Nigeria: We come to bury Abba Kyari, not to praise him

Mark Anthony: I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
Shakespeare – Julius Ceasar Act 3 Scene 2. [Poetry Foundation]

A disambiguation of similarities

Overnight, I read that the Chief of Staff to the Nigerian President, Abba Kyari, had passed on. Now, I was neither shocked nor moved by the news of his death, I did not know him. It was only recently that I realised there were many unrelated prominent Abba Kyaris in Nigeria. [The Guardian]

The one I was familiar with was a Brigadier Abba Kyari who was the governor of North Central State with the capital of Kaduna from 1967 to 1975, during Yakubu Gowon’s regime.

Being such a prominent member of President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet, with an extensive portfolio bordering on a megalomaniacal abuse of power, his loss to the government would be hard felt and as one would expect, hagiographies would be posted with reckless abandon to the praise of the man. One even dared suggest he sacrificed his life to the country. The jury would never reach a favourable decision on that assertion.

The hubris of prominence

Abba Kyari had succumbed to the Coronavirus having returned from Germany a few weeks before, he had underlying conditions that would have made him susceptible to the virus if he contracted it. Whether he quarantined himself after returning to Nigeria is unknown, but in a political setting of patronage and neopatrimonialism, I can imagine that courtesy calls and visits would have greeted his return from abroad.

In acknowledging his overarching influence in the federal government, I tweeted, “His Grand Eminence Cardinal Richelieu has departed the Court of Buhari II. All flags in the empire and dominions at half-mast.” [Twitter] There are ways in which one can say he is an unfortunate victim of systems he implemented, for in other times, he probably would have rushed abroad for medical attention, but borders were closed for medical tourism, he had to face the realities of Nigeria, albeit in a private hospital.

One of the legacies of his alleged abuse of office was out of an apparent power tussle with an erstwhile Minister of Health, he transferred procurement authority from the Ministry of Health to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in October 2018 and never reversed this edict even after a new minister was installed. Invariably, this would have hampered the Nigerian preparation for a pandemic virus as the one which took his life. [Punch]

Being honest to the dead

Now, I will not at any time speak ill of the dead, but that does not mean we should deny the truth of the dead also. The truth can be spoken without it coming across as ill or the lack of sympathy. What would do the most injustice to the memory of the dead is to lie about their lives and craft falsehoods to beatify their passing, quite undeservedly. In speaking of the dead, honesty must always be the best policy or one must keep their counsel in silence.

As we were taking in the news, some people posted anecdotes of meeting Abba Kyari, his friendship, his concern, his humour, his courtesy and much else featured in their recollections. In a way, outside of his official capacity, he seemed to be a likeable everyday human being. I would concede that even the evillest people to the public quite likely has private relationships and engagements that paint a different story of who they are.

Every Caesar has a Mark Anthony

In my view, I think those anecdotes are necessary, for as the person is dead, the book of accounting is closed and trial balance is done of all accounts of who they are, what they did, how they operated, who they affected, and it all comes together in a simple biography of the person, exemplifying a broad spectrum of humanity from virtue to villainy, from good to bad, from nice to nasty.

In that vein, I would recall the oratory of Mark Anthony at the execution of Julius Caesar, for there would always be a Mark Anthony of our times to eulogise a contemporary Julius Caesar and they will only ask for you to lend them your ears, you have every right to lend your ears or close your ears, but we must allow Mark Anthony the stage to speak, not so much about the ambition of Caesar, but the humanity of the Caesar he knew.

Abba Kyari was interred earlier today, but it would appear the essential social distancing rule was not adhered to at the graveside, I hate to think this folly might presage the death of some of the attendees and others they might come in contact with. It is as if they did not realise that the man in the coffin was proof that the Coronavirus should not be trifled with. May Allah grant repose to the soul of Abba Kyari, his deeds in his lifetime, however, are for the record of history.

Thought Picnic: Making a retreat of the lockdown

Opening up from a lockdown

You begin to realise that what you see and experience becomes a matter of perspective and how you decide to relate to it. Looking around my bijoux apartment, everything seems so ordinary and mundane that a lockdown can pile on you in claustrophobic and mentally debilitating ways.

The lull in activities around the world could suggest that the world is not necessarily moving along without you. There is no rat race to enter, no bandwagon to join, though the routine gainful employment offers can be a welcome distraction. I have worked from home many times and worked remotely too.

With that thought in mind, I wonder how co-working environments would have to be reconfigured for the post-pandemic era when social distancing becomes the norm rather than the exception. The earnings of that industry per square foot might suffer. They are suffering now.

Retreating to change

Anyway, at the suggestion of Elizabeth Gilbert, maybe I should see this time as one of a retreat, I do not have to hold vigil, pretend I am in rehab, create a kibbutz, become monastic, or visit an ashram. I just have to make a contentment of peace and relaxation around me without exerting myself to anything. I can read, I can watch, I can learn, yet not stress myself whilst finding myself. It is possible and I will not beat myself up about it either.

Blog - Thought Picnic: I will remain curious and work on it

My friend who I have not seen in over a week used to come round to help around the house, especially from the time I fell ill in January. I did rise to get the rubbish out along with the recyclable things, it felt strange that I had not done it in a while.

Scrubbing to remember

Yesterday, I found the muscle to push a Brillo Pad around the electrical plates of my hob cooker, the collage of caked overspills from cooking from every shade of brown to black needed removal after my sister in the States could not ignore the state of my stove. Today, I got the leg of lamb that I bought on Tuesday out of the fridge and cooked it. The overspill will be seen to, as the stove cools down.

Amid all this, my lover and I constrained by many things work hard communicating our affection for each other in anticipation of this whole situation moving on and creating the opportunity for us to meet up again. It was exactly a year ago that we met up in Johannesburg for the second time and took a flight to Cape Town for an 18-day holiday together. Gosh! I miss my man.

Grateful for the generosity of time, service, and hospitality

Never forget to be thankful

It crossed my mind that for the many acts of generosity I have recently experienced, I have not properly acknowledged and paid gratitude. A few weeks before, having acknowledged my hospital and shortly after my original consultant in Amsterdam and my current consultant in Manchester on Twitter, they both sent their greetings.

In our exchanges, I promised to visit my old consultant in Amsterdam after this Coronavirus pandemic was over to thank him for the decade after we first met. My consultant here then informed me that I would not be meeting her, this time, but the consultation would be done over the phone in early April, a few weeks ahead of the scheduled appointment.

I am grateful for their professional care, the confidence they all have exuded in attending to the critical and general issues to do with my health, I feel I have always been well cared for.

Calling me on the phone

When the call came in early April, we went over results of the consultation in October, checking what might have changed in health and life, both would be registered as considerably improved. Beyond that, they arranged for me to visit the hospital for a phlebotomy and at the same time pick up my prescription. Much consideration had been given to ensure we have a separate area from the common blood room for the blood tests.

On my visit, there were a few administrative issues which would have required going to the common blood room, but the nursing staff ensured that would not be the case, they worked to ensure the arrangement they had made with us was kept, without my insisting on it. They recognised they some might be anxious about being in crowded places in a hospital.

Gifts and swifts

The nurses were interested in my FFP2 respirator mask and asked where I got it from. I noticed I had a more sophisticated mask than what they were wearing. They had plain surgical masks that would offer no little protection from the Coronavirus. Whilst I was waiting to be attended to, I was the only one in the waiting room and I was offered a cup of tea.

Blog - Masking all attempts at convenience

A nurse on finding out how much I had paid for my respirator, was aghast, that we went away and brought me a couple of surgical masks that I could have as spares if needed. Quite helpful and generous they were in time, care, concern and service.

Picking up my 6-month prescription, the paperwork shows the order was put in on the second, filled in and packaged on the sixth even though I was not expected to pick it up until the fourteenth. The pharmacist had my bag of medicine in my hands within two minutes.

Despite the few difficulties during the day, in all, I have much to be grateful for, the NHS, the people who staff it, the consideration and care by everyone I met. I had to make a note of thanks and gratitude for it all.

Thought Picnic: I will remain curious and work on it

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Who is me again?

Recently, I think I have been searching for a better understanding of myself, a kind of review of my past, my present, my prospects, the circumstances in which I find myself, what might need tinkering with and what other things must radically shift.

I guess I am constantly challenging myself to appreciate if I am achieving and contributing, whether my ideas are sound and what I need to do or where I need to go to get inspiration and insight for whatever I am faced with. There are days I do not think I have done much and there are many caught between the shame of being slothful, the guilt of not achieving my goals, the embarrassment of being caught out and the humiliation of being shown up.

Finding my place of vulnerability and being able to deal with it is still a process, the way I find it difficult to ask for or seek help when I need it most. I am working on finding the voice to fix the things I am uncomfortable with.

Guarding the influences

This Coronavirus pandemic lockdown where you are left alone and with your own thoughts, many influences begin to insert themselves in your life, usually from social media and television. I do manage my television influences better than I do social media, especially Twitter. So much jumps out at you to enrage you that you need to condition yourself in terms of initiation, engagement, response, contribution, restraint, disengagement, or indifference.

Then, I am getting better at extricating myself, I do not need to be drawn into issues that drain mental energy, denigrate, or are unedifying. The unpersuadable are just unpersuadable and it is important to see the trait early before the fruitless frustrates. Most importantly, know the unnecessary for it is unnecessary, something to be ignored and where the temptation to tweet must be resisted for your good.

I will remain curious

As I go through this developmental process, I have been trying to find fulfilment in the things I enjoy without having the things that drive others define my sense of achievement. Listening to a number of discussions from many interesting people, the pep talk is quite off-putting to the point of detestation.

The life coaches and motivation speakers who go on about using this period of sequestration or rather retreat to say you should focus on something, have a purpose in life or pursue your passion, without which you have underachieved leaving you an anxiety wreck as you realise you have let another day slip useless away, again.

Blog - Thought Picnic: In the days of useful ideas

Elizabeth Gilbert in a recent TED discussion brought in a new thought process, suggesting we exercise curiosity; a kind of interest probably in the mundane, which I do so well, observing beyond just seeing, the stakes she said are lower, there is no anxiety, for looking closer brings to light things easily missed.

I know I am curious, it feeds my learning, the learning to love myself more, it brings insight, it is questioning, precocious, inquisitive, challenging of the norm and I might just end up being proud of myself, grateful of the wonderful people and things that enrich my life. I think I am comfortable with that.

Masking all attempts at convenience

Preparation and depilation

And so, came my biannual visit to the hospital, one of the excuses you needed to be out and about. The usual consultation that heralded such visits had been conducted by phone two weeks ago as my consultant had informed me early last month on Twitter that this would be the case in view of the then developing Coronavirus pandemic.

The specialist nurse brought my scheduled visit forward 8 days to allow for phlebotomy whilst registering an update for my prescription to be collected at the same time. A separate room had been assigned from the blood work as some other patients had expressed concerns about being on large communal spaces in a hospital.

For my visit, I acquired an FFP2 (N95) respirator mask and to ensure it was close-fitting, I had to shave my whole beard, and I included my head, to return to the look I last had in January before I donned my Corona chic. I planned to get the tram, but the modified timetable did not give indications of transport to meet my prompt arrival at the hospital, so I took a black cab taxi instead.

Just keep calm anyway

On arrival, I got a hand sanitiser from the dispensary before I was met by a gatekeeper at the main entrance who I gave my appointment card to pointing out my scheduled appointment, but he flipped through the pages and pointed out a date from 2015. I held my breath as I remonstrated, I handed you the correct page with my appointment, why are you nosing around?

Indeed, I had arrived early for many reasons including the need to keep my blood pressure normal as it does shoot up if my arrival is delayed and I am anxious about making it on time. I offered to sit out until he was ready to let me in according to his arbitrary concept of promptness, but he ushered me in.

Pricks like Jagger

At the reception, I was informed the phlebotomist had not arrived yet, that it was better for me to collect my pre-ordered prescription first, which I did and then returned to wait for the phlebotomist. He was as tall as trees and definitely did not move like Jagger probably because he was Nick rather than Mick. I then had to wait because of the administrative issue of obtaining the required blood tests from a computer system he apparently had no access to.

When I was called in, neither of my veins on the right or left arm was ready to yield any blood. He asked if I had ever had blood drawn from my neck. God, not today, not ever. He stepped out to get another phlebotomist, she successfully filled one and a half vials before it ceased, moving the needle around a bit with attendant discomfort, and new vials inserted without much luck, eventually, 5 vials were satiated with my life fluids and labelled up for analysis.

Shopping and hoping

I was fortunate, I did not leave the hospital looking like Swiss cheese. As a detour before going home, I decided to go by the ethnic Manchester Superstore, which was about 2 kilometres away, the directions took me through parks and back roads until I reached familiar surroundings. I stocked up on the essentials and waited just under 20 minutes for the tram back home. By which time, the sufferance of the mask had exceeded any comfortable feeling, leaving indentations on my face.

What I could do with a nap after a few useful calls. The morning and the evening will have become my own interesting Tuesday.

Thought Picnic: Reflections of how an old friendship used to be

In the passage

A few weeks ago, I was invited to participate in a group exercise of self-awareness and the development of understanding purpose. This was something I would normally not be persuaded to do, but it was interesting enough to get stuck in.

Some of the exercises brought perspectives and enlightenment to areas of relationships I have cultivated, those that have turned sour and the rest that have lapsed out of the passage of time, the passage of souls, the passage of proximity, or the passage of situation.

The seeds of travel

In reflecting on one aspect, I have someone who would have been one of my oldest friends, we met in a pub, near Bayswater, in November 1991. Something about him in the look, in the appearance, and in the conversation just made him quite attractive. The encounter led to a night back at my place.

Over the years, a friendship that did not result in a relationship developed, he moved around in London and I moved out to Ipswich, his infectious curiosity helping me explore places I would never have been interested in. Then he returned home to Germany and eventually settled in Berlin. It was at his prompting that I first visited Berlin and then began to see the usefulness of travel. I caught a sense of adventure that became a European tour from London to Budapest return, including 10 cities.

Drink to the brink

That friendship soured about 7 years ago when twice in an inebriated state, things were said by him just unforgivable. I decided it was best to cease entertaining the idea of friendship as what is said under the influence is the expression of things that sobriety will constrain. Many attempts by friends to reconcile us, I have rebuffed.

Yet, I hold no grudge, it was just a case that the relationship had become unhealthy, at least for me, if not for him. It is probably not helped by the fact that I hardly drink, I am mostly sober, and I hope I have better control of my tongue, no matter the thoughts going on in my head.

For a better man

So, today, I was asked to reflect on how I might have been hurt in the past, this, of all the other issues I could have brought to the fore is the one that jumped out. This is where the power of thought and meditation begins to change perspectives.

For all the presumed failings of my old friend, there is a lot he has contributed to enrich my life, in exciting my curiosity for travel and exploration and in allowing his vulnerabilities at certain times to reveal some of my shortcomings when I think I am in a better place.

Our friendship has become a different kind of mirror, not so much of him, but now of how I need to make accommodations to acknowledge a broader good over a momentary lapse that could change the trajectory of a relationship when reviewed on the whole is more substantial than the immediate. It is a growth process and I am open to learning to be a better man.

The joy of cooking

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A post shared by Akin Akintayo (@instaforakin) on Apr 12, 2020 at 4:18am PDT

The principles of cooking

I guess one of the things I learnt from my mother is not so much how to cook, but the courage to decide when presented with an assortment of ingredients, I can make a good meal, not just for myself, but to share with others too. I do love cooking.

Besides, it is the joy in cooking food from its components, the selection, the preparation and the making of it. No time is too long for making a delicious meal, with practice, you find innovative ways to convert the process from a chore to an art. I choose from a variety of cuisines, sometimes following a recipe, but mostly not.

Then again, I remember when years ago I decided to remove taste enhancers like Maggi Seasoning Cubes from my cooking and I remember there was a time we were cajoled into using the nasty Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) back in Nigeria, now I rely on spices and herbs to bring out the taste and the flavour.

Confidence through practice

I have found I cannot taste my food whilst cooking it and when cooking for others, they would probably taste it first. I cannot suggest it is sheer confidence and skill that informs this, but I have rarely had to seek an emergency recovery of a cooking expedition awry. Yet, I desire exciting the taste buds enough for others to compliment your cooking

Knowing how to cook means that my tolerance for fast food is incredibly low, I would generally not consider it food, simply basic sustenance. You masticate, swallow and it keeps you going until you are hungry again. It informs my choosing a high-quality restaurant when eating out, where I hope the chef has a promising idea of what they are doing. It does give me some insight into being able to assess, review and critique, presentation, taste and quality. You never get a second chance to give a first good impression.

My Easter meal

For today, I decided on Asaro, I stick to the traditional names rather than find an English equivalent for it. Asaro is from southwestern Nigeria, Yoruba cuisine, made from diced pieces of peeled puna yam tuber, garnished with herbs and spices, cutlets of barracuda and catfish that were steamed for an hour, onions, garlic, chopped tomatoes, chillies, olive oil and palm oil. I have seen many recipes and I seem to prepare mine quite differently without any superfluous elements. I should work on writing out recipes.

It's a big pot and as with our West African foods, ensure the pot gets a good heating at least once a day. So, I will have a couple of days eating this. Like the old nursery rhyme, the porridge tastes better 3 days old. Maybe, it is an unintended ferment or some other natural activity, enough of the science, time to assuage the salivating.

Happy Easter! Everyone.