Y-E-S YES WE CAN!!

Obama and DNC candidates need to unleash the power of YES. The power of positive. And say things like:

"The SUN has never stopped shining on our country - do not believe the forces of NO. Forces of darkness the special interests who are groping in darkness - seeking new ways to breach the new economy we are creating..."

Let us go to the polls knowing that conscience is a quiet voice, Drown out the voices camp of No with your quiet confidence in the future of our country"

And of course the obligatory chants:

"Y.E.S

YES WE CAN.

Y.E.S

YES WE CAN"

I used to be a cockroach...

I used to be a cockroach...

Life was really hard - I would eat amongst other things, grass shoots, succulent leaves, unripe paw-paw, and postage stamps. Unable to afford soap, I gave up bathing entirely for I hated to bathe with dirty water - to just rub it down a body already greasy with sweat and dirt.

I had to leave this neighbourhood fast!

There was nothing here for me – nobody liked me. Nobody here cared enough to help me. All I needed was a smile – a hand of friendship stretched in my direction. Here, they conspired against me - they conspired to frustrate my soul. They burnt my belongings when it seemed I was making way in the world they hated the sound of my second hand transistor radio permanently tuned to the BBC. They hated the smell of fried plantain which sometimes came from my section of the yard… I had a hand in this particular hatred on days I was able to get my hands on ripe plantains. On such days, I would make some dodo and sing war songs at the top of my voice.

The first time I did, it was not meant to annoy anyone - I had only wanted to let Etsu the west African god of mischief know I was still holding on…. Still hangin' in and that there was nothin' he could do about it.

I was thoroughly battered no question, but I was still me - I was who I was - still a spark of the great God in whose heart I was still a dream. I loved God and I was fearless!

Where was I….

Let me tell you how it happened – how they burnt my belongings!!! Don't you remember? They burnt my belongings when it seemed I was making way in the world….You remember now? Right! ...

'Twas funny how the poor conspired one against the other. At least the rich held parties and hobnobbed together, they networked and tried to consolidate their wealth through marriage and friendship, through favours and I-owe-you-one's …but the poor? They were really poor. Poor in charity, poor in faith, poor in hope, poor in everything.

I still laugh when I recall how they had carefully watched as I made my way into the compound expecting me no doubt to let out a scream, and shouting, run towards my burning abode, beating my chest and probably looking to the sky and crying in ululating tones crying "WOE IS ME"…....................but I am beating the gun.... still I can't help but wonder where the hell those creeps are now?.....what the hell they are doing now? - what was new in their live - those appalling creatures...yes indeed I am beating the gun........No! I have to beat this gun! Yes! I am still struggling but my heart is in the right place - not so the doubly wretched - wretched in body wretched in mind. Yes they did me in somewhat and made my heart angry - but so do mosquitoes and tse-tse flies and rats. Do I despise them? No!

Listen! I was returning from the waterside where I had gone to hear stories. You guessed right. I had no job or let's say I was in between jobs - waiting for God's dream to end……

At the water front y’know, we traded stories, laughed, helped the men with their nets, sort their fish into grades, this and that and that and this stuff. We also fiftied cigarettes and sometimes we just sat and watched the River gently flow by. We were mostly gentle souls. All we wanted was to pacify the raging despair within our souls… until our dreams were ready for us to inhabit.

I hated my life but was willing to soldier on.

My heart quickened at the sight of smoke coming from my section of the swampy compound where I’d been allowed to put up a Batcher. Batcher? Basha?, Bacha?... I can't vouch for its right spelling - I was a nouveau pauper.

I’d been whistling as I approached the compound. My soul was happy - for Waka the fisherman, had regaled me with stories from his days as a palmwine Tapper. Waka the great!

"Now das my luck" he complained "to suffer-suffer for my daily bread." He talked about the risks inherent in the only occupations open to him – Palmwine tapping and fishing.

"Just my luck" he said without emotion "I either falling down from those tall tall trees or I drowning in de bad bad river"

"Waka" the entire congregation, which he presently addressed, shouted. "Speak am well well. Scatter de grammar"

"Bookooroo" someone else added rather shrilly. Bookooroo was derived from Book and was a euphemism for people who tried to show off their great learning.

He had fallen… yes you guessed right – from the tallest palm tree in the whole of the Niger delta. "Him papa head good" someone had said of him when he had made a quick recovery two months later.
To this day, he walked with an endearing limp a result of his injuries and Waka! he became known - pidgin for Walk!

In mid-life crisis, loath to climb another palm tree, like working men the world over, he retooled and retrained. He became a fisherman. Such however was the bond between Him and his former colleagues that they would bring him a gourd or two of frothing undiluted palm wine in the evenings - after the days work. They in turn would be roast fish - hotly spiced.

Waka was kind to me and would share his palmwine. I also had the honor to be Fish Roaster in the evenings when the brothers of the order of the of Palmwine Tappers returned. The brothers of that order, were men arrogant as men anywhere - men who had full and total control of their lives and knew it for a dead certain fact. The English milord would learn a thing or two from them. They were kings when they climbed up the tall palm trees of the Niger-delta and kings when they climbed down and even as they sat for roast fish, they exuded a certain understated dignity. These impoverished Royals lived their lives to the hilt and they one hundred percent knew it. They set their own work schedules and drew up their own Gantt charts, decided what to do, who to supply and who could wait… I surpass myself…

Unfailingly each evening, they would toast Bacchus the god of wine. Bacchus who had a thousand African names.
"To Nmayan-nmo" They would say in unison "To you great Nmayan-nmo. The cause of and solution to all life’s problems"

"What do you mean Mmayan doesn't cause any problems" some one posited.

"Leave that matter for another day" One with a gravelly voice retorted "I no get power for argue dis evening"

"I say Nmayan-nmo doesn't cause any problems. I don't care if you have power to argue or not. It doesn't cause any problems"

"But look at yourself are you not a problem to yourself already?"

"You're a damn fool - no wonder your in-laws beat you up the other day.."

"They disgraced themselves not me…"

On and on they bantered.

"Who is that Cockroach" I heard gravelly voice ask. I knew they spoke of me. I kept a straight face fanning the embers of fire over which a sooty basket of fish hung suspended.
"That cockroach is a doctor" Waka explained.
"Doctors do not roast fish! doctor of what?" A new voice cried out laughing with palmwine ejaculating from his nostrils
"I don’t know" Waka answered "He told me he is a doctor and I believe him".
"There are so many doctors these days" A new voice entered the fray "I am a doctor myself".
"Doctor of what?" the one with the ejaculating nostrils asked again doubling with laughter - holding his midsection as though in acute pain "Don’t kill me here" he shouted – more palmwine coming out of his nose. "You will all be held responsible" he cried "You all know what a troublesome woman my wife is"
"Answer now doctor?" Waka nudged the one who declared himself a doctor.
"Doctor of tree climbing" he said resignedly. His thunder had been stolen by the one with the ejaculating nose.
"Come here" Gravelly voiced said to me. "Sit with us. My daughter has just finished standard school. She wants to be a doctor. Are you really a doctor."

Yes! I’d been whistling when I approached the house and my heart quickened at the sight of smoke coming from the side of the swampy compound where I’d been allowed to put up a Bacha. My gait held up – not betraying the emotions I felt. I stepped smartly around what used to be my abode.

Funny enough I felt a gladness that it had been mercilessly incinerated by those who simply hated me and the earth upon which I stood. It certainly was "the peace that passeth all understanding" which I felt that time.

I recalled the dampness of the floor and the rats, which shared my space. One of which I had named Skippy for it would skip on its hind legs when it felt I had had enough of its antics and was going to smash against it something hard. I would always spare it on account of its comic plight. Evolution meant rats like Skippy would multiply and in time we would have smart rats.

If we had enough smart rats, we might be able to reach a compromise with them rats and teach 'em to steal and annoy no longer – explaining to them that there was enough for us all. (It would be easier I reckoned to explain this to Skippy & other members of the rat race than to the stealing machine called government!!)
I had no feelings whatsoever surveying the remains of my home except perhaps worries that Skippy would now have to find a new abode. My main worry was that smart rats such as Skippy would be exterminated mindlessly. I thought how important it was for us to help evolutionary processes by getting a little sense into our heads... by not destroying that which we understood not.... alas the days of a reasoned tete a tete with Rats of the government or ratus ratus genre lay far ahead.

Still, whistling with my hands now in my pocket I surveyed the remains of my home and walked away head high. Freed from my shackles, I walked away. I had had it. I would first go to church and renew my relationship with Him who was patient and would verily receive me. Then I would beg some from the pastor, then I would travel to Warri.
I was no longer a cockroach – smoked out of my hiding place, I was out in the open. Ready to make a hash of it. Cockroaches were afraid to move – having so many natural enemies – preferring the cover of darkness and blended out of sight. I wasn’t afraid to move – not any more. Indeed I had to move for I had no cover.
But scurry I would not. I held my head high, turned around and walked out of the yard. I half expected applause - but that would have to wait for the movie version of my life story. I would first go to church and renew my relationship with Him who was patient and would verily receive me.

Then I would beg some from the pastor…and there was the one with the gravelly voice whose daughter wanted to be a doctor..... Life is tough but to my credit I'm hangin' in there.

I used to be a cockroach….I hated my life .....but was willing to soldier on and to wait for God.........

Life is still tough but I'm still hangin' in....

How the west lost its glory...

How the west lost its glory...
Albinos were outcasts but these albinos were different! They - the albinos from the other side of the great divide were glorious to behold – the loose flying hair of all colours and shades, the unrepentant hedonist – – the swash buckling visitor who had no gods - representative all of we always wanted to be but were too cowardly .....too afraid of HIM who had our fate in his palm and dealt a treacherous hand when we stepped ever so slightly out of line.

Albinos were outcasts but these albinos were different!

We had always wanted to treat our gods with disdain because they turned our most begotten dreams to ashes and lent a helping hand only when we made burnt sacrifice of the last of our fattened livestock. We thus quite simply fell in love with him and his feckless ways... his godlessness was refreshing to behold and don't forget - he was a magician of sorts - a spell binder.....he had the stick which belched thunder, he had the great houses which floated on water....he sucked fire into his mouth and burnt his intestines but did not wince - I swear he burnt his insides and his nose was the chimney from which the smoke curled out from his bowels...

...but with the passage of time, lots of it, his magic became boring and common place and all too pervasive and quietly in our hearts we lost our enchantment. We lost our enchantment when we realised that the smiling loose haired visitor was a rogue of sorts. We had welcomed him and had given him land to practice his goodness... but so ungainly was he.... CARAMBA!!...not even one generation had passed...can you believe!... he wanted to be top dog... nay he became top dog and the smiles vanished. He turned out to be mean hearted, had a forked tongue, poor hygiene, and you realised that the great magician like a great work of art, had no soul and above all did everything for money - even the goodness he practised on us was tainted by his love for filthy lucre. He hated his craft but was frozen in his purposes - constrained to perform, and through his magic and wondrous arts sought to steal your soul.

You wonder and say to yourself: This guy cannot be my master! Perfidy! You realise you are probably the stronger in this relationship. You cannot bear to think the thought but realise that his godlessness was the bane of him - the cause of his soulessness.

You thus retrace your steps to your gods, and tell them of your great insight into the weaknesses of the magician. You truly are grateful for the constraints of your traditional ways and the restraints of your mean hearted gods. Grateful for your return, your emboldened gods whisper in your left ear close to your heart:

"He is your servant - destined to carry you through to your final confrontation with destiny. Let him invent those things, pay for them. See how dirty and unkempt he is..."

Emboldened by the voices of your gods, you turn your searchlight on the matter and to your chagrin realise that the half-eyed has somehow talked you into abandoning your purposeful march up destiny's ladder.

Like Etsu, the west-African god of mischief, the magician has tricked you. You have supplanted your destiny for one of consumerism. A destiny where your sense of worth is ultimately determined by sheer volume - your consumption index. You find yourself in a world in which you are condemned to be nothing. Not just in the eyes of all others but in your very own eyes because even you know it. You have little. Little to consume, little to show off with...and Etsu-like, the erstwhile foreigner ensures that you never will – he controls the fabrication of goods... don't you know?? It suits him to have you robbed of your profundity and emotional edge.....ensuring that the master remains a servant - in his very own garden..

Juxtapose the magician against those who have sustained civilisations for many thousands of years whose proud bards still sing and speak with awe of their heritage - of "ancient glamour keeping their youth", I speak of the land of Mencius...speaking of which we cannot but notice that the 'Mencians' have risen out of a fate prescribed for them by the magicians and also how the magicians (envious behind their masks) had only recently wished to draw them into war (over a spy plane) - in order no doubt to have a reason to destroy that which has been built by superior purposes and nobler endeavours..... The magicians like their ancestors seek to convince the rest of the world that the discredited, the puerile, the meaningless chaff which surround us are our gift from heaven - that to hanker for God, for things spiritual is to cop out.

The West has lost its glory. It lost it when it offered everything for the senses but nothing for the soul. It lost its glory when
the sad, the sullen eyed, the befuddled, the struggling are still today being stolen from and insulted with donated aid.
They no longer steal at musket point from the wretched of the earth - this they do by economic sleight of hand
which ensured perpetual servitude for those who groan twice - under the yoke of circumstance and under the yoke of the dispossessor. The West must rid itself of its filth - buy its glory back - and literally repay the hundreds of billions of dollars for all the wealth – human and natural stolen from all God's children (From the valleys of Montezuma to the 'verdant valleys' of Shaka the Zulu).

The brave new world promised by the technological marvels of the age has simply not materialised and our collectively stupidity as a race is underlined by the emptiness of the world we have tried to create. I hate the situation I find myself in: cursed to write and forever postulate here in the hidden rooms of my hidden heart.

I hate writing!

'On whose side is God on?' I once heard the BBC ask a Sage. 'On the side of suffering humanity', he had answered.

I hope he is damn right!!

Of Hubble and the death of religion

The Hubble telescope has given mankind great insight into how stars and galaxies are formed and how they die. And if celestial bodies be born and then die, why cannot gods the same be?

Today, we are witnesses - to the demise of global belief systems. It is doubtful if ever in recorded history, mankind has had a front row seat to watch or observe a religion locked in mortal combat – not with external forces as the unwary might be led mistakenly into believing, but with the great and mighty spirit called 'Truth' - that merciless examiner of all that we hold to be true and that most patient of collectors who allows us the freedom to believe all that we wish to, but not to escape its consequences.

Which is why when a religion tolerates no examination from within or without, which labels all forms of dissent as heresy, which imbues its clergy with powers both spiritual and temporal, it shall in the end, have nothing unique to offer. It becomes an irrelevancy and its tenets open to interpretation and abuse by the clergy class.

Why?

Because truth or the determination of the truth will not be rigorous and very soon, its skid-mounted, movable beacons and precepts, meant to delineate justice from injustice, truth from untruth, will lead to listlessness amongst its adherents. They are given the task of holding dear a religion which has become irrelevant in the modern world. Violence erupts.

These adherents will lash out at even those who tolerate its idiosyncrasies because it views all such tolerance as condescension. It will seek no force of argument – because it has none. Its new converts will be found amongst the most ignorant on earth - those it will rather not have!

It will be aware of its ungainliness amongst those it so desperately wishes to convert but are ensconced in deep romance with their gods. This will rile them to no end. They thus shall lash out and seek to hurt those who do so marvelously well without the sterling advice offered by their great book.....

Like Red Giant's in the throes of death however, it will first be seen to expand and consume a large part of the celestial skies causing much destruction on earth….but the laws of the universe are steadfast. In the end, it will shrink and become a dwarf - a blackbody - a net recipient of light (truth).

Wynjew was simple as they came. Just as some people happily considered themselves great successes, he considered himself a great failure. He would say "I am a complete unmitigated disaster " to people he'd just met most likely at some run down disastrous beer parlor which served Isi-Ewu and besides which ran a stagnant open sewage gutter.

The vortex of failure he liked to think was like the eye of the hurricane. 'Tis peaceful there. He considered himself good hearted and once upon a time would have believed himself to have been good-natured. He was older now and with age had come the bile of rejection, of being passed over by life for being who he bloody well was. "I'm bloody well who I bloody am" he loved to declare - especially on nights of unimportance.

Nights of unimportance?

Sure. Susan his darling wife had insisted on finding out where he went on Friday nights and returned from in the wee hours of the morning, staggering. Slightly under the impetus.

So he had happily invited her to his hangout. The boys talked laughed and did nothing of particular importance and at midnight, Susan slept. Two hours later she woke up whether from the bites of the noisy mosquitoes or because Wynjew's shoulder kept heaving and shifting as he laughed, I couldn't tell.

Subtly she suggested to him it was time to go to no avail. Three hours later, Wynjew lazily and most reluctantly got up, helped his groggy wife, well beaten by mosquitoes, into the car, and drove most carefully home. No mention was made ever of his nights out. Boys should be left as boys she learnt with finality.

He'd been coming to this here bar for the last 15 years! It was his church and temple. All his friends he'd met there. All his business dealings were conducted there. All complaints were sorted out there. Judge and jury hung out there. He made it a point of duty to have zero dealings with people who were not part of his fellowship.

He had a great understanding of the transience & vanity of life for in the last 15 years men he had drunk with, and crawled through the same gutters with, had cut deals with had died and been buried. "Peter died and was buried like a dog,” he said of a particular friend of his. Not in derision but actually with a few tears in his eyes.

"Life's a bitch" he said n4ext shaking his head sadly. "Nothing dey inside am" he would say in pidgin. "We just de here like dat. Make man pikin de taken am jejely. Nothing de am at all at all" The rest of us bowed our heads as this high priest pontificated on the yeye-ness of life. "Hey Roli" he would shout to the bar-lady "Bring one-one for everybody"

"Life Yeye" he would continue "No be small matter" some lesser mortal would invariably say in support.

A Kokoma band appeared. This one had a guitar player. Who sang lustily:

If you see my mama O!

tell am say O! I de for Lagos

I no get problem

I swear that was the first time I heard the song I thought he had composed it on the spot! My interpretation of the song had also been totally wrong.

I had imagined a young man who had left his village for the big city Lagos in this case and after donkey years had remembered his mother and was saying to her "Mum, I am in Lagos I have no problems" which in itself was patently false. If he was doing fine he would drive home in his German machine and flaunt his new found status.

Where was i?

Ah!

The nights of unimportance did a lot for Wynjew & his ilk. It provided a safety net for those who had fallen on hard times, 'twas church, exorcist, counselor, psychiatrist for them all.

"When we come here we dey naked for each other" Wynjew declared to no one in particular. "Venus veritas" another lesser mortal would say in support.

"Venus Veritas?" an uninitiated asked "In wine there's truth" the entire party said in unison.

"Which language be dat" I asked

"No ask me. I no no book O"

"E be like Latin"

"Na him. Na Latin true true"

On one night I met the legendary Joe Erico and when I tried to eat starch called Usi, and lifted up the entire plate clean from the table, Joe said (and I love him dearly for this) "Make una see Wynjew O. Where you come from. Winegbo! Winegbo! teach am how to eat starch"

Winegbo (pronounced Wyn-gboh) was 50% Socrates. The other 50% vacillated between Priest, Clown, bloody fool, Brother, Best friend, Money lender, Favorite son of the family and Motor dealer. Wyn-gbo would drink for 9 hours straight, return home (driving at 20kmph) and kneel down for 2 hours straight praying fervently, then sleep for 12 hours straight. What the hell? He was a self-made millionaire.

90% of hose who came to this raggedy bar were millionaires. They could have their fill of the most exotic wines at the Sheraton but chose to come here and sit by the gutter and stay close to their simple roots - never mind that they were mostly from middle and upper class backgrounds (Be baffled! this is Nigeria!).

Presently there was commotion at the other end of the open air cafe. Another Kokoma band was impatient to start its routine.

"Una time don expire!" The waiting band cried

"Expired ko! expired ni! which time wey we come? You sure say your watch dey work well so?" The guitar player of the first band said playing all the while.

"Hey Wynjew they are toasting you!" the guy to my left cried out.

“Me? W-w-what are they saying?” Wynjew asked choking almost.

"They are prophesying that you are going to be appointed special assistant to the Assistant Managing Director at the ShadyDeals Oil Marketing company and that you will bounce back to the top. Listen!!” I listened they were saying:

"No forget us O No forget us O You forget us before Dats why your money finish

"No forget us O "No forget us O!

You chop alone before Dats why your money finish

"No forget us O

Wynjew stood up to join them and sand lustily:

I no go forget you O Lai lai

I no go forget my brodas

I forget you before dats why I come poor again

I no go forget una O!

I no go forget you O I

He pulled off his shirt and waving it recklessly over and above his head, pulled off the deftest kokoma dance steps I'd seen in my entire life executed on tippy toes. I should say tipsy toes. Some night of unimportance this was!!

Where was my video camera to record this day for posterity?

I loved my people! I loved my origins I loved my ancestors. They were long dead but had bequeathed to my genes and the genes of my fellow revelers that unique ability to make fun of adversity - to dance and chant and mockery of the elements, the vicissitudes of life, the mosquito.

Presently NEPA struck. Darkness. No one blinked. NEPA returned. No one cared.

We all danced. Some to remember, some to forget.

Wynjew raised his half empty bottle of Odeku to the night sky.

"Who are you toasting?"

"Susan. My wife!"

"Akproka!!" Wynjew cried repeatedly. "IYou followed me here. Oh you this girl" He said happy at her daring exploit. He kissed her repeatedly on her forehead.

He grabbed his wife like he'd never seen her before and they danced to the cheers of all around.

STOP PRESS

Wynjew got the job with the Oil marketing company and promptly there were massive fuel shortages across the country. Wynjew became rich beyond anyone’s imagination and yes he returned every Friday night to drink and to remember.