A Reflection of Naija (my beloved country)?

Its funny how time flies. I am a year older now and I seem not to be getting younger too. Taking a look at my mirror this morning and to an extent I have been ignoring my looks. I used to be a fine guy you know, facial and structure-wise (some of you would say "you wish". Well wait until you hear my mama ramble about my fineness).

But anyway, what I saw today was not funny at all. I had to take a second look and not convinced about what I am seeing I switched on my room light to illuminate my face in case shadows are playing some tricks on me. Men was I disappointed?

I spent the whole day looking and feeling so moody about my discovery. My friend kept asking me what is wrong and that I should cool down if its all about the usual moody causing suspects like money and woman palavar. I couldn't tell him. I couldn't tell anyone. Even now am telling you, I guess you dont know me so you wont have to laught or look at me with pity.

Later in the day I decided taken up the challenge of finding out what went wrong. I am just turning 31 years old but I think the image I saw was a 40-45 year old. (Hey don't go throwing suggestions at me because I am not sick from any terminal disease and yes i went for a check up and test recently and e no dey show for face!).

So what went wrong. Just this evening the answer to my ponderings came through. I was on the phone with my cousin of about the same age as moi who lives in Germany and he said he sent me his and wife's pictures to my e-mail. When I checked my mail I was stunned at how much better he looks since I saw him 1 year ago.

Men! Just one year that he left Naija for greener pastures.

My findings:

1. Surviving Naija requires a lot of sacrifice and loss (Is it worth it)
2. I am a reflection of Naija (my beloved country)
3. Just like a lot other Nigerians I am caught up in the poverty trap Chasing Money instead of opportunities.
4. If I continue this way. My grave is not far away?

My Resolve:

1. Regain every loss by staying positive
2. Become not a reflection of Naija's situation but a reflection of Naija's Bright future
3. Chase opportunities (step out of the vicious circle)
4. If I continue this way. My gain is not far away?

Peace!

Can Yar'Adua Change Nigeria?

The above a question was asked on www.nigerians.us website and its amazing the different opinions Nigerians have of our new president the Nigerian democracy as a whole. I couldnt but comment when one of the commentators' (Madonna) replies to the question was:

Madonna: "No Yar'Adua cannot change Nigeria, it is only a miracle and intervention of God that can change this country, and i also think if we were in the military regime it might bring a little change, but not with this democratic regime.That people do whatever they like and get away it."

Here is my reply to him on that answer:

Sorry to pick on you Madonna! But let me remind you of something interesting you are forgetting. The miracle and intervention of God has already started. You may have a timetable of 4 years of a presidential term as your criteria for democratic actualization and dividends to become evidence, and you may have also been one of the people that "benefitted" well from the military style of leadership. God's timetable is surprisingly not the way we expect things to happen and can never be. So when you say Yar'adua cannot change Nigeria, I am tempted to ask you: "from God's perspective or from man's perspective?". Just like in the Bible when God was chosing Judges and Kings for the isrealites, some of them got chosen, disobeyed God, ran off course, sinned, lead selfishly, but yet God still used them to achieve His ultimate plans for the children of Isreal. Abacha did his bit, Shonekan did his, Gen. Abubakar, then Obasanjo and even if you say: "obasanjo privatized everything to become his own", Just wait and see what happens at the long run, When God will require the monies stolen to be injected back into the economy. He will make it happen. Nigeria belongs to God and if Yar'adua refuses to follow through with God's plans, God will still make him do it or use somebody else. As He has always done according to His plans. And do please remove your military uniform cos it is a new era and It is not our portion in Jesus Name! Our Democracy was born, we have just attended the naming ceremony chaired by obasanjo, The baby still dey suck breast. Yar'adua's Leadership is like the baby's first day at school (Yar'adua as the Principal). We all need to put our hands on deck to make sure that we bring up our democracy. You know that bringing up a child is not an easy thing. So until we meet at the graduating ceremony after which we expect the child to get a job and fend for himself only then would we ever think back to compare military dictatorship and democracy. And am sure by then it will be more of a academy discussion topic than an option for leadership. God bless Nigeria!

A Great Story

A young lady was waiting for her flight in the boarding room of a big airport. As she would need to wait many hours, she decided to buy a book to spend her time. She also bought a packet of cookies. She sat down in an armchair, in the VIP room of the airpot, to rest and read in peace. Beside the armchair where the packet of cookies lay, a man sat down in the next seat, opened his magazine and started reading. When she took out the first cookie, the man took one also. She felt irritated but said nothing. She just thought: "What a nerve! If I was in the mood I would punch him for daring!" For each cookie she took, the man took one too. This was infuriating her but she didn't want to cause a scene. Shen only one cookie remained, she thought: "ah... What will this abusive man do now?" Then, the man, took the last cookie, divided it into half and gave her one half. Ah! That was too much! She was much too angry now! In a huff, she took her book, her things and stormed to the boarding place. When she sat down in her seat, inside the place, she looked into her purse to take her eyeglasses, and, to her surprise, her packet of cookies was there untouched! She felt so ashamed! She realized that she was wrong.... She had forgotten that her cookies were kept in her purse. The man had divided his cookies with her, without feeling angered or bitter. ...while she had been very angry, thinking that she was dividing her cookies with him. And now there was no chance to explain herself... nor to apologize. There are 4 things that you cannot recover. The stone... ... after the throw! The word... ... after it's said! The occasion... ...after the loss! The time... ...after its gone!

Just thought I should share this with ya fellas! ciao!

WHERE IS LOVE

As I read through my bible this morning I came across the meaning of true love. And I asked myself "in the Nigeria we live in today, can we draw strength from love?" I can only but see that we tend to embrace modernity, civilization and imported culture coupled with a barrage of misunderstood antecedents which we found ourselves evolved from.

Modernity, Civilization and imported culture says better roads, power supply, food, employment, health, transparency, leadership by example, active participation in positive initiatiives, good and standardized education, law and order, applicable technologies, progressive cultural exchange. Not brand-new flashy cars bought from stolen money on bad roads, Not power supply to only a certain class (elites) and expensive power-generating sets, Not importation of adulterated foods and drugs, Not bribing to get employed nor getting employed by godfatherism instead of by merit and experience, Not providing health care facilities that are far from the reach of the common man, Not rolling about in tinted vehicles and claiming busy schedules while lavishing time and money., Not "do what i say and dont mind what i do". Not creating initiatives with an ulterior motive of decieving to achieve selfish goals. Not education by bribing and cheating ones way through school. Not being lawless and knowing ways you can get away with it.

We as Nigerians cannot be quick to compare ourselves with others but not quick to identify the shortcomings in this fast-paced modern world we dwell in. In identifying the shortcomings, only then would we be able to incline our minds to positively directed changes. Lets approach development and change with a different attitude. An attitude of honest disposition to the long thrust of making Nigeria the Nigeria of our dreams; embedded in our hearts; seen in our faces especially when we come together on rare ocassions like a football match. It is an attitude of love for one another. The effect can only be imagined.

Talking about imaginations, I look at a new born child and imagine how the choices I make today will affect the child's tomorrow (destiny). I look at a labourer out in the sun and imagine what happens to him and his many children when the sinews of his bone become weak. For a meagre N700 daily pay he toils and toils, goes back to a home you cant really call a home, manages to feed his wife and kids and setting out the next morning for the same routine for the sake of his love for his wife and children. I look at the Nigeria of today and imagine what i would be like if we all operate in love for the Nigeria of tomorrow i.e. if we can see that through the eyes of the unborn.

Think about it. When modernization, civilization, imported culture and every other thing fail, can we draw strength from love. We can if we create our own modernity, civilization and have a strong sense of cultural belonging. Not destroy, but preserve and create.

I'll leave you with this portion of the Bible:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, [1] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; [2] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13

What better way to capture the moment than this?

The first prize winning photo in the Spot News Singles category of the 2007 World Press Photo Contest, by Reuters photographer Akintunde Akinleye, shows a man rinsing soot from his face after a gas pipeline explosion in Lagos, Nigeria December 26, 2006. The prize-winning entries were announced on February 9, 2007.

A Nigerian man rinses soot from his face at the scene of a petroleum gas pipelineexplosion near Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos, Tuesday, December 26, 2006.

A ruptured petroleum pipeline burst into flames while scavengers were collectingfuel from the underground pipeline punctured overnight by an armed gang whosiphoned fuel into road tankers, leaving behind a stream of stray petroleumgasoline for hundreds of resident scavengers. The Red Cross said the fire killedat least 269 people and injured dozens that were trapped and burnt on the groundnext to a ramshackle automobile workshop and a saw-mill in the densely populateddistrict of Abule-Egba, an outskirt of Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos.

Nigeria, Africa oil giant, is the eight largest producer of crude oil in theworld and its earnings soared by the rise in the world market, allowing it tobuild up to 40 billion US Dollars by the end of 2006; but it is also one of theworld poorest countries with a large number of its 140 million people enduringextreme poverty amid widespread graft that makes a handful of people wealthy.This inequality motivates those who sabotage oil pipelines and the villagers whopilfer the fuel for sale in the black market where it is sold three-fold.
While the response of the emergency fire service equipped with leaking water hosesdelayed, other villagers assisted in using water collected in buckets, to subduethe fire that lasted four hours.

Akintunde Akinleye Reuters, Lagos, Nigeria.

Akintunde Akinleye (36), Nigeria, started in photography at high school, later graduating with a Bachelor of Education degree in Social Studies from Ondo State University. He enrolled at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Lagos, for a post-graduate diploma in Journalism in 1999, and in 2003 completed a master's degree in educational technology at the University of Lagos. Later in 2003 he was employed as a staff photographer on Nigeria's Daily Independent, moving on to a job at Reuters in 2005. He has had work published in such newspapers as such as The Washington Post, International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. In 2005 Akintunde was a participant of the first photojournalism course organized by World Press Photo in cooperation with the Nigerian Institute for Journalism. In January 2007, he had a solo exhibition at the gallery of the School of Art, Yaba College of Technology, Lagos. www.akintunde1.com See Akintunde Akinleye talk about his work. Click here to start the flash film