A Cat in the Nigerian Home

Today I bought a cat, a 2.4 feet (excluding tail) Bengal cat that was shivering in its cage in a pet store. The initial plan was to buy a bird cage and leave, but this cat caught my attention not only because it was a cat, it was also a cheap cat. I made the impulsive decision and bought the cat alongside with the cage and left and I must confess that I have spent majority of my day trying to adjust my cat to the house. However, this didn’t stop me from doing my usual investigations into controversial matters in Nigeria and today I want to focus on the unconventional Nigerian pet called the cat.

There are many legends and superstition surrounding cats in Africa and these are especially negative in Nigeria. The Tsavos (Kenyan tribe) have a positive view on cats, considering that they believed only those of royal bloodline and god/goddesses can manifest themselves in such graceful creatures. It was reported in Tsavo Man-Eaters case that a pair of male lions without manes and larger than most other lions slaughtered a group of railway workers constructing the Kenya-Uganda railway. Historic witnesses have said that the two lions must have been reincarnates of dead kings that have come back to stop European exploits in their land.

 

Tsavo Lions Depiction in Field Museum of Natural History

Another African tribe that has a positive view on cats is the Ancient-Egyptians, whom have attributed the Mau cat to the goddesses Isis and Ba’at. Isis as the goddess of motherhood, nature and magic and Ba’at as the goddess of cats, protection, joy, dance, music, family

Bast (Ba'at)

However, as we leave northern and eastern Africa and delve further west the stories begin to change. The Ewe people make up the major ethnic group in Togo (32%), third largest in Ghana (14%) and minorities in Southern Benin, Ivory Coast and Nigeria. The Ewe people consider the cat a delicacy and eating the cat head is said to bring good luck and prevent them from dying in a foreign land. Even with this Ewe people’s sway in Ghana, the average Ghanaian associates the cat with evil and witchcraft. Seeing a black cat in one’s dreams is considered a bad omen.

In Nigeria specifically there are many people who are uncomfortable with cats, echoing the belief that they are associated with demons and agents of evil forces. I know for one that Nollywood has contributed a gigantic deal into this belief, but who can blame them? The culture of a Nigerian will reflect somehow somewhere.

In June 2016 there was a report of a cat who transformed to a girl at dawn in Ibadan around Ring Road. It was said that she was smelling poignantly of animal excretions and was seen in the store of a house at that area before the sun came up. Of course, no one had any pictures of this ‘transformation’ but they said it transformed to a young girl before they could kill her. Report was from www.informationng.com.

With all these negativity surrounding cats, it is no surprise why the average Nigerian will not want to invest time, food and money into keeping them. However, dogs are very popular in Nigeria with nearly 70% of household communities owning one or more at one time or the other. However an approximation of 60% of Nigerian dog owners gets dogs for security purposes. A cat will not provide you security, so it defies logic for the cat to become more popular than a dog here.

My short time with Iyré (my Bengal cat) has proven to be truly a nice and fulfilling adventure. He loves roaming the house and has gotten accustomed to people touching him. I am sure he will come to be a loved member of the family if he is not already.

The Lion Crossings all over Nigeria

You know those white lines across the road? Yes, the ones that divide the breadth of the road. Yes, the one that somebody near you has called ‘Tom-Tom advertisement’. Yes, the one in the picture above you. It is called a zebra crossing because it is usually characterized with white stripes (typical of the zebra) and the major point of these marks are not to advertise a mint-based candy or to signify that that is where to stop your car. Rather, on the contrary, it is made to place priority on the movement of pedestrians (trekkers) on the road. So if a vehicle is approaching and you need to get to the other side of the road, all you have to do is place a foot on the marks and the driver that sees you (unless he is blind or ignorant) will stop and allow you to go. Why do most people ignore it in Nigeria? I mean, it makes sense and it sounds easy to use. Two major reasons:

1.       LACK OF AWARENESS:

According to the experiment I carried out today 6 out of 10 average Nigerians don’t know what the sign is for. Whose fault? You know me; I always blame everything on colonization. But today it is not only Great Britain’s fault for introducing all these alien ideas to the Nigerian; it is also our personal faults for not enquiring. And guess who else is on my blame list today again? Of course our one and only unfailing Nigerian government! I was speaking with a wise man a few days ago concerning this topic and he said ‘What will it take for the Ministry of Transport to launch awareness programmes on the media?’ Indeed, what will it take? A billion naira? No, it doesn’t cost that much. Oh shocker.

 

Ignorance is Bliss

Another institution on my blame list (no, you won’t escape too) are schools. If someone is a graduate of a university in Nigeria and sees a zebra crossing but still ignores, it doesn’t take up to two Who Wants to be a Millionaire questions to know that it is either the person doesn’t know what the sign is or the person is on booze. I must admit that in this case we want to only narrow it down to the latter. Civic education is the name of the subject that should cover this in schools. I will also mention that originally civic education was added to our curriculum in 2003 for primary and junior secondary in the form of social studies or what have you. But around 4 years ago it was made mandatory in the WAEC exam. A good move, a smart move, hopefully this will help to curb this our problem of ignorance (ignorance including the lack of knowledge of all other road signs (including orange light means get ready and not go)). The government cannot and should not implement something as important (but alien) as this and leave the common man to figure what it does on his own.

2.       FEAR

There was a good reason I named this article ‘Lion Crossing’. And this is because any pedestrian half as smart as I am knows that using the zebra crossing on a general highway in many parts of Nigeria can mean death or near-fatal injuries. Don’t believe me?

Those who risk using Zebra Crossings on highways, believing them for what they are without care may well be killed by vehicles

An unidentified young girl penultimate week took the risk of her life and abruptly ended it on the Zebra Crossing opposite the Ikeja Army Cantonment, Onigbongbo, Ikeja, Lagos.

Copied from http://allafrica.com/stories/200110290160.html. I wish I could give you the full story but unfortunately you have to subscribe to see it. If you have the time to do so just follow the link.

There so you have it, the first problem leads to the second. People don’t know what it is, and kill other people. People know what it is but are afraid to get killed.

In all other advanced countries and some secluded parts of Nigeria, the stress free, easy to use zebra crossing is a respite for us. It makes us pedestrians feel secure on the roads and gives us a sense of importance in comparison to our counterparts mounted on moving machines. It also saves time and energy as we don’t have to wait for the vehicles to stop zooming past before we can move.

OK, MR. ITK WHAT IS YOU AIM?

I am an Obarian and a Nigerian and I am just trying to make common sense.

The Notorious African Hair

The Afro-Textured hair, the hair of the Blacks, the pride of the Blacks and the bane of the ‘responsible’ Nigerian. There is one thing all of us Nigerian teens can attest to about all the generations from our parents’ upwards and that is the stark negativity they feel about our trends. They are so bent on culture, so bent on being ‘right’ and ‘natural’ and so most importantly bent on cutting your hair every Friday afternoon. Matter of fact, it is so bad that staff in certain ‘international’ schools in the country use rulers to measure boys’ hair strands when the opportunity presents itself. Universities (like the University of Ilorin) demand that boys keep their hair short. Which raises the question: ‘What is so notorious about the African hair?’

As usual I did my investigations and questionings and as usual I have found many interesting details. But first let me give y’all a brief biological and historical story of the afro-textured hair.

It was in Africa that the first major emigration started; then the early humans (hominids) began the great migration to different parts of the world. This would mean that all the early humans were most likely alike at that moment, the same color of skin, the same texture of hair (some scientists have argued that all the hominids hair type was the afro-textured) and the same culture. The people that stayed in the land of Africa would turn out to be our greatest ancestors, and evolution, climate and adaptation will play its role on their bodies and allow them survive in their chosen regions. So due to the excessive UV rays in sunlight, high temperature and the savannah regions the afro-textured hair allows for better body temperature regulation. It is to be noted that all hair in the world is made from the same material, but the difference from the afro-textured hair is just the distribution of lipids. Enough of the science talk.

Over the course of time African civilizations came to love and respect this hair of ours, keeping it, grooming it and adorning it. The Bantu Fang tribe of now Gabon (Cameroon and some parts of the Republic Congo as well) boasted an asymmetrically styled afro-textured hair with beautiful beading embroidery. It was a sign of wealth, a good fashion and grooming this hair was free (also nearly sacred) and often carried out by beloved friends, clan members and family. Early Nigerian art represented our civilizations (including the men) of those days adorned with beautiful hairstyles if and when their sometimes bald heads are not covered in a cap.

 

Fang Man

So why is the modern elderly Nigerian society against this trend? It is cultural; it is our identity, so why are they contradicting themselves?

The answer is something that has always been a torn in my flesh and that will be colonization. Our bastardized culture has lost many key things that were once seen as ‘small’ or ‘insignificant’. The grooming of hair was firstly industrialized as foreign ideals of beauty and the acceptable standards changed because of socialization, globalization and colonization.

Famous Nigerian Comedian: Basket Mouth

The dreadlocks are often associated with the Rastafarians of Jamaica are also seen as one of these socially unacceptable norms in Nigeria. The Rastas are of the belief that the smoking of cannabis is a sacrament with beneficial properties and their movements have often caused conflicts with Jamaica as a whole. The negativities that have become tied to the dreadlocks of the Rastas have somehow managed to permeate into the Nigerian culture and soil that hairstyle. But that can never be more wrong. In Nigeria, some children are born with naturally locked hair and are given a special name: "Dada". Yoruba priests of Olokun, the Orisha of the deep ocean, (also) wear locks. Actually if an Igbo man wears the Yoruba ‘Dada’ how else can he further nationalism? In the real sense, the Rastas took this hair from Africa we didn’t take it from them!

Although the death of Philando Castile an African-American who was murdered by a policeman (for no reason) was alleged to match a description of a suspect. You’ll never guess his hairstyle. Dreadlocks!

The afro-textured hair was also an iconic form of protesting in the United States of America, as Blacks used the hairstyle to propagate African-American Civil Rights Movement and a sense of finding identity with themselves as the then acceptable standard was that the straighter less kinkier hair was more ‘professional’ and much more ‘serious’.

 

American Activist: Angela Davis

Reading Chimamanda’s book Americanah revealed to me more on the topic of hair and its power of identity. When Ifemelu (the main character) decides to stop relaxing her hair and go ‘natural’ she feels more of a sense of purpose and takes better control of her life. In earlier parts of the book it was also revealed that her mother had long natural beautiful hair that made people ask if she was partly not from Nigeria. The fashion was that beautiful hair is the one that looks less African. What?!

I have been speaking solely socially, how bout we look at the African hair’s notoriety from the professional aspect? The average Nigerian male lawyer cannot keep an ‘unacceptable hairstyle’ because any elderly stereotypical judge that sees him will not have a good first impression. And if you want to learn anything about Nigerian courts today, you should know that first impressions never change. You wouldn’t want your lawyerly first impression to be ‘scoundrel’ would you?

Here’s what Barrister F.O Chumu (Esq.) has to say regarding this issue of law and hairstyle:

‘It doesn’t really affect legal practice, but it says so much about the individual. In Africa, yes, within our own culture a hairstyle has something to do with how society classifies the individual.

‘And as a lawyer in Africa or anywhere on Earth you are regarded as someone that is noble, someone that is honorable, someone that should be decent. And then there are hairstyles that defeat or represent a class of people. Like the musicians, they keep a particular kind of hairstyle. Like the fashionable individuals, the “fashionists” they keep a particular kind of style. The footballers as well, there is also this kind of style they keep to reflect who they are or to attract fans.

‘But the legal man is supposed to be somber. He’s not supposed to solicit for attention. So I think a somber hairstyle will best fit a lawyer given that there are some ethics he is supposed to live by.’

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

Stubbornness. Know your culture, love it and don’t let anyone push you over something as personally important as a haircut. If you feel that your hairstyle is unique to you, stick with it, our frizzy, springy hair was made to grow and you can grow it.

The only thing notorious about the African hair is combing it.

Christian Religious Studies or Christian Religious Preaching?

Last week Thursday I met a teacher in Goodness and Mercy Primary School. Correction: I met a concerned teacher in this primary school. He was more than happy to share the cause of his concern being that the Minister of Education Adamu Adamu had scrapped CRS from the Nigerian WASSCE syllabus. He caught my attention with these words and I urged him to go on. He said that Adamu Adamu is a stoic Muslim and has begun the operation to Islamize Nigeria by removing CRS from our list of subjects only to be replaced with either French or Islamic Religious Studies. At this point I got confused; so one man, a single man appointed Minister of Education could just wake up one morning and secretly remove CRS from our syllabus. I made a mental note to do an investigation on this and here I am a few days later.

Obviously it is not true; the FG was quick to debunk this claim on the Daily Post before I even had a chance to write on it. It takes more than one man to remove one subject from a national syllabus. By constitutional right (section 38), Nigeria is a secular country. And a secular country cannot remove a religion from the syllabus to favor another. So these mischief makers managed to cause uproar in the country over something that hasn’t even happened. I confronted a neighbor of mine regarding this case he told me that ‘It hasn’t happened, but they’re about to do it.’ If you’re thinking like this please stop.

The Constitution Section 38

Speaking of which, I studied C.R.S in Secondary School and I can boldly tell you that it was part two of Sunday school. In junior school, according to your religion you are forced to either study IRS or CRS. Why would a school in a secular country force you study a religion? Let me rephrase if you are not a Muslim in Nigerian school you are automatically a Christian and therefore you MUST study CRS. It doesn’t end there, if you are not worshipping Allah on Friday in a Nigerian school you are forced to attend the protestant church on Sunday which involves religious rituals such as anointing and Holy Communion. And according to our constitution this is wrong.

In junior school CRS; you basically learned the popular bible stories and morals which are also taught in Sunday school. Then in senior school, where you’re supposed to learn to study (which involves criticism of the bible as any other literary text) you are forced to memorize religious lessons and the appropriate quotation. You don’t learn about the writers of the bible, you don’t learn about the dates the books were written, you are certainly not allowed to criticize the bible (as most CRS teachers are pastors, they will not hear you give an intelligent questioning of the authenticity of the books in the bible) and you aren’t even taught what languages the books of the bible are translated from, I learned about the Church of England from Literature lessons rather than in the CRS that is supposed to deal with the history of Christianity. By right a Muslim should not feel uncomfortable studying CRS in a Secondary school in a secular country, but I assure you that any Muslim that studies CRS will be uncomfortable with the preaching of the teachers. I have no issues with CRS being in our syllabus but if we are studying, then let us study. We might as well change CRS to CRP.

Anybody that has written UTME (AKA JAMB) can tell you that CRS in that exam is simply a Bible Quiz. Check your past questions, here is what the questions look like: Who among the following was sold to the Ishaemlites for twenty shekels because of his dreams? A. Moses B. Joseph C. Jacob D. Ishmael E. Minahem of Israel. Who sold his birthright for a plate of pottage? A. Daniel B. Esau C. Jacob D. Nathaniel E. Adam. And it goes on in this pattern. With all the preaching we received in secondary school, when it was finally time for us to write an international (Cambridge O Levels specifically) CRS exam we all doffed.

Religious Study Summary from Cambridge

So yes, if you want to change CRS in our syllabus feel free to. But it has to become an actual study not an assimilation of information.  

I got a PhD student in Peace and Conflict, Mr. Adebayo V. Adedeji  from the University of Ibadan to tell me how he feels about the topic of discourse:

'Christian Religious Studies as being taught in primary and post primary schools is purely an academic field of study just like the other obtainable subjects. Religious Studies which is an age-long academic discipline devoted to research into religious beliefs, behaviors and institutions has its introductory knowledge in Nigeria from the very basic level of education which is the primary level to upper basic level still known as Junior Secondary School 3. At the beginning of the Senior Secondary School Education which is the basis for academic specialization in Nigeria. Religious Studies (Christian or Islamic basically) are made part of the curriculum for Arts students. This is expedient for a country where almost all (if not all) the citizens professes faith in either of the two organized religions, Christianity and Islam. It is important to note that there is the place of African Traditional Religion which is not the focus of this analysis at least for now. It is also important to reiterate that the purpose of either Christianity or Islamic Studies is not to proselytize but to be treated as a body of knowledge which evaluation can be applied for the purpose of placement, promotion or other educationally designed purposes.

'Secularity simply put is an arrangement in a political entity that clearly separates religion from state activities or functions. A careful look at this perhaps oversimplified analogy will definitely not see Nigeria, a country that sponsors citizens for pilgrimage to Israel and Saudi Arabia as one. Religion means a lot to Africans in general and Nigerians in particular. An attestation to this fact can be drawn from the devastating use of religion narratives in the 2015 general election. It is therefore logical for any government in power to handle this sensitive aspect of people’s culture carefully.

'The crux of the discourse, curriculum planning in Nigeria has to be looked into. While I will be very careful not to exacerbate the issue, the reason for merging of subjects together with a new nomenclature is not a new trend as it has been done to other subjects in the past; Social Studies serving as a window for student in having an idea of what arts and humanities looks like, Integrated Science too serving the same purpose into the scientific world. However, this not so new trend has activated a heated debate because it is touching on religion. 

'Two things to be considered; It appears that the communication of government intentions in this regard has not been well managed. It is also important to reassess the rationality of the merging of these two subjects. Perhaps it is not necessary in the first place. I am personally afraid of new changes and ideas being introduced not only in the area of education. The quality of research done before policies are made and subsequently enacted needs to be looked into. 

In conclusion, Nigerians should be charitable enough not to judge with bias as it will be practically impossible for just one person [minister of education] to arbitrarily take this decision.'

From this it is easy to judge that Mr. Adebayo agrees that this claim is an impossibility. It cannot happen. But he manages to craftily avoid another focus of mine regarding the criticism of CRS. Feel free to leave your comments regarding this subject matter. The WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? is in your hands.

What is the difference between Smart, Intelligent and Brilliant?

You must know by now how many people use those words interchangeably. How many teachers would commend a student by saying he or she is brilliant or “She’s a smart lady.” In my final years in secondary school, I often asked myself why two or more words were created to express the same thing. And I concluded that it is not possible to create two or more words to convey the same meaning. A synonym will always be a synonym and it will always be another word entirely, even though to the general eye it is seen as having ‘similar’ elements.

The categories of mental skill I will outplay here are not fixed, humans beings cannot easily be categorized because of our versatility and complexity. But it will give you an idea on how to use these words better and the appropriate time to do so.

More importantly I will use these categories to explain how and why people tend to function better in Nigerian secondary schools than others.

SMART

The word smart is a combination of Old English and German words smeortan and schmerzen respectively. The words are related to causing sharp pain as in the normal English word ‘to smart’. Ultimately, from this word arose the ideas of brevity like ‘brisk’ and the fashion of looking ‘sharp’ and more importantly related to being ‘mentally quick’.

So a smart person is ‘mentally quick’. It means the person has the ability to recall faster and more efficiently than the normal person. This smart person can easily trail logic, and solve logical problems like if 5y + 11 = 21 find y. Yes, math problems are logical. Smart people can easily recall formulas that help them solve math problems and they have a good ability to follow rules as this is fundamental to their ‘smartness’. Let’s say computers are really smart, and smart people are similar to computers in the sense that they are very good at following rules. Basically, all I have to do is tell a smart person how to find y and they would be able to solve most problems of that nature that come their way.

Your normal I.Q test is simply a test of how smart you are since this is most likely the only one of these three categories that can be quantified.

INTELLIGENT

As for intelligent, it is stemmed from the combination of two Latin words: inter meaning ‘between’ and legere meaning ‘choose’ intellegere which turned to meaning ‘understand’ as is the ability to ‘choose between’. The word evolved in English so intelligent means ‘understanding’ (this is understandable as it like an adjective of the verb intellegere).

An intelligent person on the other hand doesn’t necessarily have the ability to recall faster than the normal person. Intelligence boasts the ability to understand, find solutions to abstract problems, the ability to see through the obvious and the most neglected; the ability to ask questions that matter. All true geniuses are intelligent. This is because every genius is simply a person that poses an unanswered question to the world and answers it before anyone else.

So you find that an intelligent person can narrate, explain and analyze the entire notable events of the World War I to you after reading numerous books and watching countless movies. And they wouldn’t recall majority of what exactly the books they read said, but they had gotten a good understanding that helped give them the ability to say things from their perspective.

BRILLIANT

Notice that this word, unlike the other two, appeal to the sense of sight and color. Brilliant is fundamentally Latin (from beryllus) and consequentially French and English (combination of brillant and beryl). It means ‘shining’.

A brilliant person is basically one that stands out. To infer more, it can be related to the spontaneous outburst of creativity akin to a particular field of activity. While we may call Leonardo Da Vinci a genius because he created forms that were never before created by answering his own questions he posed to the world, he was also brilliant because he could do things others thought they couldn’t. He was a brilliant artist and an intelligent inventor. Now you see how I used those two words.

I DON’T GET IT, HOW DOES THIS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH NIGERIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS?

Schools are small societies with various complexities. Some schools have an economy within their society, holding within them institutions that contain a fair level of influence. However, there is something all schools have and that is a government. Now, the government of a school might be a republican democracy or a socialist communism it depends on the nature of the people involved.

But most Nigerian secondary schools are a dictatorship. And this form of government does not take opposition or questioning of policies, you have to follow rules like mindless sheep. And following rules are very easy for the smart people. Being intelligent in a Nigerian school is a curse, because you question everything. ‘Studying French is compulsory!’ intelligent people will ask ‘Why is studying French compulsory? Why isn’t studying Spanish compulsory?’ smart people will say ‘Yes, studying French is compulsory.’ And you will not know a brilliant person until they write the first French essay.

I will remind you that it is nearly impossible to be completely in either group, we have some of each in certain ratios. I can use myself as an example. I can say in smart-intelligent-brilliant my ratio is 4-7-7. I am slightly below average at math, but it doesn’t mean I can’t solve some logical questions, but since my intelligence ratio is higher I am very bad at following rules but very good at analyzing texts and asking questions. Then my occasional bursts of brilliance can be seen in the particularly creative blog posts or in my paintings and poetry.

I know someone whose ratio is 2-2-9: meaning that this person isn’t very smart or very intelligent but this person is very brilliant. So you find the person standing out in things they have to use their hands or body parts for. However, this kind of person may cope in Nigerian secondary schools because they are not intelligent enough to question the rules they are told, so the person has to put in average effort into being a good student.

A person who has 10-10-10 will be perfect because he or she will be able to moderate each of their qualities and apply the right one at the right time to achieve the best results.

From my theories you can begin to understand how the system works. People with higher smart ratio are made to execute, people with higher intelligence are made to legislate and people with higher brilliance – well, to shine. From here you can begin to understand why some people just found school life much easier than some others. It’s not because they are more intelligent than you, far from it, it is because they have comparatively lower intelligence.

Honestly, writing this post was so hard for me. It has so much logic in it, I kept rereading every line to make sure I applied the right logic. 

The First Step - Recap

It’s been a wonderful first week, I couldn’t ask for better. I want to thank you all that have been reading my blog and all the great people that helped make this happen. Special thanks to donors that have placed money into the donation fund and all the critiques that didn’t hesitate to drop comments.

These Sunday posts would be a great opportunity to give you all a ‘behind-the-scenes’ of the making of my write-ups. It does take a lot of personal effort and a lot of my allowance to provide you all with great content. Almost half the time people aren’t as cooperative as it makes you seem in the posts, but it’s safe to say I have a way with people.

Since I started the journey of this blog I have met many wonderful and amazing people, from labor workers to company CEOs and people from different backgrounds. It’s a priceless opportunity that I’m grateful for. I still have a lot to learn as you have must have discovered from many obvious mistakes I have made, but a child will only start walking when it is tired of falling.

I hope to expand as the days go by, reach beyond the apparent confines and add more depth of experience into what you read. I hope to be able to change Seeing Life in Nigeria to Seeing Life in Africa and the consequently to Seeing Life on Earth one day and I hope to be able to impact lives in sweeps as I move on and into to the next stage.

The Obscenities post was my very first time interviewing a person professionally, so I must confess that I was a bit nervous before meeting Mr. Bethel. I had to wear a mask of boldness before I could function, but if he had cared to notice he would have realized how my unsteady fingers had betrayed me. You have to learn the power of masking in this journalism. First impressions last and the mask you wear before you appear to someone will determine how the person will see you throughout their lives. I wore the mask of an inquisitive young man in the Taxi Life post and I appeared before the kids at the Orphanage as an elder brother.

I am thankful for your time and your patronage, I wish I could type out more for you all to see but I’ll be redundant in repeating what I have already said in previous posts. Once again, if you like a post remember to +1 it, like it, share it and follow Obarian.

The Ever Shapeshifting, Ever Dynamic, Ever National Moin Moin (Saturday Special)

So I have decided to dedicate Saturdays to delving into cultural food in Nigeria, and I chose the Moin Moin to start this specials. I will confess, I do not know how to cook, but I assure you that I did some extensive research and observed my sister making the moin moin so I have a good idea on how to cook it (I think).

WHAT IS MOIN MOIN?

To the best of my knowledge moin moin is beans pudding or black-eyed peas pudding. Pudding is basically a food with soft or creamy consistency; this fulfills the criteria and is made from beans hence the name BEANS PUDDING. In layman’s words it’s the solid end result of creamy beans after some cooking steps. It is often orange (yellow in some variants) in color and characterized with the occasional boiled egg or fish popping up inside.

WHERE IS MOIN MOIN FROM?

Moin moin elemi meje is Yoruba origin and is said to be the dish with seven lives. This is because of the fish, egg, onions, etc. that goes into it. Although the dish is now almost technically a national food and is eaten in nearly all parts of Nigeria. Moin moin is protein rich and can be eaten with akamu, agidi (white), or garri. It is traditionally served in parties with jollof rice or fried rice. It can be eaten at any time of the day.

Beans!

WHAT ARE THE INGREDIENTS OF MOIN MOIN?

1.       Beans

2.       Crayfish

3.       Pepper

4.       Onion

5.       Boiled Eggs

6.       Fish (Canned or whatnot)

7.       Palm Oil/Vegetable Oil

HOW DO I MAKE MOIN MOIN?

1.       Get your beans out and into a bowl, basically all you have to do in the first step is to remove the soft skin of the beans. To do this you need to soak the beans in cold water for a while, rub the beans until the skin floats up and redo until you are satisfied.

2.       Your fish, egg, etcetera should be attended to. You can start boiling the egg and the cooking the fishes while your beans is soaking. Don’t forget to slice your onions too.

3.       Remove your blender from wherever you kept it and turn your beans into it. Add the crayfish, pepper and onion and blend away until it has been turned into a fine paste. I repeat: into a fine paste.

4.       Well, now we have our blended mixture we can go on to add either of the oils; be it vegetable or palm oil (depends on you, my sister used palm oil). Palm oil should/can be heated to get rid of the raw-ish taste. Mix the oils into the mixture until it blends completely.

5.       You can now also add the fish you have prepared to the paste and be careful with your stirring so you don’t have splintered fish allover your paste.

6.       The wrapping. This is the tricky part. You can use local leaves to wrap your moi moi paste or use a plastic bag. Using the local leaves is an art on its own, and is something you may need to consult a professional for. I just relied on the trusty plastic bag.

7.       Finally, boil your beans in water for some time until you’re satisfied with its solidness.

Many people have used moin moin in various packaging and due to its pasty form; it is easy to shape into whatever you like. 

Palm Oil Moi Moi

The Road to Success is (not) always under Construction – Arnold Palmer (Obarian)

But our roads are not under construction! They are hardly even properly planned, so how can we achieve success? Half a million naira is the amount the average Nigerian car owner spends annually to keep one vehicle good shape. If you don’t have a mountain truck there are many parts of Nigeria you can’t hope to access without having to pick parts of your vehicle as you scrape along. These routes include federal government roads. Yes, roads that senators, presidents, companies and individuals use on a day-to-day. Why are they in the state they’re in? Everyone knows the answer to that question, but what are we gonna do about it?

Elelenwo Road

My adventures led me from Oil Mill Market junction down the road to Akpajo, it wasn’t a ‘drive’ it was a ‘gallop’. I was literally clinging to the Keke’s (motorized tricycle) grip handles for my dear life as the rider expertly wove his way through the roads. We may be called Rivers State because of the nearly river-sized puddles that erosion has created on our roads.

Julius Berger Workers

On my way to Akpajo I met a group of Julius Berger workers working on the roads, so I decided to have a nice chat with them. They were basically working on the underground drainage ahead of their peers (ie. the other colleagues were further down the road), their jobs were consequently to open up the old road so the others could mount the drainage cylinders. After talking to them I discovered why the roads are taking ages to be built: “If we wanted to rush this road now, we would just destroy the entire road and block this place. But we are not doing that, we are working in a way that will allow other people to use and access this road. This is how the government wants us to work.” The director of the workers on that segment specifically made it clear to me that they will never hinder the businesses on the road, that even though they ought to stop a few traders selling on small stalls like the bole woman they wouldn’t because “She has to pay school fees for her children.”

He said he wants to be on Facebook

Right now, the Akpajo junction is every trailer/truck/lorry driver’s worst fear. Unfortunately, the two roads are economically important roads that lead from Port Harcourt to the Eleme Refinery and ALL LARGE COMMERCIAL VEHICLES that hope to reach the refinery use that road. They often break down with the bad roads, or the cargo will fall and spill, cause loss of lives and loss of property.

Stella Chukwukere

The horrible roads are so bad for business that even Engaging Christian Books a small bookshop run by Stella Chukwukere at the Akpajo junction can testify that since the rains started, customers don’t even know how to get to her shop, they can see it, but they can’t get to it. She blames Julius Berger’s work for the water that has lodged at her shop’s front: “Since this Berger people have started working on the road, they just blocked the way water used to flow previously. We told them our concerns but the reply was that we should go and see the Minister of Works that the Berger contractors played their part as directed by the state government.”

Loss of Property

Stella was even nice enough to share the story of the smashed car on the road in front of her shop: “It’s God that saved that man oh. He came down before that thing fell on him. His car got stuck in one of those portholes, so he and his passenger, the boy at the front, came down to check how they could free the car from there. Then one of the trailers carrying those tanks came, the thing was shaking like it was going to fall at any minute, and once it got to that point, it just fell.”

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

The Akpajo junction in particular needs a flyover because of how the junction is designed; we have three important roads meeting at one point and people going in different directions. But…

The only way out of this mess is to put pressure on the government; the roads all over Nigeria are in terrible condition. Is there money to fix it? Yes, where is our tax going to? Why are the roads not fixed? One word: ‘corruption’. I am not here to give you the solution to corruption, that is a moral problem, but I am here to ask you: are you not the government?

Mini Biographies: The Orphanage

When we stretch out our fingers and we look at them, we see all of them as unequal. The thumb is short and stout, the ring finger is average heighted, the middle finger is the tallest, the index finger is second tallest and the little finger is – well, little. My point is that it is these inequalities that help our hands to function as they should. This is the way the world is made because if everyone stood on the same pedestal then that day you can say you have found yourself in heaven.

Looking at your life, you can honestly tell yourself which finger you are. Are you the tallest, the most fortunate? The one that feels everyone else was made to serve you? Or are you the quiet and useful thumb that hardly gets any praise?  No matter which finger you are, we were only made for one purpose and that is to assist one another.

So it has always baffled me about the circumstances surrounding abandoned babies and children. Children in orphanages in Nigeria are rarely doing fine because orphanages hardly get enough charity, or the owner/starter hardly has enough funds to continue the non-profit organization. Many people reading this have been to an orphanage before; you know that it is often not a very well-off place. Now I have decided to visit an orphanage near a community I used to live in and feature them in this post. This has caused me to write a mini-biography series about the children’s lives and the people behind these children.

Goodness and Mercy Orphanage Home sits in the heart of Elelenwo, no 10 Odolukwu road, Port Harcourt, surrounded by many smaller communities that comprise that area. It is a smallish looking group of buildings, neighbored by an affiliate nursery and primary school by the same founder. His name is Pastor Marius Stephen Obi, a civil engineer, business man and transport mogul by profession and a father by title and love. He founded the orphanage after visiting several other orphanages around the country and realizing that the children were not treated the way he sees fit. He asked himself the question “If they are my children, what will I do?” Now Mr. Stephen Marius prayed for 3 months in 2005 in regard to this question and by 2007 he founded the blossoming orphanage I saw today supporting a large number of 40 children, 37 of which are in school, 2 of these will be graduating from secondary school soon. He told my accomplice and me that before he picked up these children they were rejected, obviously uncared for and declared societal outcasts. He has admitted to us that there has been an alarming case in UST (Rivers State University of Science and Technology) where a baby was found in the bathroom.

Pastor Stephen Marius Obi

Of course it hasn’t been all bread and butter for our beloved founder he has had difficulties as with almost every sphere of anything associated with green white green (Nigeria). His primary concern is the government not doing their job of providing recognized orphanages across the country with monthly allowances. Although they are not being catered for by our government, this is not the end, Mr. Stephen has declared that himself and his volunteers have put at least 60% of all they have into making Goodness and Mercy a better orphanage. They have been helped although, by private institutions, churches and individuals who have donated things like washing machines, cash etcetera. He also had to admit that though some parties have promised to do something, they have failed on their promise (I do not want to be one). To even paint more on the facts, Mr. Stephen picked a phone call right in front of us from the medical center who were demanding monies for antibiotics that ought to be free by right.

Here is a list of immediate needs of the orphanage:

1.       Foodstuff

2.       Curtains/Bed sheet

3.       Detergents

4.       Disinfectants

5.       Washing Machine

6.       Generator

7.       Lamps/torchlights

8.       Computers

9.       Kitchen Utensils

10.   Clothes, shoes

11.   Fridge

12.   Land

13.   Buses

Me interviewing my little friends

Mr. Stephen’s affiliated nursery and primary school provides free education for the orphans and the indigenous children that have been found hawking and roaming the streets of the neighborhood.

We were shown to the school and greeted by hordes of eager children, after a brief discussion with their teachers I decided to do a short interview of a few of the kids in the classrooms.

Esohe is a lovely four year old girl in nursery one with a very stern idea of discipline. During our prayers, she kept opening her eyes to check if my eyes were closed and warning me to close them.

Glory Inisunde is one of the three Inisunde sisters I met in the school, all three with very distinct personalities but generally the same bold outlook. Glory is six years old and hopes to be a nurse when she is older. She reveals that she enjoys helping sick people and she particularly doesn’t like stealing.

Ogechi Chukwuemeka, in primary two, another six year old, Ogechi has been described by others as motherly and pronounces herself as ‘a girl of wisdom’. She aspires to be a mother (not a full time housewife), she is an avid supporter of school and finally she hopes to use her singing talents in her motherly occupation.

Mary Chimeze is a six year old doctor in the making and a lover of rice. She thought I was an oracle and demanded that she wants wisdom and she wants favor. She is in primary two.

Ihenchukwu Nwanfor doesn’t hate anything but he likes the subject English and dancing. He is going to be one of the best police officers Nigeria has seen; he said so himself in the boldest way any 8 year old can.

Abraham Chimeze is the elder brother to Mary and a fierce protector of his sister. He admits that whilst mathematics is his best subject five times four will always be equal to one. Although he likes Basic Science better and was more than happy to share the types of soil with me.

Uduak is easily one of the oldest and easygoing students in the school. He is eighteen years old (I thought he was lying initially), a singer and an electrician-to-be currently in primary four. One of the teachers explained to me that he is one of the indigenous children that the school accepts free.

The second Inisunde, Loveth, loves helping her mother out and also spends her time reading books. Her best book is The Ant, Grasshopper and Bee. Loveth is already a renowned comedian and wasn’t shy to share small jokes with us that nearly ripped my lungs in laughter. She is also a lover of math and hopes one day to be an accountant. I should mention that she hates stealing, fighting and insulting.

Another accountant-to-be is David Frank. Today the twelve year old wrapped himself up in a rain jacket while he explained to us that he plays center forward position in football and he has an indulging hobby of making friends.

Mary Favour has an uncommon hobby of preaching, the young lady was caught preaching answers to kids I was interviewing. She is a future learned colleague of mine as she wants to be a lawyer. She is in basic five and is preparing for her common entrance

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

The solution to most of these children’s problems is finance and if the government is ignoring their duties, it us up to us as other fingers to assist the entire hand. My solution to this is to start up a donation fund for this particular orphanage and others I’ll be visiting in the nearest future. I will create a new page on my blog dedicated to this mission, and once we meet the 50,000 naira mark I will send it to the orphanage. I will appreciate your support; you can make a difference with a push of a button. Donate

Taxi Life:The Untold Story of Taxi Drivers

Personal experience in my years of using public transport in Nigeria can only be described with one word ‘pathetic’. Is it the constantly over packed danfo? Or the fact that, in a taxi cab, nearly all the time I’m sharing the front seat with someone else? Or sharing one of the back seats with 1 or 2 overweight women (this always happens to me)? It is just impossible to look dignified in any of those vehicles. In fact, there was a time that the danfo bus I was sitting at the back of was leaking from the ceiling, and rain was battering me from inside the bus. All these things automatically made me dislike the taxi drivers, and it no longer makes me feel that they are worth my 100 bucks. Many of the taxi drivers have a really nasty attitude to work and feel like they are doing you a favor for your money. There was a case where one of them was raining insults at me, my offence? Because I didn’t want to seat in the middle of the backseats, so I stood up and let the new passenger go inside. It’s insane (absurd!).

But one day I met a taxi driver who actually apologized to me for going to the petrol station and wasting my time and even asked me if he could do it. However, when we got to the petrol station, he left his engine on and was filling the tank (which got me so freaked out; I had to step off the vehicle so it won’t explode when I was inside). When I asked him why he did it he said “I don’t know if my engine will turn on again if I switch it off.” I tipped him 100 bucks and it was because of him I was inspired to investigate the rough untold life of taxi drivers. Maybe I judged them too soon?

So I grabbed my trusty backpack, my camera, my phone, my jotter and my shorts (although I hid my phone in my bag for obvious reasons) and went out to find out how life really is for our notorious taxi men. I met a few of them in a short while and I asked if they could answer a few questions, to my surprise, all of them were scared to answer me. I even offered to pay one a few bucks if he just told me a few things and if he also agreed to let me take his picture but he said “I can’t know where my face will appear if I answer your questions.” Then and there, I knew that it was either there was some very shady things going on in taxi business, or taxi men are scared of cameras.

I left my vibe-killing taxi drivers in Eliozu junction and walked about 1000m to Artillery where I pretended to be a passenger going to Air Force junction. Only then did I get the juicy details of the life of taxi drivers. I thought to myself how funny it was that when I approached formally, they were so scared but as their passenger it was like I grew up in their village compound.

It turns out that taxi men are being taxed by 2 ‘agencies’; one is the City Local Government who issues them a ticket of N250 which licenses them to pick passengers in that area for 24 hours (according to one source) and the other is the Junction Chairman (LMAO) who is kind of like the chief of agberos in that bus stop/junction. For all you ajebutter (unexposed) children reading this post: an agbero is a person that is responsible for collecting commissions for the Junction Chairman and also enforcing the laws of their chairman in that land. Think of it as a disheveled mafia of a sort.

So taxi men pay a legal fee and an illegal fee. Most of these drivers don’t particularly have a problem paying these fees. The only issue is that there is a chance that after paying the local government and paying the Junction Chairman another agbero from the same chairman can come and claim that they have not paid anything. Some of you might think that ‘Oh, why don’t they just drive away?’ Well has your car seat ever been seized before? Or your car battery ended up in a police station? (I guess not). Or you can just watch this Area video for another consequence (PG advised) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgrbCxqjR7E . But yes, Junction Chairmen are very influential - some in close affiliation with police, most generating about 200naira every 5 minutes (#BillGatesthings). I once heard some women talking about one near Eleme Junction that was so fat his chest looked like female breasts.

With most of their revenue sapped away you can understand why taxi drivers are so grumpy and most of them really don’t have anything to lose when they scratch your car; they don’t bother maintaining theirs because they can’t, as long as the engine is running that is more than enough. Honestly, the worst thing on the road is a driver that doesn’t have anything to lose.

Technically, Keke na Pepe (motorized tricycles) drivers may be making more profit than our taxi men.

I once spoke with the proprietress of a school in New Layout and she told me that “We have graduates among them, you know?  And once they enter into that job it changes them, they just transform.”

WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

I decided to meet a legal expert on this matter for a solution to all these madness. I gave a phone call to Cyrus Egbe (Esq.). Here’s what he has to say:

“If we are talking about the system of those taxi drivers, they don’t have an organized taxi system. Just like for example in the US they have, in New York they have the Yellow Cab and they have a kind of private firm having partnership with the government ruling out this taxi scheme. The firms will post cabs on different areas of the city. So if anyone needs a cab they can call the cab company and give them their location, so the taxis around that axis will go there and pick the person.

“Now most of the taxis in Rivers State are not registered, we don’t know the number of taxis in River state flying our roads. That is why one can just come here and bring one taxi and put it on the road with no monitoring at all, no control. The Private firms will be controlling taxi drivers, that way it will be very easy, and when it comes to so many countries that is what is applicable. That is why you see most of our cabs; lots of cabs in Port Harcourt the cab itself don’t have a good shape. The Ministry of Transport has a whole lot to do. There are private companies in Port Harcourt that do hire cabs, you may be somewhere in Port Harcourt and you being able to call and they’ll come and pick you. But then the moment they say ‘ok, you know what? Let’s try and control the system’, if they have a monopoly, the government figures will want to have something in return. Corruption is the major problem.

“Truth is a lot of people in Nigeria have brilliant ideas. Transport in Nigeria is a failed system. So you see? Look at the Monorail for example, in Port Harcourt, ending at Lagos Bus Stop. The government has invested a whole lot, about 200 million naira. What do we have? Uncompleted project abandoned. So that is how the system is.”

(I think I have to tell people my blog is cultural and not political.) 

Anyhow, I agree with Cyrus, that is how the system is. The question now is how do we change the system?