called #OccupyNigeria.

Nigerians came out to protest against their government that the usually indolent and overpaid legislature came out of recess to discuss the matter.

Meanwhile ministers and stooges of the government took on the airwaves to threaten the people and make pronouncements that could only sound acceptable in Nigeria, because most of those pronouncements if spoken by Western politicians who are regularly our examples of convenience would have those politician blabbermouths out of a job before sundown.

Stop the killing

However, other knowledgeable and articulate Nigerians countered each and every claim the government put forward, as they set their dogs (security personnel) upon the people killing some by reason of the savage and barbaric Force Order 237 which according to the Amnesty International report “instructs police officers in “riot” situations to “single out” and fire at “ring-leaders in the forefront of the mob” ”and “directs officers to fire “at the knees of the rioters” and explicitly prohibits firing in the air.” [Amnesty]

It makes you wonder how policing has been allowed to thrive in Victorian impunity for the convenience of presumably 21^st Century politicians, it is shocking and a shame that we have policing standards that make the Apartheid massacres look tame.

Global Nigerian unrest

With Nigerians in civil unrest that has taken on a global significance with demonstrations in Europe and America as well and the labour unions acquiescing by ordering indefinite strikes one can only hope that the people who matter are not enticed by unscrupulous means that the government has adopted in bribing the hungry and the unprincipled to speak up for the atrociously untenable.

There is no doubt that the fuel subsidy should go but only after we have achieved local sufficiency of the refined product; the government should address the real problem of the corrupt nexus of officials and companies robbing us blind whilst facilitating the development and effective functioning of our local refineries working to capacity.

Beyond fuel subsidies

#OccupyNigeria is however now beyond the matter of fuel subsidies, it has to go the heart of the cost of our democracy that demands swingeing cuts to not just basic salaries but to allowances and perks that are beyond belief. All allowances should be cut to a fraction of the basic salaries of politicians which are in any case already excessively huge.

Going into politics in Nigeria should lose the allure of untold riches paid for sanctioned indolence, politics should be about selfless service with Nigerians only meeting basic middle-class needs of our politicians – if these people need more they should go get a job elsewhere, Nigeria’s udders have been milked to incurable sourness by political jobbers at all levels of government.

Sadly, the government of Goodluck Jonathan with the once excellent but now terribly disappointing Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala are incapable of implementing reform but one hopes that after they have been stunned by the forceful and determined reaction of Nigerians they will move to cut costs, cut waste, prosecute the frauds, restore the subsidy, lay off the majority of advisers, cut unnecessary ministries and ministerial posts, impose economy on the legislature, partner in building working refineries that will obviate the need for the subsidy and dare to earn our trust.

We could not have imagined a Nigerian version of the Arab Spring but today we have a Nigeria of all tribes and persuasion united as one for that entity called Nigeria and the identity that is Nigerian - #OccupyNigeria is our Nigerian Harmattan of Discontent and long may it continue until our democracy begins to represent its people, our aspirations and our hopes and the people we have elected to lead us begin to serve.

Tweets of interest

RT @resourcedat: DOWNLOAD KPMG REPORT ON NNPC: http://is.gd/JkOXaw Need to read this - Favourite it. An embarrassing catalogue of corruption, ineptitude and waste that should have had ministers, officials and company executives shot in a former time.

@ElRufai Interview on AIT on Fuel Subsidy – YouTube bit.ly/ye1xWz He takes it all apart and the government has no comeback. Someone to be credited for knowing the workings of the Nigerian government and exposing its failings.

RT @disgeneration: Fuel subsidy removal: Nigeria’s Finance Minister speaks to Al Jazeera http://bit.ly/yTxaBZ I could not help but notice her fluency in the parseltongue.

BBC News - Nigeria fuel protests: Union threatens oil shutdown http://bbc.in/w2sITG The government is far from embracing humility.

RT @OKShorty1: @BukkieSho Oil production will be shut in. Nigeria will lose $200m/N33b everyday. < Brought on by government incompetence.

#OccupyNigeria is no more just about reversion of subsidies, it demands a root and branch reform of our government & governance.

Yes, let us end the #OccupyNigeria strikes by getting the government to cut spending, cut waste and restore subsidies.

#OccupyNigeria has gone global - We, the people of Nigeria are out to take our representative democracy back from hoodlums.

…as AGF reads riot act to protesters http://is.gd/pIr8F2 No, we are reading the Riot Act to the Nigerian Government.

The end of paternalism in Nigeria, we'll not be threatened by the people we have elected to serve us, they're accountable to us.

OPS decries effects of strike, urges NLC, TUC to call it off http://is.gd/loz9hA Address the problem head-on, it's the government.

Incredible India - Improving Your Koenig Solutions Experience - Part II

Incubating Part II

Two weeks ago, I wrote a blog titled Incredible India: Improving the Koenig Solutions Brand – Part I, since then, I have thought about what to include in what would become Part II and I have decided it should be about improving your Koenig Solutions experience.

After all that I have written about my experiences in India, I believe given the opportunity again, I would avail myself of Koenig Solutions services if their repertoire of courses extends to include Enterprise Architecture though that would also require getting trainers out of industry rather than just having people with book knowledge of seriously impacting concepts.

Besides, there are other courses that might be of interest too as one tries to keep in line with market developments and establish a niche area of expertise.

Very useful advice

There are however a few key things that will make your experience worthwhile one that I share here comes from someone who is quite conversant with the system and the way things get done in India.

This is what he had to say, “This is India. However much we strive to root out this sort of stuff, ubiquitous chaos, poor English and even carelessness on behalf of some of the lower staff has always been and will always be intrinsically part of the India experience of most of our students.

It takes a while to get used to and find the right mental disposition to tackle. As a rule of thumb, do not take sloppiness from anyone but under all circumstances remain calm and firm about stuff that is not to your liking. Call in the center manager if necessary.

Do not depend on no one. Most staff will never take any initiative whatsoever and will expect you to do so. If people don't understand you, they won't admit to it, thus adding to confusion. When in doubt or unhappy about the answer given or services provided - especially about issues pertaining to hygiene and health, ask to talk to someone else or take it to the reception desk or center manager directly.

Adjust your notion of time. Whereas most of us are punctual on time related issues, the majority of Indian folks are on IFT (Indian Flexible Time) which tends to drive us totally mad on our first India visit.  Never wait till the last minute to make arrangements for something. Anything asked for less than 24 hours before deadline will most probably fail as most people are unfamiliar with concepts like timely resolution or urgency.

These days, I've gotten used to all things you describe and by finding ways to work around them by adjusting my mindset to how things work in India.”

I think this should be on the front page of every tour guide or brochure you get concerning India, it will go a long way to helping you adjust to the severe culture shock you might experience on your visit to India.

Your preparations

In terms of preparations to go to India, these are the things you probably need to note. Whilst most people using Koenig Solutions get a Tourist Visa, be prepared to consider getting a Business Visa and if your stay will be more than 30 days you might have to get an Entry Visa.

If based in Europe obtain information about Koenig Solutions’ bank account in Belgium rather than travelling with thousands of Euros, Pounds or Dollars of Traveller’s cheques.

On arrival in India, if you are unsatisfied with anything, let the management know. Do not be fobbed off with excuses or apologies if you are not satisfied with the proposed resolution. At times, you might be offered compensation which in Indian terms might be huge but in general terms, is paltry if not insulting, be ready to stand your ground and escalate – you paid for a service, get the service you paid for.

Insist on these, all the time

Regarding course material, your books should be shrink-wrapped, if not, they are second-hand books, do not sign the receipts until you have been provided with new books.

For the curriculum delivered from PowerPoint slides, I have found it is quite difficult to take useful and relevant notes – insist on having those PowerPoint slides printed out at no extra cost for you to annotate throughout your training. You cannot annotate electronic copies and to be honest any decent PowerPoint-based training material provides hard copies.

For each test-based curriculum that you take, allow for at least 2 days after the course for study and preparation for the tests. Whilst some might be able to walk into tests and pass immediately after the training, others trying that might find that they will be repeating tests before scoring a pass.

If you have non-lecture days and need to study, the provided accommodations can be quite Spartan; I have however not found out if public libraries are better equipped for this.

Other useful tips

For the cost, I will advise that you hire the mobile Internet dongle because Internet connectivity at both the training centre and the accommodations can be patchy at times.

If you obtain an Indian SIM Card ask that mobile data be enabled as part of the package if you need to use your smartphone to surf the Internet.

Get a TravelCard if you use the New Delhi metro, it means you do not have to join interminably long queues for tokens to travel.

New Delhi of all the Koenig Solutions Training Centres is nearest to Agra some 200 kilometres south this is where the Taj Mahal is located but the road to Agra has Mathura – the birthplace of Krishna with the great statue of goddess Durga, Sikandra where the Tomb of Akbar the Great is – the grandfather of Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal, a good deal of the Agra Fort and the Red Fort back in New Delhi.

It is better to get Koenig Solutions to book a train to Agra or arrange with other colleagues to book a more comfortable bus than the Koenig city transit buses which will also allow you to stop at these other places than just the journey to the Taj Mahal where you are also put in the hands of unscrupulous restaurants or persons ready to fleece you. If you have amongst you someone who speaks Hindi you can get much done and if you have to be really assertive, have one amongst you who is articulate, forceful and insistent on getting the results without backing down.

Be streetwise

When it comes to food, be careful, circumspect and wise. Cooked and cooked well is important, keep off cold vegetarian dishes if you have no resistance to the local bugs. Most visitors pick up Traveller’s Diarrhoea, so pack your Imodium take lots of yoghurt/curd and eat lots of bananas. Lassi is a yoghurt drink that can settle your tummy quite well but don’t even venture Bhang Lassi – it contains cannabis, but you might get more than a high, you could end up in hospital paying bills as part of a medical scam.

For lunch you usually have the choice of McDonald's, Subway, Dominoes or Hakka, then you have to decide between vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes – I stuck with rice in most cases. Haldirams which is a purely vegetarian chain has many choices but be careful what you choose and be sure you have the stomach for that choice.

When shopping, only use reputable shops, it is better to see the price tags up front than attempt to haggle and then realise you have just become a victim of daylight robbery. If you don’t know cashmere you might end up with a fine hybrid of polyester and nylon, the real factory markings are not on the edges of the cloth, if the bales were taken off the shelf, that chalk-like factory marking with the true composition of cloth would have been cut off.

Always negotiate up front for services that do not have a clear price tag – in the end, India can be fun, but you have to be aware, smart and really streetwise with a presence, so you do not get taken for granted and end up the worse for it. Be aggressive if you must and walk away if you can. Click on the Koenig Solutions label below this post to see my other related posts.

Thought Picnic: Some Unsolicited Advice

Enduring hope

I sit here almost exhausted of too many things I could care about with only one thing that keeps me going, I have life and I have hope no matter how remote that seems.

I woke up very early to make my home of 10 years presentable, we are having a photo-shoot of sorts because I have had to put it on the market and the first set of pictures were somewhat unsatisfactory.

Observing and reserving

This rough journey started a few years ago, benign and almost unconcerned a brownish blotch appeared on my left foot and once I noticed it was quick to research it and came down on the view that it was just athlete’s foot, so to the chemist I went can got Mycota cream in what had become a regime of self-medication for decades of my life.

Until then, I probably had only been to see a doctor 5 or 6 times in more than 15 years and I only did because I was in serious pain or needed emergency treatment by reason of a mugging that happened some 8 years ago.

Besides, I was on vitamins and other kinds of supplements, all with the view to keep me healthy and with a mind that seemed to defy all semblances of frailty.

Don’t leave it too late

This time, I was wrong. In the weekend, I finished reading the biography of Steve Jobs and also saw that he was so right and determined in many things but when it came to his health, he was very wrong and by the time he joined up with his doctors to ameliorate the situation, he was already too late in spite of and despite the resources he could call upon to address the situation, the 9 months of folly between discovery and effective professional medical intervention, he was already in terminal decline.

I have been fortunate and lucky, I never had any of the resources he had but in the Netherlands where I moved to over 11 years ago to start a new life we have a medical system and social medicine scheme that can provide the best medical treatment available and I have some of the foremost medical brains on my case.

What looked like athlete’s foot some 9 months before was worse, what I put down to tiredness by reason of a somewhat sedentary life was in fact my life ebbing away, I was at a point where without intervention I would have been dead within 5 weeks – I had skin cancer.

Restarting is tough

It took a hospital bed to ground me to that stark reality, a life almost at zero and the struggle to rebuild my life again and there is much that remains uncertain 27 months after that diagnosis – I have seen plenty and I have seen penury, I have hoped against all hope to do amazing things I could never have done when I seemed to have it all, I have lived a wonderful life.

Despair has probably been kept at bay, depression I have had to contend with and humiliation constantly rams my portals oblivious of the things I have borne, felt or feared – but each day comes and each day goes of what is left of this life and what one must do to make it even more significant if one has that time.

Much of this could have been prevented in terms of immediate medical attention and even before that making certain career choices that might have provided a more secure income stream but like I have written before; if you have your health you dare to think yourself invincible, couple that with youth and you almost think you are immortal – Nothing, my friends could be further from the truth, we are neither invincible nor immortal.

Use doctors well

There is one piece of unsolicited advice I have to give and it pertains to your health. Your health is not a plaything, it is critical to every facet of your wellbeing and without it you only have your hopes to live for if the pain lets up for just a moment.

Medicine is there for a reason and doctors have a function and purpose we will do well to engage. We can if unsatisfied obtain a second, third or fourth opinion but those opinions are not to be trifled with – some things require immediate action despite our foolhardiness or fears; our bodies are not inanimate.

If you have adopted a lifestyle of self-medication and Internet-researched medicine, you need to err on the side of caution. Without the requisite medical knowledge what your research should do is equip you with questions to ask the professionals and ensure you get satisfactory answers but do not ever pretend to become your own doctor – even doctors know to see other doctors for impartial advice and help.

Now for a bit more house-cleaning to do – I used to get someone to do all this for me.