Cleaning The Web

A villager just logged on to the internet. I’m told with the internet, the world is a global village, thus everyone online is a villager. Little wonder the things people do online: walk into a cyber cafe or look around if you’re in a cafe reading this piece then you’ll be amazed at what some 80% of your fellow online villagers are doing right now.

Someone is logged in to Facebook whom you might probably help with this piece of advice: please, why not face your books or do something more reasonable? Time na money, you haven’t heard? Mike Okri has been singing it since the 1970’s. Most Facebook users don’t even know what it means to poke. They think it means lovemaking so they poke photogenic users with sexy profile pictures. Some Facebook fellows have over a thousand friends with just two followers. I don’t even know what advice to give them, guess they sent fiend requests instead of friend requests: the edit friends’ option might be the right decision. Some Facebook users change relationship status like panties - an indication they will end up polygamous or never see the dusk of a stable marriage. I’m making plans on contacting Mark Zuckerberg so that soon, Facebook will have a Sex Hormone Metre which will aid such people to put their hormones under check.

The next gypsy over there is logged in to Badoo searching for e-love. WYSI(N)WYG, you’ll both masturbate and fondle yourselves to utter discomfort. Such a sorry situation! Some feeble-minded men even get duped by very sexy smart female ‘Badoos’, they never get to meet them or see anything above their knees let alone catch a glimpse of the bushy junction which they so lustfully desire out of sight.

Some Twitters are parrots, good comedians. Talent dey waste! The Ali Baba business would profit them if they were to commercialize this talent. My very good friend calls people who always chat, ‘chatters’. Monkeys chatter and to chatter means to converse about unimportant things. So, between twitters and chatters, choose ye this day, whom ye shall be.

Yahoo! You have a new spam mail: some Yahoo-Yahoo yahoo online villager just sent you a scam mail. These Yahoo-Yahoo online villagers are smarter than Gates; they chill out online a whole day feeding on cookies conning their cookie so they can’t be trailed. Time up! No beef, Newsflash: the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) just beefed-up their security tracking systems. Advice: log out before the eagle eye sights you and hands you over to the men in black. Reciting Ave Maria in a Black Maria would be too late.

Some passwords are too weak, please toggle them. Some security checks are meant to protect your interest, please abide by the instructions. Some sites are x-rated, the controls are necessary. Some rude blog comments are posted by e-thugs: paper tigers, they can’t hurt a fly. Some malwares are dangerous; they’ll crash your ‘system’, trash your invaluable works and although a current and regularly updated anti-virus will cost some cash, save the crash. Some users never find what they’re looking for on Google, they need goggles. Some Uniform Resource Locator’s (URL) are notjustok(.com), they define their course. Some websites do not include Nigeria in their list of countries: it’s either the web owners have a low IQ and are scared Nigerians will outsmart them or need to peruse a copy of an encyclopaedia of nations.

Some online villagers are following the naijamaniac’s blog blindly. They’ll never see a piece of sense in any piece.

The web is filthy. Just cleaning up the cobwebs.

Amusing Naija Snacks

Unless one is born again, one cannot enter the kingdom of God. The Holy Bible further reveals that to be born again, one must be baptised by water and the Holy Spirit. This includes anointment in some Christian doctrines.

It may surprise you to know that for some typical Naija snacks to be consumed, they first must be baptised or anointed.

This afternoon, I witnessed an amazing incident where a young man performed the spiritual rite of anointing a snack before consumption at a roadside kiosk in my neighbourhood.

The young man who was obviously at work in a nearby construction site, tiredly walked to the kiosk in his ragged piece of dirty white shirt and brown colour three quarter trouser. He picked up a big loaf of bread, held it in his left hand, requested for a chilled bottle of coke, popped it open with his teeth, and said a short grace before meal before sipping a pint. He dragged out a stool from beneath a nearby table with the loaf of bread in his left hand and sat down.

Keeping the bottle of coke between his legs on the ground, the hungry young man without loosening the bread from the polythene bag held the big loaf of bread in both palms and halved it. He looked around and kept the piece in his right hand on a leaf beside the stool.

Turning his attention to the half in his left hand, he created a little opening in the middle of the bread with his thumbs while holding it with his nine fingers. He picked his bottle of coke and anointed it before biting off a hunk of the bread and munching on. He looked up, caught me smiling and murmured discreetly in a language I couldn’t comprehend while shaking his head and I replied; enjoy!

In Nigeria, depending on which part of the country, there are different types of snacks patronized especially by the lower class although a few persons of the high class strata also consume such having imbibed it while growing up from lower backgrounds.

If you are in the Northern part of the country, chilled Zobo or Kunu with Bons may just be the right therapy for cooling out after trekking or perhaps after lectures on a hot sunny afternoon.

At work in the South-South region of the country, cucumber and groundnuts could just do a good job helping you out with your work while you munch. Banana and groundnut can be an accepted substitute just in case you don’t enjoy cucumber or can’t find it around.

You can also have fun chewing biscuits and groundnuts while sipping on a bottle of coke. I tell you its so much fun especially if you’re cracking a crackers biscuit and freshly fried groundnuts well prepared with the right quantity of salt.

Bread and coconut could simply pass for a driver while on a journey. It does not obstruct driving. Just keep your loaf of bread and coconut on top of your dashboard. Pick one at the time and munch with either of your hands while looking straight ahead. A bottle of water will push it down, no sweat. Now you’re heading from Lagos to Sokoto and you will arrive in time.

I thought Guguru (locally prepared popcorn) was out of existence until I got to Akwa Ibom State. Is your pocket holed? Guguru and groundnuts is just the perfect snack to keep you on a balanced diet of 1-0-1.

Garri is the most popular. With Garri you have nothing to worry. Perfect snack: Good for people working in fields and construction sites. With high contents of carbohydrate, you are guaranteed enough energy to get back to work. Garri and milk or groundnuts are the widely accepted combinations. Recently I have been thinking of how Garri and milk or groundnut or even any other combination can be packaged in disposable cups and sold, so it can be consumed on the go. This, I think is an unexplored business idea. Imagine walking into MacDonald’s or Walmart and picking up a cup of Dangote Cflakes. Made in Naija for real.

Why I Hate Soccer

How do I explain why I hate a game you are perhaps so much obsessed with. I wouldn’t be far from the truth to contend that you cannot remember the last mouth-watering and finger licking delicacy your mum served you, but you can remember how 20 years before you were born Manchester United wrecked Arsenal in Highbury.

This game (soccer) of yours, no doubt has been a fountain of joy to your life that you prefer to discuss it than your studies. At the crossroads of your life, you chose to watch your favourite European team play or discuss their chances in lifting the trophy rather than preparing for the examination you will soon write. A classmate of mine in the university once had a carryover because he missed his paper for a premiership match transposing the time for both.

Some years ago in Taraba state, the Wukari Local Government council in Taraba state banned Arsenal and Manchester United fans from viewing matches in the same hall. The reason was not because the Tiv and the Jukuns were at war for a parcel of farmland again but because some ardent fans of the two clubs had a disagreement while watching a match together. The arguments that ensued while in the hall, reached an uncompromising point where the fans turned the viewing centre into a boxing and wrestling ring. Three fortunate souls had to see God, one became Cyclops while the other unfortunate ones where confined to the unending comfort of the wheel chair.

I will not bore you with the story of a friend who fractured his skull from a ceiling fan while celebrating a goal let alone two Manchester United fans that got crushed by a trailer on the Zaria – Funtua expressway while celebrating their victory against their famous rivals in the premier league in a few years ago. I am not a doomster but I know you can remember the grief your most cherished game once put you in.

In 2007, just because a soldier in my neighbourhood in Zaria had in a fortnight bought a bike from money won by predicting a certain number of soccer games, sold all his property, borrowed money from friends and embarked on a dreamland millionaire fool’s paradise project of pool. The soldier all of a sudden became omniscient that he could predict a certain number of matches that will end in a draw score line in Europe. Deaf to all the pieces of advice that everyone around him had to offer and mad at his wife for trying to stop his prosperity. He roamed the streets of Basawa Barracks a wretched man in a derailed state of mind until he gave up the ghost in 2009.

In 2008, the Director General of the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) allegedly lost his job because he attempted to restrict the transmission of premiership matches in Nigeria – a move he envisaged will help develop the local league in the country.

Obviously, the easiest way to make Africa remain at the back yard of development is to set up more viewing centres in the villages so that youths can spend all day watching TV than go to work. Our mothers were once told that it is healthier to feed their babies with milk from “John Holt” and “WAMCO” rather than breast milk – that was during colonialism. We are at liberty to enjoy the glamour of unending European soccer competitions on TV while we forget that a local league is in existence. I am not a sage, but this is neo-colonialism.

While we sit back and blame our fore fathers for being feeble-minded to have allowed the little things of the white man such as gin, mirrors and pieces of fabrics to give up their people into slavery and coordinate the smooth take off of colonialism. We would be more feeble-minded to sit down all day discussing soccer rather than think of how to develop ourselves.

Perhaps, I do not even hate soccer, I am not just obsessed with European soccer the way you are.

The Making Of A Naijamaniac

The Naijamaniac bill was initiated sometime in August 1982 by Engr. Michael Wuese Nomor who after a hard day’s work retired to the hollow chambers of his bedroom but under the binding spell of Eros, could not resist the excitement of “forwarding the bill” to Mrs. Elizabeth Yanguchan Nomor for consideration. In unison, she nodded that she had conceived the idea also.

Nine months later, in the wee small hours of 12 May, 1983 the draft copy of the Naijamaniac bill was delivered in the Labour Room of General Hospital Makurdi. It was welcomed with joy by many who day by day trooped in to peruse through the draft copy. Been convinced that he had initiated a laudable bill, Engr. Michael Nomor pronounced it to be truly a bill of peace hence the name Bem.

The “first reading” of the Naijamaniac bill passed through Tiny Tots Playgroup Kindergarten and Primary School in Makurdi. Tagged “nothing but the best”, the bill was expeditiously forwarded for a “second reading” at St. James Minor Seminary Gboko while just in Primary Four, having proven to have acquired a perfect understanding of the three R’s – reading, writing and arithmetic.

Expectedly, it successfully passed through three years of morality and cleansing at the St James Minor Seminary Gboko. From there, the bill was forwarded to Airforce Secondary School Makurdi for a second reading. Efficaciously passing all patriot and defence tests, its qualities where certified to be in consonance with its dogged motto - perseverance breeds success and hence forwarded to Anglican Secondary School Makurdi for scrutiny and further amendments if necessary. Been convinced of the quality of the bill, it was registered for the Senior Secondary School Examinations (SSCE) with the West African Examination Council (WAEC) where it passed through the “committee stage”. Without hesitation, it was forwarded to the “committee of the whole” to also be considered by the National Examinations Council (NECO).

The “result stage” was rogered to the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria via a nod by the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB). Without ado, on the first list of its consideration, it was certified to be of suitable academic standards and recommended for a third reading at the department of history.

The Naijamaniac bill while at the “conference committee” stage came in contact with different courses and various lecturers undergoing scrutiny amid strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). It was finally harmonized and forwarded for “accent” on a 2:2 (second class lower) degree basis in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in History.

The bill was accented to sooner than expected and that same year forwarded to undergo the required one year compulsory national service with the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). It successfully served in Akwa Ibom State and is currently about to be witnessed in full force in the entire country.

The Naijamaniac law is now popularly referred to as Bem Max which literally means maximum peace because of its gentle, simple and calm nature of enforcing justice.

It has been tested and confirmed to be the need therapy for the various aspects of human life having been tasted by most states of Nigeria and a good number of West African countries.

The south-south and south-east region of Nigeria is currently where Bem Max is causing terrific waves of excitement flowing like the River Niger down the Niger-Delta and pouring out torrents through Radio Akwa Ibom 90.5FM.

Turn on your radio - listen; switch on your TV, Bem Max appears in your area soon! It’s a worldwide phenomenon.

Bem Max is a 3D graphic image. Study Bem Max like a college degree and imbibe his strengths of desire, determination and direction - the driving force of a Naijamaniac.