Aijuswanarite

Nick of Time

2012-01-31T17:18:00.002+01:00

So once again I am here in the nick of time to drop a post before the month runs out. Sometimes I feel like I should just let this at least once a month thing go, but a four year streak is nothing to be sniffed at. I also notice that I am close to my 300th post. This is my 291st to be exact.

I started out with a bang. I mean I did my first 100 posts from October 2006 - June 2007 basically 8 months cos I started blogging at the end of October.

The second 100 was done from June 2007 to July 2008, and so just over a year. It would have been done sooner, but I slowed down in the last few months. It took me 5 months to do the last 15 posts.

So since July 2008 I have written a just under 90 posts, this is just sad sha. The shame has come and gone so, I shan't even try and defend myself any more.

Anyway, on to the next.

I have been looking over analytics for the last year and nobody reads my blog enough to make the post worth a lot, but still I am a creature of habit and by the end of the week you my last few readers shall get the top ten post of 2011.

Enjoy

Update: it's even worse than I thought. There are only 276 published posts. So I am a long ways away from 300

Update 2: New Year's Resolution: Reach 300 posts by the end of June

Update 3: Reach 300 posts by the end of the year: Let's not be too eager eh :D

On 2011/12 (preliminary thoughts)

2011-12-31T15:48:00.000+01:00

2011 was an interesting year for Nigeria we had some highs and some lows the prognosis for 2012 is that is going to be a difficult year. Subsidy removal, power price increases, the continued menance of Boko Haram. However I choose to believe that the positives of a fast growing economy and the successful implementation of the gvt's deregulation and liberalization agenda will make 2012 better than 2011

Happy New Year in advance folks

More Subsidy Thoughts

2011-11-18T11:04:00.001+01:00

So a little while ago, I was asked to put down my thoughts on the FGN's decision to remove the petroleum subsidy in 2012. As far as I know, I don't think it was used anywhere. I guess the thing died. So I decided to give it a look over and post it here for you guys to take a look at. It basically goes from the premise that I'm in charge of implementing the subsidy program.

The Government should begin subsidy removal in 2012. If I were in tasked with removing subsidy, and all the political obstacles were overcome, this is how I’d do it:

1. Deregulate the distribution:
I’d remove the petroleum equalization fund and stop regulating trucking. The nation needs to get used to the fact that pump prices are different across the nation. This should spur the development of trucking and logistics companies that can be profitable

2. Subsidy Peg:
Make the subsidy a fixed peg. Rather than fix the pump price at N65. I’d fix the subsidy at N85/ litre and have it reduce over time. This should limit the shock to the country and allow for proper subsidy budgeting.

3. Pipeline & Depot System:
Use the majority of the funds released from the subsidy reduction to fix the pipeline system. Starting with Atlas Cove and the pipelines and depots in Lagos and then to the nationwide trunk lines.

4. Refineries:
Auction off the refineries. Strict technical criteria. Financial capacity. FG to keep 25% of each refinery company and should sell it on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

5. Poverty Alleviation:
If we had more of a formal economy, I’d do this by tax rebate for people at certain income levels. However the only way I can think to do this is to provide free primary healthcare to every local government. Staffed, equipped etc. If there are funds left over, primary education in every local govt could be pursued as well.

So what do you guys think. If you had to remove subsidy how would you do it?

Quick Hits at the end of the month

2011-10-31T18:42:00.001+01:00

Apropos of nothing, (other than my blog at least every month streak :D) I have decided to put of a few quick hits about what I've been thinking about today. Some of these don't really merit a full post but some of them will (well may) be developed further.

Subsidy Wahala Part 100: So subsidy is technically illegal in its current form. NNPC deducts the subsidy as a first charge on the federation account. This implies that the states pay part of the subsidy. However technically this is illegal because it amounts to unappropriated spending. As a result, the state governments are refusing to sign off on September allocations, so there is no money being shared. However this reminds me of the tanker driver's strike. The tanker drivers always blink first cos they have more to lose. Most States have no Internally Generated Revenue to speak of, so i don't think they'll be able to stand off much longer.

Bayelsa Brouhaha: So Ben Bruce was apparently disqualified from running for the Governor of Bayelsa State because he has dual citizenship. The luminaries of the PDP committee are basing this on Section 182 of the constitution. However Section 182 is subject to Section 28, which makes it clear that the dual citizenship malarkey is pretty much only for non-ethnic or naturalized Nigerians. This is interpretation and not settled law as such, but most people seem to agree with the common readings. Still Mr. Bruce should go to court if only so we can get a reading on this after all.

PPP Palaver: So Ijeoma has a wicked article in This Day today about the PPP scheme for MMA2 the domestic airport built by Bi-Courtney. The article highlights the problem with PPP in Nigeria. Nobody trusts the government to honor its side of the agreement. There is practically no transaction that has been completed in the last few years that the government has not tried to renege on the agreement terms. So you have to be ridiculously politically connected to ensure that your transaction stays intact or your economics have to work if the government changes its mind in a few years.

Local Government Liberation: A lot has been made about the RMFAC and NASS decision to provide the local government with direct access to the federation account. Currently the State Government receives the funds on behalf of the LGs and then distributes it onward. The belief is that giving the LGs the funds directly will make them more independent. However with the ability of the State Governments to dissolve the local governments any how, and the lack of immunity of the Local Government Chairman, I seriously doubt that there will be any effective independence until our polity moves past jobs for the boys politics. However if there was no jobs for the boys politics, you won't need this law anyway.

I actually had fun doing this, it flowed off my fingers like it was 2007. Who knows may be this is the start of a new beautiful friendship. Laters.

The Magic Wand Theory

2011-09-14T15:22:00.000+01:00

For the last couple of months I have had a front row seat to a significant portion of the discussions on the state of the Nigerian polity that goes on in the Nigerian hyper-literate class. The discussions follow a certain pattern. They start off as policy discussions and degenerate into accusations of pro and anti Jonathan bias. It's like Nigeria's version of the Godwin law.

Another thing I've noticed about the arguments from both sides is that they both start from a central premise. They believe in the magic wand theory of governance. The magic wand theory of governance goes something like this: all you need to succeed or enact a policy is decide to do it. As a result the "pro-Jonathan" people point to his stated desire to enact one policy or another, and the "anti-Jonathan" people point to him not saying he will do something. It's similar to the Underpants Gnome theory of South Park.

I can understand the lure of the Magic Wand theory, especially since Nigeria has a strong executive and it seems intuitive that the President can do anything if he puts his mind to it. However this turns out not to be the case: the independence of the legislature (despite being the same party) the power of the civil service unions, the private sector unions, the strength of the governors etc, means that there are a lot more checks and balances than are necessarily evident.

I think the Magic Wand is also attractive because Nigeria has so many problems that seem to have obvious solutions, if only people ignore their own self interest and pull together. The President is expected to be the person that can either order or coerce people to act against their own self interest. In this narrative the President effectively becomes indistinguishable from the Saviour.

This is not to say that the President cannot do things, as I said Nigeria has a strong executive. However I think he is constrained in a manner that both his fans and his detractors do not appreciate. While I understand that dismissal of constraints is a clear characteristic of Magic Wand thinking, it is still annoying when I run up against it in conversations. Though it is amusing to get accused of being both pro and anti Jonathan in the same debate.

In a nutshell, I'm basically saying that the next time you get into a political/policy argument about Nigeria don't only think about what should be done, think also of how it can be done. And how will you do this... I don't know... a Magic Wand maybe

Laters

The Play's The Thing

2011-08-22T16:23:00.002+01:00

So I was in church this Sunday - you in the back, stop sniggering, yes, you.

There was a play on rather than a sermon, though it was indeed longer than a sermon and bumped into the start of the second service.

It was one of those "message" plays as you would expect of a church play. It was about a broken home that is restored by the love of Jesus Christ. It went as you would expect. Abusive, Philandering Husband, and Shrewish Unattractive Wife. I didn't even get too annoyed by the implied equivalence of the two characters. Basically a woman being shrewish and unattractive is just as bad as a man beating his wife and sleeping around. Still it is not Sirach level madness and so I could deal.

However I took exception to one point during the play. Just after the man batters his wife, she has a road to Damascus conversion, and becomes a good Christian... which is all well and good. She then apologizes to her husband for doing anything that made him beat her... which is definitely not all well and good.

Now I'm the kind of person that is perfectly cool with disagreeing with the messages of the church I attend, but this one kinda made my head explode. It's a play, not a sermon, but it was indeed unfortunate that the play validated the theory that a woman is ever in any way to blame for getting hit.

I had a conversation about it at lunch, and I ran into the standard argument that can be guaranteed to drive me mad. You know the one: I will never advocate hitting a woman, but you know that it is possible for a man to be provoked into hitting a woman. Why do many educated men (and women to be fair) in Nigeria believe that fists are ever a response to words? Why can't they see that the fact that the violence is not about the woman nagging, it is about winning an argument, it's about power. Cos I'd bet my bottom dollar that if the woman in question was a mixed martial artist, her husband would not be so quick to put his dukes up.

The implication of all this is that the woman did something. This is why a lot of counseling sessions about abuse start with the question "what did you do?" Break it down: the stated assumption is that the man wouldn't have hit without provocation so therefore. The implication there is that if the woman doesn't do X again, she wont be hit. So I always wonder, what happens when the lady stops doing X and then Y makes him hit, and then stops Y and Z makes him hit. That little intellectual exercise quickly shows that any conversation that starts with "what did you do" blames the woman for being beaten, no matter how it is couched.

Doing a Mercutio I should also mention that the Nigerian culture is unforgivably dismissive of domestic abuse when the woman is the one doing the battering. I think that any discussions on domestic violence should begin and end with the fact that it's categorically wrong, no ifs buts or maybes. Anybody who believes differently should be prepared to explain whether they will understand if their daughter or sister gets beaten up because they "provoked" their husband. If not they can feel free to plank on third mainland bridge. Anyway, rant over. Stay tuned for my review of ZR 7 at some point in the near future (I know better than to make promises anymore :D)

PS minus 1,000 cool points to the people that knew the three references (The title, the Sirach quote, and Mercutio)

PPS minus 1,000 more for anyone who read the above and thought of googling :D

PPPS. Explanations are here, here and here

The New Normal

2011-07-06T09:11:00.003+01:00

The New Normal is a phrase that has gained widespread usage during the global financial crisis. It is generally a way of saying that things will not go back to the way they were, so you should get used to the way things are now. For example people say things like before the financial crisis unemployment was 6%, and now it is 9%. You shouldn't expect it to be 6% anymore because 9% is the New Normal.

Invoking the New Normal is a way to force acceptance of times that have generally changed for the worse. It is rarely used to generate acceptance for good things, cos obviously people don't have to be told to get used to good things.

I think I had read an article about the New Normal recently, because when I read a post by a relatively new blogger called miafarradaily about how she met a guy and lost him, when she did not stay to "fight for his ****" I immediately thought that this was the New Normal albeit an extreme example (read the post to know why it's extreme)

The new normal isn't the fact that ladies compete for gents. After all ladies have always competed even if only in non subtle way. The new normal is the fact that ladies have to deal with the fact that they are generally going to be one of the many options that a gent is considering at any given time. In the old days, gents toasting more than one lady was frowned upon, now it is expected and barely commented on. It goes without saying that this description is focused on the pre-any form of commitment phase.

I suppose it's only fair that the new normal for ladies has been standard for gents for yonks in a whole equality of the sexes steez? I think ladies have adjusted rather well to the new normal, if only because they have believed that it was going on anyway before it became accepted.

So what say you? How do you ladies feel about the new normal?

Groundhog Day

2011-06-20T17:43:00.002+01:00

I was going to title this piece, waiting for Godot, to capture the sense of futility that is currently inflicting our nation. However Groundhog Day seems a more apt comparison. Because while Godot never comes, February 3 eventually does.

I am not one of those people who ascribe God like powers to the President, and therefore blaming him for all the ills of the nation. However his inactivity on the national stage since the inauguration has been disconcerting to say the least. We were not expecting bells and whistles and fancy 100 day plans, however a statement of intent would have been nice.

The President did respond forcefully to the Boko Haram bombings, which shows that he is keeping an oar in. However in a US or EU style press conference, he'd have been forced to answer questions about his plans for power, oil & gas, infrastructure, etc. I truly believe that the President was the right choice for the nation, however it would be nice if he started to show it.

According to the Buddhists, Groundhog Day is a movie about transcendence. Mr. Murray was able to move onto the next day because he fixed his flaws and achieved "nirvana". Taking that analogy further: you can liken all our issues are the flaws that have to be fixed before we can move on to the next day, you can liken most of what has gone on in the country until now as Bill Murray playing around with the newly found discovery of his daytrip.

I (and a lot of other people) am hoping that as a nation we have finally reached the point where Bill Murray decided to become a better person. Having said that, I still don't expect that the President will eventually succeed in taking us to February 3. After all that is the work of a lifetime. However I'm hoping that he will move us further along the path.

Having said all this, it would be a shame if the sense of optimism and hope generated by the election fades to the general feelings of despondency and despair that so easily comes to the fore in Nigeria. If that happens then we would really be waiting for Godot.

On Chipping In

2011-06-16T11:51:00.002+01:00

About two years ago I introduced the world to the retoasting phenomenon. Well saying I introduced the world to the phenomenon is like Chris Columbus introducing the world to America. But still.

Anyway flash forward a few years, and I now want to introduce you to the younger brother of retoasting: chipping in. While I was the one who recognized the retoasting phenomenon, I can not lay claim to the same in this case. One of my friends came up with in, in reference to a guy who occasionally hit on one of her friends friends.

Now retoasting is the active pursuit of a girl after the first attempt has failed. Chipping in, is the subtle alternative. As I covered in my post on the subject, retoasting generally sparks annoyance in babes. However babes seem to be more understanding of chipping in.

Chipping in works primarily because the guy is in the friend zone. Unlike in retoasting where the guy drifts away after the first failed attempt, chipping in requires that the guy and girl remain "friends".

So the proximity allows the guy to throw in a few toasts here and there. You know like a trial balloon. The reasoning is simple, the guy thinks this: We have been hanging out, and having fun etc, maybe she likes me now, so let's find out.

The girl thinks, I've got a friend that is cool to hang out with etc, I am not attracted to him. ignoring his toasts once a month or so is a small price to pay for maintaining the friendship.

The beauty of chipping in, is that it allows the guy to have hope that she may eventually gel, and allows the girl to enjoy an attentive guy with no real pressure to do anything: after all the question has been asked and answered. It's like a win win for everybody. In fact I would argue that practically every guy that ended up in the friend zone tries to chip in from time to time. I think it's practically impossible not to.

So the question, is why are girls not annoyed by chipping in? I believe that there are two reasons.

The first one is that they know the guy, and it is really hard to be annoyed with a guy who you are friends with, who happens to occasionally attempt to hit on you. In fact girls will be hard pressed to think of male friends that do not fit that bill.

The second reason is that, chipping in, is by definition an unstable equilibrium. It eventually unravels. Either the guy will meet a new girl and will fall away, or the girl will meet a new guy and push him away. He will fall away because the new girl won't want to feel like second choice. She will push him away, because the new guy won't want somebody slobbering over his girl.

So what say you? Is chipping in really less irritating than retoasting? Is chipping in the new normal, when it comes to the friend zone?

Laters.

PS. RIP to all who may have lost their lives in today's abuja bomb blasts. Well apart from the alleged suicide bomber: you can kindly rot in hell.

Random Impunity

2011-05-27T17:26:00.002+01:00

So a few days ago, on the Badagry expressway a few policemen ended up shooting and killing a man on a motorcycle who happened to be a soldier. A few days later several policemen including a DPO (senior police official) were killed by men alleged to be soldiers. Apparently the killings were in retaliation for the death of the soldier. The army spokesman initially denied that soldiers were involved in the killings of the police officers. However they have arrested a senior army official of the barracks around Badagry.

It seems like there will be an investigation into this, and the guilty parties will be punished on both sides. However the story highlights one of the problems we have to deal with as a country if we are to move forward. This problem is that significant segments of our society believe that they are both above the law. What gave the police the right to kill a man on a motorcycle and think that they could get away with it. If not for the fact that he was a military man, nothing would have come of it. What gave the army the right to think that they could take the law into their own hands and seek retribution.

This is not just limited to the police and the army. It stretches to the civil servants that think they should not pay tax, or the politicians that think they can take personal loans guaranteed by government money. There is a cultural belief in the lack of accountability that currently pervades our psyche.

I believe that there is a potential for change. I mean, in years past neither the police that killed the soldier or the soldiers that allegedly went on a rampage would have gotten into trouble. Key political figures have gone to jail for graft, and the success of the elections imply that the people's voice is starting to be heard.

Anyway here is to hoping that justice is eventually done, and that God will grant peace to the families of the individuals who lost their lives in this crisis, especially the families of the innocent bystanders.

Decisions

2011-04-30T12:00:00.002+01:00

So we have come to the end of the month of April, and nary a blog was in sight. I find myself slightly bereft of ideas on that front.

I thought about writing about the elections, but there has been a lot of ink and bytes spent on that topic. The observations ranging from excited to disappointed, depending on whether the author was in a glass half full or half empty frame of mind. I wanted to talk about the execrable silence of Buhari on the Northern crisis, and the national mourning/outrage about the deaths of the NYSC 9. However anger alone is never a good starting point for a blog. I just remember the Benjamin Franklin quote about the tree of liberty needing to be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants. These NYSC 9 were true patriots and I believe that their sacrifice will not be in vain: both for the country and our electoral process, and for the much needed reforms of the NYSC program itself.

I thought about writing about the progress being made on power, and the threat to the process by the impending workers strike. I figured that I would spare y'all, but it was interesting to note that the former head of NLC and current governor of Edo State Comrade Adams Oshiomole has said that the NLC should not support the electricity workers. It was a trifle hypocritical of him from a labor perspective to say that the loss of 50,000 workers cannot be more important than the jobs of millions of people. I wonder why he wasn't saying this during the deregulation or textile and other ban arguments. Oh well, such is life. Talking your own book is a fact of life. However he is a powerful voice in the labour movement, and so any help in this area is appreciated. We cannot allow 100,000 people to retard the progress of over a hundred million people.

I thought of writing another relationship theory post, and several different ones flashed in my mind, but I got distracted by work and other things and I forgot when the time came to blog. I'm sure random insights about dating/mating will be remembered in times future and will be shared. Though I always keep coming back to a simple truth about the whole thing: figure out what you want and have the courage to ask for it.

Too many thoughts, too little time to develop. Such is the life of this blog in recent time. You my remaining readers deserve better than this. I need to think about this, and about the ability to take advantage of the ability to blog from anywhere to remedy this woeful recent record.

Anyway hope you enjoyed this ramble.

Money Matters #1

2011-03-08T14:59:00.003+01:00

One of my colleagues is a Pastor who leads a singles fellowship. He uses case studies to generate discussion about issues that these singles may face while single and looking, and during marriage. It's like the HBS of singles fellowships :D

Over the last year or so, I have helped him flesh out the cases that he presented to his singles fellowship. The ones I was working on recently were about money matters in the family where the woman earns more money. The pieces I wrote generated a lot of discussion in my office, and so I figured I'd sound out you guys on a few of them over the next couple of days. So with out further ado here is Funke's story.

Funke’s Story

I met my husband as a corper in the bank. He was a second year customer service representative when I began serving as a marketing officer in the same branch. Dapo was intelligent, tall, and handsome with a sense of humor to die for. It is easy to see why I decided that I wanted to marry him within 5 minutes of meeting him. It took a lot longer than that obviously. He says now that he was intimidated by my beauty, that he did not think that I was interested in him. Well he got over that eventually and asked me out on a date. Though by that time I had finished service and was even working at another branch. We were married within six months and have been blissfully happy ever since.

Five years on our marriage remains a true partnership. We take all decisions together and are deliriously happy with two beautiful children. Professionally we have also done very well for ourselves. I am a Senior Manager in marketing at one of the top ten Lagos branches, and Dapo is an Assistant Branch Manager at one of the top 30 Lagos branches.

Our blissful existence was interrupted by the acquisition of our bank by an international bank. We did not think this acquisition would affect us, as both of us were some of the top performers in the organization. However the international bank has a strict policy against staff inter-marriage. We pleaded our case, stating that we were in different lines of business: Marketing and Operations, and that we would never be in a position to show favoritism. However our pleas fell on deaf ears: one of us would have to resign within six months.

In the old days of banking, finding a new job for either one of us would be a simple matter of picking up the phone and calling another bank. However since the banking crisis of a few years ago, jobs are a lot harder to come by. The situation is complicated by the fact that I earn at least three times more than my husband, and with my expected promotion to Assistant General Manager it is likely to be 5 times, though he is also expected to be promoted to Manager at the same time. However my husband earns enough that our lifestyle will not change drastically if we had to live on his salary alone.

If you had asked me a month ago, I would have told you truthfully that money was not an issue in our household and that my husband did not care that I had a better job than him. Today these two issues are threatening to break up our marriage. We have studiously avoided talking about the issue, and the few times we have tried to start the conversation have all ended in screaming matches. This issue is now bleeding into other parts of our lives. We are shorter with each other, and our young children are starting to pick up on our budding estrangement. I want to keep my marriage, and I understand that sacrifices need to be made in any marriage. I just find it hard to accept that I should be the one to automatically make the sacrifice.

So what say you? What should Funke do?

The Accidental Girlfriend

2011-02-16T08:48:00.004+01:00

Hello all, I figured that by way of making up for my unforgivable absence I'll give you all some funny gist that I heard recently.

So I heard a story recently about a girl who ended up in a 2nd relationship by "accident." On the face of it, it sounds absurd, after all there are rarely accidents in the relationship business. But I suppose it was as much of an accident as can happen in dating/mating.

So girl with boyfriend meets boy she sort of fancies. She doesn't plan to encourage, but she also doesn't plan to discourage. Which as all boys and girls know is encouragement of another kind. So in the midst of her non-discouragement encouragement, said boy doesn't ask whether she is in a relationship. The boy choosing to exhibit the sort of blind faith that implies that any girl he is interested in has to be single. So their interactions continue until he is talking in terms of her being his babe. This is the 21st century after all and people don't officially ask anything, you fall into it by mutual consent. The girl continues to remain silent, which obviously in the minds of boys and girls everywhere signals assent.

So when I heard this story, I was baffled. The girl literally believed that she wasn't in a relationship. Well actually she had jedi mind tricked herself into thinking she wasn't. It took a lot of random sounds of disbelief to get her to see that she had silenced herself into a second relationship.

I like this story because its a clear action speaks louder than words scenario. Or as R Kelly says, your mind is telling me no etc... At first I kinda felt bad for the accidental boyfriend, after all, all he did was hit on a girl. But i started thinking about it and decided that he is guilty too. I mean, in who doesn't ask if a girl is single, unless you don't care, or don't want to know. So it remains a random funny story in which all parties but the actual boyfriend have some complicity. So what say you?

Your Top Ten 2010

2011-01-05T14:49:00.002+01:00

Intro

Aiight so we're back again with another installment of Your Top Ten, this time for 2010. There is a lot of alliteration in there, which is always good. I suppose it's all old hat for those two, or three, of you that have been reading my blog for a while. However my vanity allows me to allow for the possibility that I might have attracted another reader this year. I should note that I'm not vain enough to assume that this new reader went through the back issues.

So Your Top Ten is basically the top ten posts that you the readers directly navigate to. The data is o so helpfully provided by Google analytics, and it is definitely inaccurate. It is inaccurate primarily because most people (all three or four of you) read my site on the main page rather than on the post pages. However it's the best we got, and so there you have it.

So this year is a bit of a mixed bag, with only 3 2010 posts making it into the top ten, and 5 posts from the 2009 list keeping their places. We also have a post from the 2008 list making a comeback, which I think is just awesome. Anyway without any story, let's dive right in.

10. Nigeria Discussion Series
This post is honestly a surprise. Not because it isn't good (cos it is), it's just that even though it was popular in the year it was written (2007) it didn't even make the top ten in that year. I really don't know how it made it into this list. The post came about as a result of the Nigerian Discussion Series that was started by Nilla, who stopped blogging in 2008 (we miss you). I did about three or four entries in the series (which was a lot of fun). Anyway this was the first entry and it was about Nigeria as the land of opportunity. It was obviously written during the boom, and is eerily prescient: talks about mass housing being more robust than high end housing, and the danger of financial services was where to put the money, the growth of nollywood, etc. Not bad 4 year ago Snazzy :D

9. On the Skye Bank Shelter Fund
This post was the one that came back from the 2008 list. Judging by the spam comments at the end, this might be a spam entry, but whatever. I think the fund is still listed but I don't think it trades anymore. Let's just chalk it down to one of those things that banks thought that they could inflict on the market during the boom times. I would say people will learn, but wait until the next boom.

8. Dora Speaks Out
The first 2010 post in the Top Ten. This was my account of Madam Dora's stand during the last days of the Yar'Adua presidency when paralysis gripped the nation. While Dora may not have been the prime mover in freeing us from paralysis, she was indeed the catalyst. While you cannot divorce her actions from ambition (she is a politician after all), she did earn the thanks of a grateful nation. I'd even vote for her in her Anambra Senatorial Campaign (if I lived in Anambra of course).

7.EFCC Palaver
This one was the surprise entry last year, and it has maintained it's position this year. Well it's moved up one, if we are feeling pedantic (Hint: We always are). As I said last year I've pretty much changed my mind on this one. It's worth a read though, if only to experience an impassioned "wrong" argument :D

6. On The Bachelor
This is the second 2010 post that made it into the list. This is about the Bachelor and the concept of the "overnight date." It's all full of measured indignation, and it isn't bad if I do say so myself. I am definitely glad it made the top ten.

5. On Levirate Marriage
This is the last 2010 post that made it, and it is an April post. As the first two are from January and March, clearly my end of the year stuff wasn't popping as much :) Anyway this post is about the practice of marrying your dead husband's brother. It's a bit more measured indignation for y'all. It also name dropped Mary Slessor (which is always cool).

4. Prelude to a Fraud
Back up to number 4. Still pissed about the permalinks. I mean, what's the point of showing off my investigative journalist skills if the proof can't survive a website remodel, I mean really.

3. On Your Kneels
Ah, the awesome account of banking madness during the boom times. I doubt that banks will be forcing anyone on their "kneels" these days when they are turning away deposits and offering sub 5% interest rates. Yes I still have my "damn I'm good" moment whenever I read this.

2. Sunday Corper 2
I can't help it, I really want this post to drop out of the top ten, but I suppose I should be happy that it has at least been knocked off first place. No don't go read it, unless you really want to know about NYSC registration. Actually even then don't read it :D

1. Hot Girl Syndrome
I refuse to believe that the spam comments were the reason why this is number one. This post rose to this position solely on it's own merits :D I suppose it is indeed kind of obvious that I think this is one of the best things I've written on this blog. Anyway enjoy.

Conclusion

So there we have it. Sunday Corper 2 has finally been dethroned, a few 2010 posts made the top ten make it a positive year over all. The only bummer is that all the 2009 posts on the list dropped out. As always - well we started last year, but it's now a tradition what's it too you :p - here are the top tens for 2009, 2008 & 2007.

Here's to a great 2011 y'all.

I'm Still Alive

2010-12-29T13:35:00.000+01:00

This post is a shameless attempt to keep my streak of publishing at least once a month alive.

I will aim to do better in the new year.

Hope you all had a great Christmas, and will have a happy New Year

Laters

Some Random Election Thoughts

2010-11-23T16:50:00.002+01:00

Atiku was recently chosen as the consensus candidate to run against Jonathan in the PDP primaries. Of the four possible candidates, he was the one that has the best chance of winning. IBB has too much baggage, Saraki isn't seen as wholly North, and Gusau is too much of an unknown quantity on the political side. I don't know if Atiku can win against Jonathan, but its closer to an actual contest with him running.

Apparently Ribadu will be running uncontested for the AC presidential candidacy. His chances of winning appear to be slim at best, as the AC hasn't really developed the infrastructure to win a nationwide election. However he does have name recognition, such that he could provide some stiff competition on the ballot box if the elections are indeed free and fair.

The attempted takeover of the PDP by the current members of the National Assembly seems to be petering out. Making themselves members of the National Executive Council, wouldn't really have preserved their seats, but it was worth a try. I suppose the fact that the reelection of most candidates is at the whim of the governors drove them to desperation. Personally, the fact that this is the most do nothing National Assembly in the history of our nascent democracy means that we should ship all of them back to their houses anyway.

The Fashola campaign seems to have started in Lagos, it seems that he will be the nominee of the AC in Lagos baring any last minute surprises. The fact that the PDP haven't really started doing anything with the elections being at most 5 months away, means that they are being realistic about their chances in 2011 if Fashola runs.

The State Houses of Assembly have ratified the second amendment to the constitution which amongst other things gives INEC the ability to schedule elections between January and April, and makes the Supreme Court the final appeal body for governorship electoral disputes. Depending on the outcome of the random lawsuits, it will already be law or require the president's assent. If this National Assembly cared more about their job, than about flexing... but if wishes were horses right.

My initial impressions of the build up to 2011, is that there is less of a frenzy surrounding the elections compared to 2007. I don't know if this is the calm before the storm, or if we will manage to keep this relatively peaceful throughout the process. Here's to hoping for a free and fair 2011.

One Thing

2010-10-13T08:47:00.002+01:00

As everybody and their mother knows, Nigeria turned 50 a couple of weeks ago. Turning 50 is one of those momentous occasions that tends to invite reflection. In Nigeria's case these reflections have tended to either be "laments for the problems" or "odes to the solutions". I decided to stay away from both discussions this time because I tend to find them depressing these days.

Nigeria's problems are obvious, as are the solutions, however its the implementation that is not so obvious. Discussions on implementation are few and far between, and those are the conversations that I tend to be interested in. The What has no power over me these days, it's all about The How?

One area in which The How, has been pretty well established for a while is power. One of the things that most people (myself included) say is that if they had the ability to fix one problem in Nigeria, they would fix power. I believe that power is the limiting factor for growth, and that part of the reason we got into the mess we did in the financial services sector. The lack of power limited the availability of businesses that would be good credits.

The How in power, was established in the mid noughties by a team that then President Obasanjo put together and actually passed into law. The first part of the How was to privatize all the generation and distribution assets, keep the transmission asset but privatize the management of it. The second part of The How, was to liberalize the electricity tariffs and the price of gas (long story but trust me).

However President Obasanjo didn't get this done during his tenure, and the Yar'Adua administration was not really interested in pursuing it. There was also strong, vociferous opposition from the staff unions. So it looked like, after the brief promise of the mid noughties we were doomed to continue at power consumption levels for the foreseeable future.

Flash forward to 2010, and President Jonathan's tenure. He came out saying that he was focused on power. We all nodded and smiled, after all, everyone in the last 10 years has said this. So when he inaugurated his power committee, we nodded and smiled, after all that has also been done. There were rumors that this time it was different, but as such rumors had surfaced before, we paid them little heed.

However on August 26 2010, people stopped nodding and smiling and started paying attention. The President unveiled his power reform plan, and I can say that it is the most holistic approach to the problem that I have seen since I started caring about the power sector in Nigeria. It builds on the act passed by President Obasanjo, with the privatization and the tariffs, and if it is implemented as outlined, then we should start seeing the fruits in about two to three years.

I advise everyone who cares about such things to check out the website for the Power Reform Task force, you can find the road map there amongst other things. If they pull this off, it will be the most significant thing done in Nigeria since the telecoms reforms. You can also tell that they are aware of this. The head of the task force, Prof Bart Nnaji, references telecoms a few times in the interview I have embedded below for your viewing pleasure.

Nigerians tend to have the battered woman syndrome when it comes to power, and these pieces by the FT and Reuters show some hints of that. However, there is reason to believe that the cycle will be broken this time. Don't get me wrong, it is still too early to begin dancing in the streets about the power situation, but we have definitely crossed over to the "watch this space" segment of the evening. Here's to hoping, that in a few years we will need to find another "One Thing" that has to be done to change Nigeria for the better.

The Sex Thing Always Gets In The Way

2010-10-12T15:07:00.002+01:00

I will say with no shame that When Harry Met Sally is one of my all time favorite movies. I mean it is even on my never been updated blogger profile. One of the standard theories of that movie is that men and women can't be friends, the reason being my title. While WHMS is the seminal exponent of this theory, almost every single Hollywood movie in existence operates on this central premise.

I came across a Slate series on platonic friends that shows that most of the readers of the site also believe the Hollywood theory. The platonic friends debate is one that I was sure I had opined on before and a quick look through my back issues proved me right.

Sadly I have realized that I did a damn good job writing on it the last time, and that I probably couldn't do better this time around. Clearly I'm a worse writer. Anyway, based on an old 2008 post, I can categorically state that I believe that men and women can be friends subject to a pretty significant caveat. The post is called The Age Old Question and the caveat (for those of you too lazy to click through) was that men and women can only be friends once the sex stuff has been dealt with.

To my slight shame, checking also revealed that I also expressed an opinion on platonic friends in an early piece written in 2007 called These Girls Sef. Now this piece also proves that I pretty much believed the same thing, though the less said about my beliefs about the role of female friends the better. I can positively say that those views have changed...somewhat.

I suppose it is kinda annoying to be prompted by an article to write something, only to realize that this has happened before, but I guess I can't really turn away any promptings to blog in these blogging starved days. The only thing I would add to the posts, is that there is also an ethical component to dealing with the sex thing. Basically I'm saying that sometimes you deal with the sex thing by realizing that there are sensible reasons why you can't be together: other relationships, close exes, work, religion, etc... The older you get, the more important these other reasons become.

So what do my last two readers think? Can platonic friends happen without dealing with the sex stuff?

Kidnapping Just Went Wholesale

2010-09-28T16:25:00.002+01:00

So by now I'm sure most of you have heard of the kidnapping of 15 children from a school bus in Aba. If you haven't check out this link right here.

It seems that our beloved kidnappers in the East have decided that kidnapping one or two people at a time is just not very productive. A veritable waste of resources in fact. So to take advantage of the economies of scale that arise from having a large kidnapping gang, they ambushed a school bus belonging to a private school and picked up 15 children.

It is not news to anybody that kidnapping for ransom grew out of the Niger Delta militancy movement. It is also not news, that most of the current kidnappings do not take place in the Niger Delta, but do so in the South Eastern states.

The kidnapping crisis in those states reaches a point of "No More" every few months, and each time the kidnappers just cross that point and keep on trucking. The Governor's hold prayer meeting and pass death penalty laws, but neither one has managed to make a dent in the spate of kidnappings that have continually afflicted the South Eastern states.

I know it's naive to hope that the breakdown in security in those states becomes an election issue, but what can I do. While these states are amongst the least when funds are shared, theuir unique situation should have mandated that they increase their spending on security. The fact that these Governors are not doing so, means that none of them deserve a second term.

Anyway all that is by the by, here is to hoping and praying that these 15 children get home safely to their parents, and that this will truly be the point where things will change in those states.

Supply & Demand

2010-08-11T15:47:00.003+01:00

I took my Uncle out for dinner last night. It was his first time back in Nigeria in a few years. On our way back we drove through Ikoyi, and passed through the Thompson roundabout. He was particularly shocked to find "women of ill repute" in such a high brow area. It did not fit with the US meme of "street walkers are found in low rent districts only"

From a Lagos perspective its easy to see why women of negotiable virtue are found in the rich areas. In the US, the clients will happily go to them, if only to avoid detection by their friends and neighbors. In Lagos, that a'int happening. Think of it as a logical extension of the "I don't do bridges." So for virtue to be negotiated, the ladies must meet up with the johns as opposed to the other way.

So in today's lunch room discussion, this was an easy tale to recount, and brought much laughter. What brought some debate, was that prostitution was driven by the fact that there are a lot of women in short skirts willing to sleep with men for money. In this colleagues eyes, prostitution is driven by the supply of willing ladies. This obviously presupposes that the men would be fine if the women were not available.

I and most of the other denizens of the lunch room took a different (and more standard) view. That it is the demand for these services that creates the supply. That if there was no demand from the males there would be limited prostitution.

After all the fact that there are different classes of prostitution, from the street walker, to the bar hoppers, to the aristo runners, and then the "girl friends" kind of proves that they are ways to meet the different kinds of demand in the Lagos market.

We then moved on to not so fun topics as regards to marriageability of said girls when they sober up, and what not, but that's not as much fun. So what say you, is it the supply or demand that drives the market?

PS. I finally resorted to the word prostitution cos I had run out of euphemisms so for the second challenge can you supply any that I missed out?

NNPC Wahala

2010-07-14T13:58:00.003+01:00

I see that my last post was on June 1, which means that I actually get to continue my streak of putting at least one post up every month, despite my shameless abandonment of you, my remaining two readers. Like a deadbeat dad of constant failure, I make no promises as to future behavior. With that unrepentant remark, off to today's post.

So today's newspapers lead with the news that NNPC is insolvent. According to the Minister of State of Finance, the value of NNPC's current assets are less than the value of the company's current liabilities.

In order to make matters worse the FAAC, the organization that oversees allocations to the federating entities, has demanded that the NNPC pay the N400 odd billion it owes to the Federation Account. Basically the story is all set up to paint the NNPC as a debtor company that is remiss in the service to the nation.

However the story is complicated by the fact that the NNPC is owed about N1.1 trillion by the Federal Government. It seems that the Federal Government has been making the NNPC pay the subsidy claims without reimbursing it.

So in effect the FG seems to be accusing the NNPC of being insolvent, while being the one who is directly responsible for said insolvency. I don't know about you, but this reads like the original definition of chutzpah. You know killing your parents and then asking for mercy cos you are an orphan.

The solution to this little problem is to deregulate, and stop burning the nation's hard earned cash on fuel subsidy for Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt (sometimes). However it is an election year, and even if the President isn't running, his party is not going to want to start that fight.

So I guess what will happen is that the FG will continue to whine about the money owed it, and the NNPC will do the same. So as always in Nigeria we will end in a status quo induced paralysis.

Fun huh? Till Next Time

Equality At Last?

2010-06-01T14:49:00.002+01:00

So it has finally happened. People said it couldn't be done; that there was too much institutional inequality in the system, that the gap could not be bridged. However I am happy to tell you, that all those naysayers have been proven wrong.

No longer are women the only ones required to live up to unrealistic body ideals, or do their best to hide the fact that they can't. Men too are now living according to the very same constraints. As proof of this I give you:

SPANX FOR MEN

I know others will raise the specter of other double standards that exist, such as the player/slut dichotomy, but we do not care about that now. All we care about is that yet another blow has been struck, and surely true equality is not far away.

On another note, while Spanx for men is selling like hotcakes in the good ol US of A, I wonder if it will be as huge a hit in Nigeria. After all, who's gonna believe that you are rich if they can't see your pot belly?

Laters

The Diamond Bank "Product"

2010-05-25T17:40:00.002+01:00

So Diamond Bank is offering a product that they think will catch on. They are offering no COT on a current account. COT means Commissions on Transaction, and it is the amount that is charged for the privilege of keeping an account with the bank.

It is something from the stone age of banking but is still used in Nigeria by the banks to boost revenues and profits. It still exists in the states technically, but all the "free checking" competition has pretty much eliminated it.

Well COT in Nigeria starts at a maximum 0.5% 5 per mille as we call it, though you can get concessions if you have significant transaction volumes on your account (another example of the poor subsidizing the rich in financial services)

So Diamond Bank have a product targeted at the consumer market that purports to save you from all this COT wahala. All you have to do is maintain a minimum balance of N25,000 with them and pay N5,000 per month.

Now the N25k looks good, especially when a lot of the other retail "NO COT" products ask for a minimum balance of N100k. However things start to look a little pear shaped when you look at the N5k. For it to be worthwhile to pay N5k a month to not pay COT, you have to do transactions of N1M in your account every month, or N12M every year. Now how many people will have that volume of transactions a month?

To my mind the fact that the product is targeted at people who will not have that kind of volume to make it worthwhile makes it a scam. Now I will stress that the product is not illegal, after all consumer products sell us things we don't need all the time.

But it is pretty clear that the guys of Hustle will be impressed with this one.

Now That's a Surprise

2010-05-18T17:21:00.002+01:00

More people use the internet in Nigeria than in South Africa but in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the population.

However having been in South Africa and been ripped off by their internet service providers, I cannot say I am surprised.

Hat tip: Jeremy

On Levirate Marriage

2010-04-20T16:46:00.002+01:00

Levirate marriage is the practice of a woman being obliged to marry the relative (usually brother) of her dead husband. It is a practice that is common to a lot of cultures throughout the world, for example the Jews practiced it (see the book of Ruth).

In Nigeria the Igbos and the Yorubas have this as part of their culture. It is possible that other tribes/cultures have it as well, but these are the ones I know about. There is even a case in my family that I know of: My grandfather's first wife for example was a Levirate marriage.

Now Levirate marriages served two primary purposes. The first is to keep the property of the deceased man in the family, and the second is to provide protection for the new widow and her family. In Igbo culture I think the widow can chose any of the qualified relatives, but it others she has to go to a certain relative.

Levirate marriage is the logical solution in a culture where women can't own property and there is no social safety net. However it is only logical by its own assumptions. After all the logical solution would be to simply allow the woman to own the property.

I thought this solution would apply to everybody, only for me to get into a conversation with someone who thought that Levirate marriage is a valid part of the village culture in Nigeria. I mean I can understand, and maybe even accept, that it still goes on, but I was surprised that people would be defending the fact that it does. However the more I thought about it, his argument made sense from a "Second-best" perspective.

The best option would obviously be to allow women to own property and have self determination, as stated above, however it is almost impossible to achieve that aim in the short term due to the various cultural factors that operate in those villages. Levirate marriage can be a second best outcome when you consider the welfare of the woman and any of her children in that village.

Ultimately the solution to this, as to many of our problems, is education. Educated women rarely agree to form such unions, neither would educated men be as willing to perform "their duty." This is good cos I don't really see an army of Mary Slessors running through Nigeria putting a stop to the evils of Levirate marriage. The problems with our education system on the other hand, are a story for another day.

Laters

On The Bachelor

2010-03-17T15:10:00.002+01:00

When reality tv began to dominate in the early noughties, The Bachelor was one of the earliest examples of the genre. The concept was simple, film a guy looking for love and the ten or twenty girls vying for his attention. People loved it, and the show was mentioned in the same breath as Survivor and American Idol, the other reality juggernauts of the era. Like the other two, the Bachelor has spawned several copy cats and as such it has had to adjust to survive.

However I did not realize how much it had adjusted until I read a Sports Guy column about it a few days ago. Apparently when the Bachelor is down to the last three women, he as an "overnight date" with them.

Yeah, you read that right, an "overnight date"

As one of the Sports Guy readers points out, at this point you have to sleep with the Bachelor to stand a chance of being picked winner, which off course they all do. Now you can imagine why the Bachelor is for this, after all he gets to sleep with three different women that he finds attractive. What I can't figure out is why the women will be into it.

Don't get me wrong, I know that people do anything to be on TV even to sleeping with people (the famous casting couch and all that). However the "aim" of this show is to produce "long term" relationship, and I seriously doubt that a long term relationship can survive with the knowledge that the dude slept with two other women she knew and was competing with. And if the lady did sleep with him and didn't win, she is going to feel like crap.

So it seems a lose lose for me, but I guess that's why I'm not a candidate for reality tv (well and I'm also not a woman)

P.S. I put up the comment verification to stop the flood of spam sorry for the inconvenience to any commentators.

The Kitchen Conundrum

2010-03-08T14:57:00.002+01:00

Someone recently asked me what I think of the phrase

"No matter how educated a woman is, she will still end up in the kitchen".

Apparently as a socially liberal individual I was supposed to disagree with the phrase.

However thinking about it I realised that both people who are strongly wedded to women's rights and those of a more patriarchal bent would agree with the phrase.

The women's rights crowd will say that the above statement is true as it is the result of the compromises that women have to make in their lives no matter how educated.

The patriarchy crowd will say that the above statement is true because all women must put their families first no matter how educated.

I say finally something they can both agree on :D

Fantasy Land

2010-02-23T16:15:00.002+01:00

There is a saying I came across recently that captures the American view about their deficit:

I favor balancing the budget by raising everyone's taxes but mine. I also want a magic pony.

This wish fulfillment desire also afflicts Nigerians as they talk about all the things that the government should be doing. The desire for magic solutions means that no real solutions will be reached, which means that nothing will happen, which means that there will be more incentive for corruption. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum.

There are two main sectors in which this magic pony thinking affects us deeply: Downstream oil and gas and power.

We want investments in the petroleum downstream infrastructure but we are not willing to pay fuel prices that would enable investment to be made in that sector.

We want gas to power our power plants but we are not willing to pay electricity prices that will allow the power plants to pay commercial prices for the gas and make investments in gas collection and distribution economical.

The standard solution to the magic pony problem is that the government should do it. The Nigerian government has taken on the magic pony with pretty predictable results.

Let's take power. The government has built all these nice and fancy power plants that don't work because there is no gas. There is no gas because there is no incentive to spend billions of dollars on gas infrastructure to supply gas to a customer that will pay 10c for product that trades on the world market for 25 to 35 times that. So the government is trying to blackmail the oil companies into building it, but the government will have to bring a lot more to the table than moral suasion.

Let's take downstream petroleum products. The government answer to this was to subsidise the products. This meant that those who imported the product were relying on the government to get an economic return. The government penchant for paying late meant that people were not making an economic return, and would only make minimum investments in their distribution network. This meant old, exploding trucks, practically no pipelines, and a lot of Tom, Dick and Harry distributors in the system.

Luckily magic pony thinking is leaving the downstream sector. The Federal Government has realised that they can't afford the subsidy, the state governments have realised that they too pay for the subsidy (they thought the federal government paid everything), and it is now common knowledge that subsidy only exists in the major cities and states (with the exception of Kano). There is now a panel to decide how best to implement deregulation: this implies that the Rubicon has been crossed in terms of petroleum products but it's a long way to Rome. Power on the other hand is still in Gaul.

P.S. Someone called Amanda left a comment on my blog about a bbc world blog interview thing. Since I get a lot of spam these days, I'm tempted to assume it is indeed spam but in case it isn't my email is snazzy.rites@gmail.com

Don't Try This At Home

2010-02-12T13:54:00.002+01:00

In America one of the standard past times for up and coming criminals is the store/shop robbery. The store owners are also known to deter armed robbers by keeping guns of their own. In a way it's a bit of a throwback to their fastest guns in the west phase.

However one store owner cashier in Texas did not need a gun to win the battle with her armed assailant. All she needed was Jesus. Here is what she told the guy that tried to rob her:

'In the name of Jesus, you get out of my store. I bind you by the power of the Holy Spirit.'

The assailant backed out of the store and ran away.

In a later interview with the Dallas news she said: 'It was just like this whole store filled with the power of God'

Now this is an awesome story that should be told early and often and should bring joy to the hearts of the true believers, but I would like to file this one under "don't try this at home" I mean, I'm all for faith that moves mountains, but I would not advise this as the standard operating procedure when confronted by an armed assailant.

What say you?

Burn That Cable

2010-02-11T16:06:00.002+01:00

So this girl was at one of those house parties that are a staple of Nigerian social life. She and one of her friends were at a table with a bunch of guys. It was a slight mismatch in that there were two girls and three guys.

As these things do sometimes, the conversations soon paired up leaving one guy the odd guy out. To her mind it was conversation and relatively innocent flirting. However a guy who was at the party disagreed and thought that there were sparks flying all over the place. The guy took it upon himself to put out said sparks, telling the girl that said dude had a girlfriend.

This is clear burning of the cable, based on the guy code established from olden times that guys do not interfere with other guys relationship business. However it doesn't change the fact that a guy can and should violate said guy code when friends or family are involved.

However in this particular case, the guy was himself toasting the girl, and so this doesn't fit into the standard friends and family divide. In fact it's clear that he was only informing her of the guy's couplehood to ensure that he would still have a chance.

The girl's take on it is that she didn't like the guy like that and so any possible gratitude for the information is completely negated by the fact that he did it mainly for his own gain.

I still think that she should cut him some slack, after all as they say there is no such thing as a truly selfless act :D

Dora Speaks Out

2010-02-04T10:08:00.002+01:00

One of the key features of the Yar 'Adua saga has been the lock-step agreement between the Executive Council of the Federation, formally known as the Federal Executive Council. They even went as far to issue a statement saying that Yar 'Adua was not incapable of conducting his duties, and that he would inform them if he was unable to do so.

The statement was in response to a court order mandating the ECF to make a determination of the President's capacity to conduct his duties. The ECF made the declaration without recourse to the constitutionally mandated physicians, but they made it and it stood. The declaration was unanimous and looked to preserve the status quo indefinitely as it was unlikely that the Senate and the House of Representatives were going to agree to impeach Yar'Adua.

So flash forward to yesterday's meeting of the ECF, where Dora presented a memo calling on the ECF to support the transmission of a letter to the Senate saying the Yar'Adua was going on vacation and that Goodluck would become Acting President. The reasons she gave were non-political; talking about perm secs, signing the budget, the Jos crisis and so on.

However due to the fact that the memo was not on the agenda for the day, discussion on the memo was not allowed, and all copies were handed in to avoid being leaked to the press. Unfortunately for those inclined to secrecy, members of the ECF that were in support of the memo happily leaked it to the press from memory.

The newspapers that carried the stories made it very clear that Dora was not the one that leaked the information, its almost as if they are doing their part to protect her from any possible retribution. What the papers do show is that the ECF is divided amongst itself and that many of the members were clearly thinking the same thing but were afraid to speak out.

Dora's memo has clearly brought things to a head, and I salute her courage. She has said that she will table the memo again next week Wednesday and here is to hoping that the ECF will have the courage to take a decision that will be in the best interests of Nigeria. As she reportedly said "If we fail to act now, history will not forgive us"

The newspaper accounts
ThisDay
Next
Punch
BusinessDay

As a random aside, Next is starting to annoy me by cropping the stories and telling the reader to go and read the newspaper. It's one of those things that seems like a good idea in theory but is horrible in practice.

Your Top 10 2009

2010-01-25T14:27:00.003+01:00

INTRO

Hello All, its been a while. Hope you still remember that this blog exists. So I am proud of myself for managing to bring y'all the top ten of 2009 before the month of January ran its course. I know its nothing to be proud of, with me abandoning y'all the way I have been. However I know you love me and will happily forgive me. So one of my goals for 2009 was to have more of the top ten come from 2009 and I am happy to tell you we succeeded. We went from two 2008 posts making the top ten in 2008 to four 2009 posts making the 2009 list. Now this could mean that I was better in 2009, or it could mean that people don't read my back issues anymore. No points for guessing which explanation suits me :D

CAVEAT

Before we dive into your top ten as measured by google analytics: the usual caveat applies: Most people come through my blog via the home page, so these may not be the actually top ten. However just like the last two years, it seems to be pretty accurate.

10. Sex Marriage & Religion
The first 2009 post that made the list. It was basically a discussion about the type of sex that is acceptable in a Christian marriage. As you would expect in a post of this nature the comments are where it is at. It is also one of those posts that I don't really have an opinion. A welcome change from my early years if you ask me :D

9. On Credit and Hair
Now speaking about an opinionated post :D. In this one Snazzy takes aim at the Nigerian patriarchal structure and takes no prisoners. He is not pleased no sir. The "commenters" are also not pleased and let us know it. It's one of the best comment threads I've had in a while. Takes me back to my heydays. Oh and it was another 2009 post :D

8. EFCC Palaver
This comes as a complete shock to me. This post was done 2 years ago, and hasn't smelt the top ten list before and now here it is chilling at number 8. The other reason that this post is interesting to me is that I have completely changed my mind. Which I suppose is a blow to all those people who claim I never change my mind :D. I am now a strong supporter of the asset forfeiture law. The law goes something like this: if you make N10 million a year and you just bought a N300 million house the burden of proof is on you to explain your source of funds if you can't you forfeit the asset to the government. Nifty huh? I heard about the US version first, though I think similar laws exist in other countries. EFCC Chairman Waziri talked about passing a similar law but it was dead on arrival for obvious reasons :D

7. Prelude to a Fraud
Number 1 two years ago, Number 4 last year, and now number 7. A little bit of investigative journalism from your friendly neighborhood Snazzy. I'm glad it is still here, but judging by the trends I expect it to fall out next year. It's worth a read if I do say so myself. The businessday article is still missing though; clearly permalinks don't mean anything to those folks.

6. Random Marriage Rant
Another one on patriarchy, this time on the hidden desire of all women to be housewives. Just for kicks, I'm going to try to write a post on the advantages of patriarchy just to balance things out. Though it is entirely possible I suffer from the male version of liberal white guilt :D

5. On Infidelity
An indepth survey of cheating in Nigeria... well that's the tag line anyway. I'm not really sure it succeeds, but the commenters liked it. It also has the distinction of being the highest ranked post that was written in 2009. Which is interesting cos even though only two 2008 posts made it last year, they ranked 5th and 3rd. Oh well quantity over quality is what I always say :D

4. Married Men & Single Girls
Another post that came out of nowhere to leap into the top ten. It was written almost two years ago, and on the face of it, it reads like an endorsement of infidelity. At least that is what I was accused of at the time. However I was truly trying to figure out why girls who didn't need the money and weren't greedy were going for married guys. It is an interesting read and I'm glad it got belated recognition. Oh and it was also when I came up with the "cheerleader effect" which is a very awesome concept if I do say so myself.

3. On Your Kneels
I actually am a very big fan of this post. It was one of those "damn I'm good" moments that makes me believe I'm not half bad as a writer. It strikes almost every note perfectly, and the sense of gleeful disbelief that I felt while writing it comes across pretty well. The outrage in the comments is also awesome, an worth a read.

2. Hot Girl Syndrome
Another one of those "inspired" posts. I have posed with this one enough so I'm not going to do that again. All I can say is that I'm glad you guys still like it. In other news, the lady that inspired the post is getting married soon. I like to think that I played a part in this by not being the one for her :D

1. Sunday Corper 2
Once again it's number 1, and once again I don't get it. I think it is a spam thing, but it may not be. The only other possibility is that people are greatly interested in my experiences with registering for NYSC Camp.

CONCLUSION

Well there you have it folks: Your top ten for 2009. I'm glad that I was able to meet my target for 2009, and I'm even "gladder" that y'all are still reading my back issues. As a special treat, (which will become a regular feature :D) I have included the links for the top ten's for 2007 and 2008 for any one who is interested in giving a look see. Thanks for reading guys.

The Innocence

2010-01-11T15:59:00.002+01:00

Me: X & Y are getting divorced after about 6 months of marriage, the wife is getting the kid.

Friend: They have a kid? How is that possible they've only been married 6 months.

Silence

I just love the innocence that shows. Yes there are still pure people in this world, who think like that. That is why there will always be hope for the human race.

PS. It was longer than 6 months btw :D

PPS. Your Top Ten of 2009 will be up shortly

Optimism in the Year Ahead

2010-01-05T11:50:00.005+01:00

Crossing into 2010, there is sense of expectation in the year. The widespread belief that 2010 is the year we finally recover. All over the world people are lifting up their heads and saying that a change is finally going to come.

In Nigeria the sense is particularly acute because 2009 was the worst year for the country since the global financial crisis started. 2009 was the year that our own various home grown crises threatened to spin us into the abyss. However 2009 also sowed the seeds of the optimism that we as a nation share for 2010.

The Nigerian banking crisis may truly be the catalyst for a cleaner, more effective banking sector. All the banks (albeit with CBN largess) have managed to come through 2009, and there is the expectation that it will not be business as usual for the foreseeable future. This came at a significant personal cost to many employed in that industry with over 10,000 people losing their jobs at the various banks. These employees, are the casualties in the war for the banking sector and must be mourned.

The Yar'Adua government instituted the amnesty policy in the Niger Delta in middle of last year. There have been many criticisms trailing the policy, and doubts about the sincerity of the policy, but one thing is clear; the amnesty policy worked. It may not be sustained, and there are a lot of people predicting this. However I will like to point out that these people also predicted that it would not work in the first place. The amnesty has given us a real chance for peace in the Niger Delta, and the opportunity to grasp this chance has to be taken in 2010.

The government has made significant inroads in the power situation in Nigeria. The target was modest, the implementation was lax, the bottlenecks were out of everyone's control, but there is a genuine belief that 2010 will be a massive improvement in the power situation. I believe that the missing of the 6000MW deadline could turn out to be a blessing in disguise, but time will tell in that regard.

There are the hopeful noises about other infrastructure such as roads, railways, and submarine cables, and they fall into the general background of optimism that Nigeria's 2010 will be markedly better than our 2009.

However the main stumbling block to the optimism being realised is political.

First and foremost is the health of the President. There is a sense of ennui that has inflicted the country following the President's recent trip out of the country. There is a sense of major decisions not being taken, and political paralysis that comes with a lack of defined authority. This may not last as there are rumblings that there have been deals made to deal with the political crisis engendered by the president's health. Q1 2010 will give a good sense of this.

The second issue is that elections are in 2011, if 2010 is anything like 2006, then from the second half of 2010 nothing will get done. The election induced paralysis could be even worse that the speculation over the president's health as this affects the state and federal levels of governments in every state (except the few off-cycle ones).

Still 2010 has more going for it than against it, and I truly believe that Nigeria will have a decent amount to celebrate when we finally turn 50.

Thank God For Skinny Jeans

2009-12-18T16:37:00.002+01:00

It took three years but it finally happened. My window got knocked on in traffic by someone who wanted to effect a marginal redistribution of wealth. The fact that it took this long is due to the Grace of God, and the fact that the incident turned out the way it did is even further proof of his grace.

So I was stuck in traffic on Ikorodu road a Monday night that had unusually bad traffic. It was after 10. I was in a spot that was known for opportunistic robberies as it was positioned away from the two police checkpoints around the area.

The guy knocked on my window and said in what he hoped was a menacing voice "Give us money to eat". I bought time by ignoring him and looking straight ahead hoping for traffic to start moving. When that didn't work he leaned on the window and promised me that "we will do violence for here".

I ignored him some more and waited for the traffic to move. There was a hopeful winking off of a brake light further up the road, but it didn't catch on. Worried by the fact that the guy said "we" I kept glancing in my side mirror to watch for another guy stealthily sneaking up on the other side. There was no guy.

I tried to buy time by rummaging through my side panel waiting for the brake lights which were dimming before my eyes. The people in front of me moved and I began to dart into the next lane only to stop halfway into the lane as traffic stopped again. The guy lazily walked up to my window this time sticking one hand in his jeans pocket. I glanced down at the jeans and saw that they were basically skinny jeans. If there was a gun in there, it had to be an itty bitty one, and he would be in more danger of shooting his rocks of than me if he tried to get it out.

Well the traffic eventually moved, and I drove off while he gave me a parting benediction (an actual benediction) which was one of the odder things about the whole encounter.

All in all, I got off easy compared to other incidents. Opportunist area boy beats focused professional any day of the week. I am looking over my shoulder in traffic a bit these days, even though I don't mind sitting in it. The fact that I was stuck in traffic the very next day on the very same road kinda helped I don't have a complex about traffic at the moment, even though I can do without Ikorodu road traffic :D

I just wanna say again, long live the fashion forward area boy.

A Good Chris Rock Movie

2009-12-08T09:44:00.003+01:00

I know its too early to tell and Chris Rock trailers have been misleading before. But is it just possible that Chris Rock has finally made a watchable movie where he is the lead: The trailer is below:

Who knows it could be the start of something good.

In other news Zoe Saldana looks hot as always. I'm really rooting for her. With the roles she's getting (Star Trek, Avatar) and the performances she's putting in, she may become the second breakthrough black actress in the last thirty odd years (the first is Halle Berry obviously).

Is This The Best A Man Can Get?

2009-12-07T17:41:00.004+01:00

I suppose I should admit to a bit of bias after all I am an Arsenal fan. A few weeks ago Thierry Henry, an Arsenal icon who currently plies his trade at Barcelona, hand balled in the penalty box. In doing so he put France into the world cup and received worldwide disapprobation. He was widely decried as being a cheat and was to be sentenced immediately to hell for being worse than a child molester.

Gillette, the razor company, panicked and dropped Henry from their clean cut sporting legends roster that comprised of Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and Thierry Henry. Apparently a cheat like Henry did not meet the standards that Gillette was trying to promote.

Flash forward a few weeks to the incident of the fire hydrant and the tree. It is being revealed that Tiger Woods sees in himself a cross between Gene Simmons and Wilt Chamberlain. However there has been no immediate reaction by Gillette saying that Mr. Woods did not meet the standards that Gillette was trying to promote.

Such blatant hypocrisy should be expected from corporations. After all, Ludacris was fired as Pepsi spokesman for being too risque... he was replaced by the Osbornes.

Ludacris sued Pepsi and though he did not get his contract back, he got them to donate to charity. I think Henry may not be able to do the same thing (after all he did cheat) but something should be done to make the world aware of the hypocrisy of Gillette.

I won't hold my breath though. Laters.

That Old Time Religion

2009-11-30T20:10:00.002+01:00

I was aiming to beat my record for 2009 by publishing more than 6 blog posts in a month, but I guess I'm going to have to settle for matching the record set in July. I suppose I can drop another post after this one just cos but I feel that would be gratuitous.

I don't normally blog about religion on this site, but sometimes things come up that move me to blog. A week or so ago I heard about a well respected pastor that said he died for four days and went to heaven. He said that he saw another well respected female pastor in hell. Now this was bizarre to say the least. I mean even you take the man's claims at face value what will he gain by mentioning the female pastor.

I realised why he did it last night when I heard the reason for the female pastor being in hell. Get this, this pastor claimed that the female pastor was in hell because of her dressing. Her dressing! This guy got up on stage and said this.

I was livid when I heard this. To my mind the guy has just proven that he was in a 4 day coma and had a very nice dream but people were seriously discussing this pastor's report like it meant anything. I mean I know that Nigerian's are a patriarchal society, but to believe that dressing is a sin that condemns people to hell is a poor reflection on us.

I wonder why we let pastor's get away with saying things like this, but I guess that is part of the price we pay for putting our pastor's on pedestals. His church should make him apologize both to his own congregation and definitely to the husband of the pastor he defamed. That is not really enough, cos to my mind someone who can say that is not fit to pastor a church, but then again that's just me.

A Change is Gonna Come?

2009-11-23T18:30:00.002+01:00

I was gonna call it a new dawn but I realised that I already have a post titled that. It was about the Glo-1 underwater fibre cable. By way of update Glo is now advertising in the papers about the new Glo broad access service. It almost has to be internet services based on the bandwidth of the broadband cable. Fast internet here we come :D

Anyway today's topic is Power. This is the definition of generalization by anecdote, but I wanted to make sure this was out there before the bandwagon gets rolling :D.

So my generator packed up last week Saturday cos we weren't using it enough. Granted my battery was bad, but this is still memorable because it was lack of use that finally killed the damn thing. The reason for the lack of use was that PHCN was pretty much constant all through the week. True to that form, they brought back light about 30mins later.

Now I live very close to a main distribution substation which means that my light is better than most normally, but this was pretty unprecedented. The reason is that PHCN for the last week or so has been able to distribute about 3500MW of electricity. This has not been done for any sustainable length of time, especially in the dry season so this is a notable achievement. Granted it stacks very poorly against all their notable non-achievements but encouragement works yeah ;)

Now the improvement in generation is due in large part to the recent peace in the Niger Delta. The improvements to the transmission grid over the last year allowed the power to be sent across the nation, but it was the increased availability of gas that made the difference. So here is to hoping that the Niger Delta stays peaceful :D

So with gas availability no longer an issue (knock on wood) it is entirely possible that installed capacity will reach 6000MW. They say they are on 5000MW right now. Most people do not believe that the grid can take 6000MW before the end of the year, but it may be reasonable to assume that PHCN will get there early next year. When you factor in the 4000MW from the NIPP plants that should come in the power situation in Nigeria may start to get good even for people that don't live near the substation.

I now have another question. If Yar'Adua does succeed in doing both Niger Delta and Power would he have done enough to deserve reelection?

Did Unity Bank Just Pull a Fast One?

2009-11-20T17:32:00.004+01:00

I could be wrong, but I think Unity Bank just did something very very weird on the financial statements that they published in the papers today.

Here are a few select financials from Unity Bank in September 2008

Profit - N2.7 billion
Reserves - N23.5 billion
Shareholders Funds - N30.8 billion

Now flash forward to September 2009
Loss - N8.7 billion
Reserves - N24.8 billion
Shareholders Funds - N32 billion

The fact that reserves increased to N24.8 billion from N23.5 billion in accounting terms means that there had to be a N10 billion addition to reserves sometime in the last year to make up for the N8.4 loss in 2009.

The first way this could have been done was for Unity Bank to make N10 billion in profit between September and December of 2008. I don't know about you, but I find it very hard to believe that after making N2.7 billion in 9 months of 2008, they made an additional N10 billion in the last three months.

The other possible explanation is that sometime between September 2008 and September 2009, Unity Bank raised N10 billion. If they did, I would hope that they disclose this investment to stop any rumors of accounting fraud from spreading.

However in the same accounts Unity Bank in 2008 had N34.7 billion in non performing loans, but only provided for N225.6 million. While this was probably due to the CBN suspension of provisioning for margin loans, it is still worrying that a prudent bank would do this. Oh wait... Never mind.

Dis Fuel Scarcity O!

2009-11-17T17:12:00.003+01:00

See eh, all of you that live in Lagos or have friends that live in Lagos you need to do me a favor. You need to spread the word that

QUEUING FOR FUEL BECAUSE OF DEREGULATION IS DAFT!!!

Look at it this way. If you have an empty tank and buy 50 liters of petrol all you save is about N2000 if the price goes from the current N65 to the expected N105.

That is it

2000 effing naira.

You people are putting all of us through hell for 2000 effing naira

Oh and all of u VI workers that are sending your drivers to queue, you'll get yours too.

Aiight I'm done.

That Sexism Thang

2009-11-16T17:50:00.003+01:00

Welcome back to your ~~daily~~, ~~weekly~~, well dose of Aijuswanarite :D Today we will be discussing sexism.

I started thinking about this again when one of my friends inflicted a bbm forward on me. The forward was the old riddle about the man and his son in an accident. The father dies and the son is brought to the hospital. When he gets to the operating table, the doctor takes one look at him and says "I cannot operate this is my son". The riddle then asks you who the doctor is.

When I received this, I immediately lambasted my friend for picking such a stale riddle to present to the world. I was sure that everyone who read it would know the answer even if they had never seen the riddle before. 10 mins later a few of the responses received were:

a) Gaylord couple
b) A spirit
c) can't be surgeon's son
d) surgeon played away
e) Its impossible
f) I don't know
g) its too hard

I was stunned. However it did put me in mind of the Implicit Harvard tests that I blogged about a long while ago. In that the question kind of acts as an implicit test of sexism because it plays on preconceived notions of gender roles.

As a result of this, anybody that reads/hears that riddle and doesn't know the answer demonstrably finds it hard to think of the mother as the surgeon. To my mind, not being able to do this means that on some level you are sexist. Though it is possible to argue that the "gaylord couple" answer is correct as it is a valid answer to the question.

Though I would argue that the gay answer even though correct is even more sexist, because the person would have to think that it is more likely that a gay man is the father of the boy rather than a woman. Though I suppose the person gets some bonus points for a lack of homophobia.

So can you guys think of any other thing that can be used as barometers of sexism in addition to its regular? I was going to mention trying to defend 1 Timothy 2:12 as an example but that is too obvious even for me. So what you guys & gals got?

The Ex Significant Other Thing

2009-11-03T15:07:00.003+01:00

This is a post that has been ruminating in my head over the last two months or so. Every so often I want to write it, but I think I start feeling that I cannot do it justice. So I have decided not to try and do it justice, but just to free associate it and see what happens.

This post is about the wonderfully complicated world of the ex significant other... of a close friend. You know the drill if you are not a complete social cripple, or the person is a complete ****, you tend to end up becoming decent to pretty good friends with the significant other of one of your close friends.

This is normal and expected, the complication arises when the relationship ends and you are all friendly with this person. The standard solution is that you leave with who you came with. Which is that if you were the guy's friend you are no longer friends with the girl and vice-versa.

However it is not always so simple, because you may have truly become friends with the person and you don't want to throw away a friendship on a technicality as good friendships are hard to find. On the other hand you do not want to aggravate your friend's issues because after all they were your friend first.

I was looking for a pithy "solution" to wrap around this little quandary but none decided to present itself. So I have decided to throw it open to my last few remaining users to find out what you think.

Now I know that it depends on the situation and all that, so what I want from you is what your normal inclination is before you allow the situation to have an effect? Don't all talk at once now :D

Oh and this is sorta like my three year anniversary so say something nice

Musings on the ASUU Strike

2009-10-22T15:27:00.004+01:00

So to the joy/sorrow of university students everywhere ASUU has decided to agree a pact with the federal government. ASUU had a laundry list of things they were striking about. However with the new pact agreed the only details that have been released is that the salaries have been increased 52%. Now I'm not saying that their personal pocket is all they care about but...

The second thing is that the lecturers were hoping to compel the government to allow them to pay 5% tax. While I doubt they would succeed in making this stick, the all out ballsiness of the request deserves a commendation.

The government flatly turned down the request for a set 26% of the federal budget to be dedicated to education in perpetuity. This makes sense from the FG point of view, but I wish ASUU could have at least convinced them to commit to a minimum figure of say 10% of budget. But you can't have everything.

I hope someone can explain to me how ASUU can want the government to pay them a particular salary on the one hand and want autonomy for the university on the other hand. I think they are just being ballsy again, but I may be missing something.

AWOL No Longer

2009-10-14T14:24:00.002+01:00

I have definitely been awol for a while, and I apologize to the three people that kept up with this blog since the last time i was awol. I will endeavor to make it up to you and hope that in time you wish that I were still gone. Anyhow my 3year blogging anniversary is coming up in the next week or so, so you can't be mad at me. See you tomorrow

Laters

Snazzy

Random Tribalist Fun

2009-09-11T16:24:00.002+01:00

There is this funny old quote about Europeans and heaven.

Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian, and it is all organized by the Swiss.

Hell is where the cooks are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, the police German and it is all organized by the Italians

I decided to try and fit this to the Nigerian tribes

Heaven is where the police are Hausa, the cooks are Ijaw, the mechanics are from Igbo, the lovers are from Calabar, and it is all organized by the Yorubas

Hell is where the cooks are Hausa, the mechanics are Calabar, the police are Ijaw, the lovers are Yoruba and it is all organized by the Igbos

So what do you think? Is it accurate? Can you do better?

My Two Cents on District 9

2009-09-09T10:09:00.003+01:00

For the record I should state that I like District 9. So feel free to dismiss my opinions as biased :D

The portrayal of Nigerians in this movie has gotten a lot of negative ink in the blogville. See here, here and here. The three commenters write compelling pieces on why District 9 is the worst piece of racist trash since Birth of a Nation.

Now it is entirely possible that they are right, but it is a tenable position only if you ignore the rest of the portrayals in the movie. Every portrayal is an over the top stereotype. From the evil evil white guys, to the helpful black South Africans, to the random ignorant people on the street. If you recognize those portrayals as caricatures why can't the Nigerian one be.

Now it is entirely possible that the caricature can be so over the top that it drops into racism despite the fact it is meant to highlight racism. I don't think this is a tenable argument, but that may just be me. Think of it this way, it is like arguing that Bruno is homophobic.

My issue with the racist argument is that the movie doesn't back it up. The only thing Nigerian about the Nigerians is the name. They speak English with South African accents, they look South African, and they speak gibberish as their language. It is clearly taken for granted that everybody in the movie thinks it normal that all Nigerians are criminal, even the bleeding heart liberal characters. Now you could argue that this is ridiculous laziness on the part of the writers, but is this really a tenable argument when all the other satire in the movie is very heavy handed?

All this reminds me of one of those things that they used to say about Hollywood in the 90s; that the only people one can portray as villains are the White men who have to be Western European or American; that way nobody will complain that they are being unfairly represented.

A New Dawn?

2009-09-07T16:59:00.002+01:00

There should be much rejoicing in the land. Globacom's fibre optic submarine cable Glo-1 has landed in Nigeria. The cable has a capacity of 640Gbps. To put this in perspective Nigeria's current demand is 4Gbps. The market for data in Nigeria is poised to explode, the days of $100 a month for 512kps are over... or are they?

Most of the internet traffic in Nigeria involves Nigerians connecting to the rest of the world. There are two ways the connections are made. Undersea cables or V-SAT connections. V-SAT connections are more expensive in general and tend to be used as back-ups, well some people use V-SAT as primary links but that is another story. Undersea cables, normally the cheap option, are also very expensive in Nigeria; between 20 - 40 times the price in most markets.

The new undersea cables being laid were expected to significantly reduce the price. Main One a Glo-1 competitor was rumored to have reduced bandwidth prices 90%. So it is clear, if the rumors are close to being true, that Glo-1 can significantly reduce data prices in Nigeria. However in typical fashion, Globacom has given no indication of what it plans to do with its cable.

Globacom could keep the cable for itself, and use its significant cost advantage to attempt to run its competitors in data out of business. The other alternative is for capacity on Glo-1 to be offered to the other data providers in the market. The first alternative may be better for Globacom in the short term, but as new cables are expected to land in the next two years it is unlikely to work as a long term strategy. I don't see the likes of MTN or Etisalat disappearing from the data space because of this. They might shelve their data offerings in the interim, but a brief window is the best that Globacom could hope for. The smaller players in the data space may be wiped out, but even that is too early to tell. The other cable suppliers may drop their prices significantly enough that most small players may survive.

I suppose it goes without saying that if we had a competition body that cared about such things, Globacom would not be allowed to use Glo-1 to create a monopoly, even for a minute. Still that is a larger Nigeria issue, which isn't the point of this post. So we watch and wait and continue to dream of real broadband.

Sex, Marriage & Religion

2009-09-02T18:35:00.002+01:00

On the face of it, it would seem that Christianity has very simple rules on sex; Don't do it until you are married. However after an in depth conversation I had with some married Christian friends, my belief that anything that is that simple usually isn't has been reinforced.

The discussion was similar to any that would be found on the pages of cosmo, except for the standard constraint of a Christian marriage. That is you have one partner; if anything is wrong you try to fix it or you deal. It was interesting to see people deal with sex issues with that frame of mind.

One of the areas where this was particularly interesting was related to the issue of sexual liberation in marriage. Is there any such thing as "too much liberation"? Does there come a point when consensual sex with your spouse can be considered a sin?

As you would expect people drew the line where they were comfortable. This means that oral sex is fine because you do it, but S&M is beyond the pale and thus sinful. This is generally the way non-religious people talk about sex; that it is preference determined. The only difference is that there is no sin component.

Thinking about it logically, there are two positions one can take.

First; Consensual sex in the context of marriage is no sin. After all if both parties are comforable with whatever is happening, it is for the betterment of their relationship and therefore cannot be a sin.

Second; Religion to a large part relies on denying fleshly gratification. So therefore giving into all sexual desires can be seen as gratifying the flesh. Fleshly gratification is sin; which means that some sexual desires could be sinful even in marriage.

While it may not seem it on the surface, the second argument is actually more nuanced than the first. The first is an absolute statement and the second is a more nuanced statement. While I am o so fond of grey, the socially liberal me tilts in the direction of the first argument. Even though the second argument, with its focus on intent is probably the more reasonable.

Clearly I have succeeded in tying myself in knots. So my dear readers what do you think? Which argument do you find more plausible?

The Joys Of The Monopoly

2009-08-20T18:30:00.003+01:00

So it seems that the flurry of posts towards the end of last month were an aberration rather than the norm. No matter, I may still surprise. Anyway on to today's post.

It is pretty much standard economic theory that monopolies are great for the monopolist and bad for the economy as a whole. Look at it this way, a monopolist will generally set the highest price he can get away with. After all it is highly unlikely to believe that if one business has the power to set prices as high as they can, they would restrain from doing so out of the goodness of their hearts. There are very few pure monopolies in the world, but there are companies that exhibit monopoly power.

One of the more obvious near monopolies in Nigeria is diesel. There is one importer that controls around 90% of the market. Cos of our power situation, diesel is pretty much an essential product. The market isn't too bad. I mean internationally diesel is cheaper than petrol but here it is about 30% - 50% more expensive. We got proof of the magical staying power of the diesel price, when the import price of petrol dropped below N65 and the diesel price remained the same.

Still we have lived with this for a while, and are used to it. What does worry me is that the price of diesel increased by 30% over the last three weeks. In this time, the price of oil dropped from its highs of about $70 a barrel so there has been no primary reason for the increase. The only thing that seems to have changed is that there have been rumors in the press that the diesel importer is over-leveraged and is restructuring his debt.

Now there may be valid reasons why this is merely a coincidence, but they escape me. As a favor to me my loyal readers, please procure me with a reason that I can use to make myself feel better when I am making a trip down to the local filling station to get some diesel.

In Which Intercontinental Bank Crapped The Bed

2009-08-12T17:48:00.002+01:00

As the global financial crisis showed, confidence is the strong support on which the banking edifice is built. Once that support goes, chaos ensued. Banks are in the not very stable business of borrowing short term and lending long term. This means that if enough depositors wants their dough, things can get really bad really fast. Jimmy Stewart said it best "John's cash is in Jim's house" and it a'int that easy to sell Jim's house to get that cash.

Which now brings me to Intercontinental Bank. In today's Guardian, the legal counsel who clearly does not understand this cardinal rule took out a double paged ad in which he begged and pleaded with President Yar'Adua to save the bank. He was discombobulated by the fact that there exists a cabal of so-called affluent men who owe the bank billions and are parading around town refusing to pay even when they had the cash. Our learned friend even went as far as to give three examples of such august persons. The key point to note, according to the lawyer, is that it is not that Intercontinental Bank has bad loans, it is that people who took the loans are refusing to pay placing the bank in the predicament of having to take losses on the loans.

We also learnt that in its bid to serve the Nation, Intercontinental Bank proceeded to ignore most prudent lending standards and finance such strategic sectors as oil and gas especially in petroleum products side. It seems that Intercontinental was not like those other banks that chose to finance multinationals instead of Nigerian companies and was very patriotic in all its business dealings.

No one can predict the success of the ad in attracting Presidential aid. What we can predict however, is the effect on the other banks and the banking public... Let's just say that Intercontinental Bank won't be winning any awards for honesty and transparency.

Lack of Evidence

2009-07-30T17:01:00.002+01:00

The first time I heard about the major problem of the Nigerian Evidence Act I was stunned. I could not understand how such an loophole could exist in today's environment. I mean there are things in Nigeria that are archaic but this was a bit much. It was a bit like finding out that in Nigeria we approve of the use of the abacus as the supreme only counting device. I was even more stunned to discover that this descent into "Luddite-hood" was not a by-product of an earlier colonial age. The Act in question was passed in 1990/1.

By now you are either on the edge of your seat in anticipation or have clicked away in anoyance. I just want to say that for those of you who stayed, you are a credit to your gender... you are veritable stars amongst asteroids... ok fine I"ll move on.

So the major problem with the evidence act is that computer based evidence is out. This is due to the simple fact that the original is on the computer and any thing brought into court is printed and therefore inadmissible as the printed material is not original. Some clever so and sos have experimented with laptops and flash drives but I don't think that those are catching on yet.

So is your head exploding yet? It gets better. In today's world this is a license for corruption cos the law makes most banking information inadmissible as as evidence in their own right. Which means that you cannot prove that someone stole money in Nigeria solely based on things like wire transfers, account balances, things that are considered incontrovertible proof in all other locations in the world.

This very problem is why you hear Ibori's lawyer saying that EFCC has no case against his client because there is no evidence. All I can say to that is that Ibori's SAN would not be making the same argument if the the crown court prosecutor in London had this information. He is also saying that the Federal Government cannot prosecute alleged offences that happened in a State Government, but lets leave that for the moment.

I just want someone to tell me why all the lawyers in Nigeria and the judges have not made amending the act their central mission in life. I know about the impossiblity of getting things through the National Assembly, but c'mon people this is not even hard its just an amendment not a new law.

By way of hope, there is currently an Appeal Court case on the Evidence Act pending, and this means that it is likely to go to the Supreme Court unless the person ruled against runs out of money to pay his SAN. Now the hope is that it will get to the Supreme Court, which will continue its activist streak and rule once and for all that computer based evidence can be used.

OnThe Nigerian Fire Service

2009-07-24T10:46:00.002+01:00

I'm sure most people throughout the world have heard about the "Attack on Atlas Cove" by those strategic incompetents known as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). What most people haven't heard is that the rest of Apapa was apparently spared from going up in flames by the actions of the Julius Berger fire fighting squad. While this is not a post about the actions of MEND, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what would have happened to them and unfortunately to the whole the Niger Delta if Apapa had gone up in flames. MEND should be sending the folks at Julius Berger Christmas gifts for the rest of eternity. I suppose the rest of us should as well, after all civil war is not fun for anyone.

So back to the original topic. The Fire Service like the Police Force is a Federal organisation. This means that there is one Fire Service of which those in individual states are members. While you can make arguments for keeping the Police Force central (these arguments involve politics), you can't really make any for keeping the Fire Service central.There is no political advantage to be had by keeping it Federal; I doubt the fire fighters will go around intimidating folk come election time :D.

Things like Atlas Cove, or the Ikeja bomb explosions of yesteryears, show the value of emergency response in a metropolis like Lagos. Saying it as baldly as possible, the Nigerian Fire Service would be hardpressed to stop a house fire let alone a citywide fire. Don't get me wrong, this state of affairs cannot be blamed on the fire service.

The Federal Government does not seem to care about the Fire Service, and to be honest it is not a central priority. After all the less industrialised states could care less about such. The solution is that states that care about the Fire Service should be allowed to devote the resources they feel their states need. The only way for that to happen is to devolve the Nigerian Fire Service and cede control to the states.

However I fully expect the empire builders at the center to resist such a move. Even if they were ameneable, I also don't think that an Lagos State AC government will be able to take the lead in convincing a PDP led Federal Government to devolve. A PDP industralised state will probably have to take the lead absent an actual tragic event, not a near miss like Atlas Cove, to put pressure.

Since the ideal solution is unlikely to present itself, I hope that Lagos State (and others like it) will implement the same partial solution with the Fire Service that it did with the Police Force. That is improve the equipment with which they work in State. Hopefully this will lead to a situation where Julius Beger doesn't have to be around to save the day.

A Speed Bump in the Returnee Road?

2009-07-21T11:39:00.002+01:00

There have been many different articles written about the returnee phenomenon that struck Nigeria in 2008/9 from the NY Times article which found it all very dazzling to the recent Jeremy post that didn't. Well the returnee invasion started about 2003, but lets leave that part out of it, it confuses the narrative.

Anyway one of the main drawing points for the returnee river that flowed and flowed was the concessional NYSC posting. In a nutshell, a graduate with a foreign bachelor's degree (sorry y'all masters don't count) could pretty much pick what state they wanted to serve in. Needless to say the majority of returnees (myself included) picked Lagos and Abuja.

Flashforward to the current batch of returnees who planned to begin service this rainy season, and the story has changed. With no official word about the ending of the concessional posting policy, foreign graduates are now being posted to states like... Nasarawa, Osun, Abia, and Akwa Ibom (how's that for some national spread :D)

Now I don't know about the rest of you returnees, but I know I would not have approached my NYSC Year with Buddhalie equanimity if I knew that there was a risk that I would end up in Jalingo teaching English. However I also appreciate the fact that there are few reason that will hold up to scrutiny that defend why foreign graduates are given concessional posting.

So I suppose those of us that have already dodged this bullet don't really matter. So what say you all in the diaspora? Will you return to face Okokomaiko? Are you more likely to stay in obodo oyinbo now?

P.S. To those of you with red or blue passports that say that you do not have to serve, I got news for you, you are working illegally. Unless you have an expatriate quota position or an NYSC certificate you are working illegally. Just thought you would like to know :D

A Blow For Freedom?

2009-07-20T11:50:00.004+01:00

I will like to draw your attention to the Next article that appeared on Sunday 19 July 2009.

Due to the vilification of the Eleganza Estate following the publication of the article, I feel moved to respond to all the critics that have resorted to the most unseemly name calling.

First of all, Eleganza Estate does not engage in racism. They offer accomodation to all expatriates of any stripe. I mean, I am sure that you can find an Arab Sheik rubbing elbows with an Indian Magnate before head to lunch with a British Petroleum Engineer. To slander this great estate with the tag of racism is unfair in the extreme, and I hope all those who did so are ashamed of themselves. Eleganza is not one of those vulgar estates that has the tag "for whites only", they fully believe in the dream of Dr. King.

Secondly Eleganza does not discriminate against Nigerians. Eleganza wanted to offer the estates to Nigerians. However all the Nigerians did not want it because they felt that it was too expensive. It was the Nigerians themselves that forced them to offer it to expatriates. Look at it now, if Eleganza did discriminate, would they have built that lovely estate next to VGC especially for Nigerians. I mean it is not Eleganza's fault that Nigerians are willing to pay N2.5 million a flat and not N3.5 million.

Thirdly, the expatriates when they come want to live like they live where they come from. Nigerians on the other hand are disgusted by such living. No Nigerian worth his salt would want to live in a place with 24 hours electricity, running water, and security. In fact I am insulted that you would even offer such a property to a Nigerian. Eleganza should be applauded for their knowledge of the national character.

Lastly, is Eleganza a private estate. How can someone tell them who they can or cannot let into their estate? Luckily Nigeria is a free country where such things do not happen. Our forefathers fought a battle to free us from colonialism, when we where second class citizens in our own country. They dreamed of a Nigeria where our people have the right to self determination. Eleganza continues that battle today, and should be applauded as a patriot that is striking a blow for the freedom of Nigeria.

December 2009 - 6000MW or Bust

2009-07-16T15:47:00.002+01:00

Most people who have been following Nigerian news with any degree of closeness would have heard one of the various government pronouncements about our power situation. For those of you that haven't, our much maligned Federal Government has stated categorically that 6000MW of power will be available in Nigeria as at December 2009. As a point of reference on a good day (which is rare these days) Nigeria generates 3000MW. However these days we are hovering between 1000MW and 1500 MW, which is not good.

Everyone I have talked to with some semblance of knowledge about the sector has said that it is basically impossible for reasons almost squarely related to gas infrastructure (there are some transmission issues but lets leave those for now). Based on all this I actually thought that the government would issue a cop out in the following way

"We have succeeded in increasing our working capacity to 6000MW as we promised, but alas there is no gas"

However I read one of the random government pronouncers say that the government will generate, transmit and distribute 6000MW.

Now you would think that I would be cheered by such a strong statement of intent. After all the government would not want to end up with egg on its face after so many public pronouncements... The is a strong credibility issue here... the government will move heaven and earth to deliver because the consequences for failure would be massive...

You get the point.

Now dear readers that my explanation will no longer hold due to this recent ~~over~~promising, what do you suggest would be a plausible excuse if we fail to achieve the 6000MW target?

Random Marriage Rant

2009-07-09T15:00:00.003+01:00

This one goes out to 36inches of okada brushing fame who recently got hitched.

In Lew Kuan Yew's book there is this bit about how in the eighties Singapore started doing commercials about the joys of marrying educated women. Apparently Singapore was like Nigeria in that they believed that housewife was the only occupation for a woman, and uneducated women were more likely to remain housewives.

The Singapore Guys were at least honest; they knew that they had to sacrifice a certain thing to get their ideal of the housewife. Based on cultural representation our Nigerian men do not want uneducated women, they want highflying superwomen that are ready to give it all up and move to the kitchen as soon as they get married.

Obviously, this caricature is not true, however people constantly act as if it is (with the attendant effect of driving me mad). Think about it, every interview with a woman of substance always has those bits where she shows she is a "real" woman by cooking for her husband and being wonderfully submissive. Though I suppose with the INS making sure that every woman knows that no matter how high she rises her husband is still the head, we shouldnt have to make them jump through the "prove your domesticity" hoop :p

Now it is clear to everyone with half a brain that certain sacrifices have to be made in a marriage especially when you throw kids in. After all you both can't be coming back at 11pm from your finance jobs with an 8 year old. Someone has to slow down, and odds are that it is going to be the woman. Which is generally fine - after all studies show that women feel more guilty than men do about leaving their kids anyway ;)

However nothing says that slowing down for someone to be around for the kids means that women automatically become glorified housewives. Even though with certain senators pushing indecent dressing maybe they should be :D

I suppose my point is that our culture makes it seem like being a housewife is the secret desire of all womankind, and any woman who desires otherwise is a defective of some kind. Who knows maybe it is, maybe all women live to be defined by what the value they bring to the lives of their husbands and their children.

I suppose if anyone will read this, someone will eventually say that I am against housewives, or that I think only uneducated women can be housewives. To those people, I say in my defense that some of my best friends are housewives ;)

Laters

Nollynomics

2009-06-29T09:28:00.002+01:00

Apparently the quality of Nigerian movies is one of those things that is hard to fathom. I've heard numerous people say that they cannot understand why an industry that is rumored to earn $2 billion a year produces movies of a quality that only the kindest of critics would call crap. People always insist that there is a better way for Nollywood, that there is a way for Nollywood to produce higher quality movies and still make the kind of profits that they are making. There is a way to do this, but it means deviating from the standard principle of Nollywood economics: that every movie has to make a profit.

The starting point to understanding Nollywood economics or Nollynomics, is that the average units shipped is the guiding light. According to a Nollywood thing I read, and a few other confirming conversations, the average movie sells about 50,000 copies while a blockbuster (eg Jenifa) can sell upwards of 500,000 copies. This means that at N200 a pop, the average movie makes about N10 million in revenue while some movies can make over N100 million.

The second thing to understand is that it is mainly the marketer that makes this revenue not the producer. If the producer funds the movie himself, he then sells it to a marketer to distribute, or the marketer funds and distributes the movie. The producers do get a cut of the total distribution revenue if they funded the movie but it is never what it should be.

So if every movie has to make a profit, the marketer makes his plans based on N10 million and not N100 million. This means he prices accordingly. Which means that the if he is aiming for a 50% profit margin he will be willing to pay about N7.5 million for your movie as a producer or spend N7.5 million himself to finance a movie.

Now if it is a producer financed movie, the producer has to make a profit on the money he has spent. Which means a budget of about N5 million and a N2.5 million profit when he sells to the marketer. So this leads to the Nollywood trend that movies funded directly by marketers are actually of "higher" quality than those financed by producers.

The need to maximise the units shipped results in the "sequel-itis" that inflicts Nollywood, after all for a slight increase in cost, you can double, triple or quadruple the units shipped. And if you have a blockbuster Part I...

Piracy does not affect the economics in the way people think because Pirates are not interested in the run of the mill movies, they are only interested in the blockbusters. So as a marketer you can generally capture most, if not all, of the value of the average Nollywood movie. However of a 500,000 unit blockbuster, the marketer may sell 300,000 of those units. So the marketer doesn't like pirates but the pirates are creaming off profits and not necessarily causing losses.

The international and tv rights (think Africa Magic) do not impact the numbers because most people treat it as jara these days, especially since the tv rights are apparently stingy. So no push to increase quality based on these audiences.

The way to improve quality is for Nollywood to have a paradigm shift. Basically the participants have to stop thinking that every movie has to make a profit, and to move towards the blockbuster model where most movies lose money and the blockbusters make up for it. Judging by the experiences of Hollywood and Bollywood, the blockuster model will eventually win out. However since there has been no credible evidence to show that the number of blockbusters would go up if the quality level increased, there is no incentive to move to the new system just yet. So all you quality buffs should tell the Nollywood peeps to stop making big budget failures like Amazing Grace that are now used to argue that the Nigerian populace does not want quality :D

P.S. I support an "action thriller" as the first "big budget" blockbuster :D

A Clear Conscience?

2009-06-17T15:02:00.004+01:00

Even by my recently lax standards it has been a long time since I have shuffled onto these pages to apologise for my absences. So consider this couple of sentences an apology, and lets dive right in:

So a couple of weeks ago I heard a story about informing on infidelity. So Lady A's best friend was getting married, and it came to her attention that her friend's intended was a serial cheater in the best Naija style. Lady A wrestled with it for a bit, but decided that her friend should have all the information before deciding. Her friend went ahead with the wedding and in the process their friendship was wrecked. Lady A coming to terms with the aftermath consoled herself that her consicience was clear.

Under the premise of "the more information the better" it is clear that Lady A was right to tell her friend about her beau's infidelity. Lady A had "provable intelligence" (it's in quotes cos she wasn't in the room) and so she had a duty to tell her friend. However there are tons of people who in the name of needing a "clear conscience" would tell their friends about their misgivings about the intended even in situations that are not as clear cut.

My take on this is simple: When someone asks you about their intended, you act like guys are trained to answer "do I look fat in this?" Unless you have concrete proof of infidelity or violence or some such it is not your place to give an opinion.

I have heard the argument that real friends can have constructive conversations in which an opinion can play a role. After all constructive conversations are the bedrock of any relationship. However in my experience, the only constructive conversation you can have about relationships is where the friend employs the art of empathic listening. The thing about empathic listening is that the listener does not give an opinion. The goal is to provide a sounding board for the person to come to terms with the issues that they are having.

For clarity, I have an example of where I would be tempted to give an opinion:

I think that every woman who is dating a man who is against her financial independence should run for the hills. However if a friend in this situation asked me if she should marry the guy, I would not tell her that she should run.

What would you do and why?

Niger Delta Redux

2009-05-27T11:52:00.002+01:00

On January 31 2007, I wrote a post titled They Want What?. It was about a group of Niger Delta militants who kidnapped an American and a Briton and were demanding N1.8 billion and 100 cases of whiskey. At the time I said that it was stuff like this that would lead the Nigerian Government to get enough cover to ignore the human rights, ethnic and political tangles and move to crush the militants.

It turns out that it took two and a half more years of "provocation" for the Nigerian government get to that point and start the "war in the creeks". Things have changed in those years with the "militants" for the most part resembling organized crime rings and not freedom fighters. The politicians and a significant proportion of the populace in the Niger Delta have turned against the militants, which has given the Federal Government the political cover to move in with force. The Senate even got into the act urging the military to widen the scope of the campaign, though the less said about our august senators the better.

MEND's great response was to threaten the families of the soldiers and to blow up a pipeline in a completly unrelated area, which forced Chevron to stop pumping oil from a major flow station. The fact that they hit an a soft target outside the conflict region shows that even MEND knows that they can't defeat the military in a stand up fight. However their actions are also giving the military more political cover to expand the scope of the campaign. I have no sympathy for the "serious" militant groups such as MEND. From where I sit, I think they have ignored or sabotaged all serious attempts to make inroads into solving the crisis - attacking Julius Berger comes to mind, as does insisting that Jimmy Carter chair the Niger Delta sumit. They have also been discredited by the criminal elements in the "struggle" regardless of how many hostages they "rescue" from the criminals.

Everybody and their mother should know that the Niger Delta solution has to be a political one not a military one, so after the bombs have stopped falling I hope there is enough of a will to tackle the problems that underly the Niger Delta struggle. There is a commitment to stop the environmental degredation, but the jury continues to be out on the seriousness of the state and federal governments to address the development challenges. If they don't do it, we will find ourselves right back where we started in a few years.

On Torture

2009-05-15T08:50:00.002+01:00

A cursory glance at the news landscape over the last month would have brought one face to face with one of the many policy debates going on in the United States. The debate I'm referring to is the one on torture.

This debate is particulary interesting because in most debates the Republicans are the absolutists arguing black and white, and the Democrats are the relativists arguing shades of gray while in this one the sides have switched.

The Republicans are the relativists in this debate preferring to focus on the effectiveness of torture as the standard, while Democrats are the absolutists arguing about the morality of tortue.

The Republicans are basically saying three things. One - all tortue is not equal, that they are not for pulling fingernails of people or anything, just for things like controlled waterboarding, sleep deprivation in stress positions, loud eminem and what not. Two - these things should be judged on their effectiveness. Three - tortue should only be used in two extreme cases - the ticking bomb scenario or to save an innocent life.

The Democrats are saying were saying two things at first. One - Tortue is wrong. Two - torture is ineffective so even if it wasn't wrong (which it is) there is still no point.

Here is my problem with the republican position. They are cool with fact that America tortured because it provided actionable inteligence and saved American lives. However they are against admiting to the torture because it will put American lives at risk. So while admitting that torture can save lives, they also admit that it can endanger lives. This is where the effectiveness argument can fall down. It may be a net positive, but it also may be a net negative and there is no way they can credibly know that.

Here is my problem with the democratic argument, arguing that tortue is ineffective is a non-starter. While it is entirely possible that for everytime someone spills his guts someone else dies with a smile on his lips, it doesn't change the fact that it is impossible to prove the negative that tortue is ineffective. The other problem the democrats have is that they cannot admit that their alternative to tortue is uncertain that the refusal to torture could result in another terrorist attack (saying this of course is akin to political suicide in America).

Having outlined both positions, and poking holes in each it's time to move on to my opinion of who's right. First off, torture is one of those "I'll know it when I see it" things and judging by the full descriptions of what went on, what the US did is one of those things. Now the reason why I do not think you should torture is that deciding to tortue is a classic example of subordinating strategy to tactics. For example, in a war where one of the objectives is to win the "hearts and minds" of a population that is in danger of being radicalised for terrorism, torture is a dumb move that goes against this. Another one I have already mentioned is that it can put American lives (soldiers at risk)

So there you have it folks, regardless of the effectiveness of a particular piece of torture it was a dumb tactic that interfered with the overall US strategy. Feel free to prove me wrong.

On Credit and Hair

2009-04-30T14:19:00.004+01:00

It goes without saying that someone as socially liberal as I am will not be a fan of patriarchy as is practiced in Nigeria. I mean it is all well and good for some people to think that a woman's only role is to be a wife and mother, and that women are inherently lesser than men, but not the majority of the population. However I'm not taking issue with patriarchy as a whole today, cos I want to focus on a particular nefarious effect that patriarchy has on women.

There is something wrong with a society that expects a woman who makes N10 million a year to spend her money on credit and hair. Well maybe also on a cheap car that will not scare away too many suitors. After all you can't get married pushing a Range Rover Vogue.

Before you protest in indignation think about it. In Nigeria today, a man is "supposed" to provide everything for his wife, and the home. Her money is not "expected" to be used to take care of anything from the house, to the school fees, the car, the bills etc, etc. Now this is supposed to be fine when the woman is not working or is working in a job that pays like a hobby. eg. teaching or law; kinda kidding about the last one ;) However when the woman is making serious money, what exactly is she supposed to do with it. I mean its not like she can contribute to the wellbeing of her family, after all what kind of man would that make her husband?

Now it is my belief that a lot of people are quietly ignoring this tenet of life in Nigeria and living two income lives, while maintaining the status quo of the one man army. Which is fine in one sense, but it also contributes to a lot of people thinking that this is the way to live your life.

This is an issue cos money talks. When it is the man's money, it is ultimately his decision. The women will have an input, and sometimes even final say, however that is because the guy allows her. However the fear seems to be this - if you need her cash then you are not listening to her because you want "peace in your house", you are listening to her cos you have no choice.

Judging by the jokes I've heard them make, women seem to like this state of affairs because it frees them from all responsibilty. Think about it, your money is literally yours to do with as you like. I mean if you want to give half your upfront to the church more power to your bad religious self, if you want that tenth pair of tiffany amber jeans,kini big deal, if you want those gucci/louis/prada worreva, don't hate the playa.

The closest thing I can think of, to this description of a woman in Nigeria is a teenager with an after school job. Which nicely highlights my problem with this state of affairs. It infantalizes women. Being concerned about rent/mortgage, school fees, diesel is not fun and most of us would like someone to magically come and make all of this go away, however meeting these responsibilities is the sign of being an adult.

You can argue that women can find men who don't think like this, however as I have discovered recently almost all Nigerian men have this belief nestled somewhere in their subconsious. That is what socialisation is. We need to get our heads around the fact that we should encourage women who earn money to contribute instead of telling them to be humble and submit (it seems any woman that makes money is in immediate danger of being proud).

Some women want to be teenagers, and that's fine, however a lot of the women in Nigeria would like adulthood just fine if they were allowed to try it and society is making it damn hard for them to be adults. From "father's house to husband's house" to "hair and credit" and all the other random things that come with being female in Nigeria, it seems that a woman just can't catch a break.

The Fuel Scarcity That Was And Will Be

2009-04-22T11:38:00.003+01:00

Once again I return to these pages after a week's absence hoping that my ever patient readers will also return to discover a few choice morsels of wisdom scattered amongst the dreck that accounts for most of my writing. Hoping that this is enough self-flagellation to convince even the most jaded of patient readers of my contrition, I will now begin discussion of today's topic.

Now for most of you that live in Lagos, it is old news that the latest tanker driver's strike has been called off. For those of you that do not live in Lagos, I am sure that you are wondering why all Lagosians have such a fascination with the daily lives of the tanker drivers. It is all so simple really, due to the inability of our beloved country to keep our pipelines in working order almost all petroleum products must be transported by road using said tanker drivers. This gives the tanker drivers an almost godlike power, as their mere rumor of a decision by said drivers to stop "lifting fuel" sends Lagos into an orgy of petrol queues and jerry cans.

Now the tanker drivers feel that their signature importance means that they are immune to such things as parking restrictions or maintenance standards. As Lagosians we must endure the congestion and deterioration of our roads and the ever present threat of explosions, just for the tanker drivers to feel secure in their importance. Every attempt to free us from their tyranny results in the fuel scarcity that we all know and love. Fortunately, the tanker drivers display an uncanny inability to plan for a rainy day which means that their strikes normally last no longer than three - four days. However in that strike period, the government has normally capitulated to some degree or another, always leaving the tanker drivers secure of their superior status in the general scheme of things.

So it was with great joy, tempered of of course by the knowledge that there will be no fuel, that the Lagos State government said that they were refusing to give into the tanker drivers. Yours truly took them at their word, even temporarily relocating to the island to spare myself the black market blues for at least a week. However the Federal Government did not possess the same testicular fortitude as the Lagos Government, and as at yesterday anteed up the fine for the tanker drivers latest indescretion thus ending the strike.

So ended the fuel scarcity saga until the next time that some tanker driver decides that the rules of the road do not apply to him, and the whole cycle begins again. However I must also mention that the delay of the Federal Government in paying the N150 billion in subsidies owed to the fuel marketers, the truly indescribably congestion of the Lagos Ports, and the uncertainty about the planned deregluation might actually begin another round of fuel scarcity before the tanker drivers can get around to it. Unless of course we have a perfect storm of all four at once...

And on that note... Laters

Development At Any Cost?

2009-04-16T17:56:00.002+01:00

As a young moderate with appropriate liberal social mores, and conservative financial inclinations, I was the poster child for the globally accepted mainstream view on development. The basic premise was that countries need to plug themselves into the global trade machine, and constantly upgrade their place in this machine. This was the way to get to prosperity and all what not.

We scoffed at the demonstrators at all the WTO meetings, asking them why they were anti globalization. After all did they want the countries to be poor forever? To our mind, China was the model to follow and "Development At Any Cost" was the rallying cry. Don't get me wrong; we tsked disapprovingly at the tales of environmental degradation and human rights abuses, as we fought against establishment of global environmental and labor standards. After all sometimes sacrifices must be made to achieve development.

Think about it: if you raised the labor and environmental standards, all that investment will go to countries with lax standards. Since governments and aid are the only other sources of capital and both of them are about as useful as binoculars to Bach, you will be consigning these poor nations to eternal poverty.

Flash forward a few years, and I no longer believe that "Development At Any Cost" is the way forward. For reasons that do not bear rehashing, Nigeria is still at the beginning stages of its journey towards development. We are currently faced with a choice. Do we go the way of China and Dubai and do any and all things to increase our economic growth? Or do we try to go down the path of sustainable growth?

Some people would scoff and say that Nigeria has already made that choice; that sustainable development is not what we do. I would say that we simply haven't done enough for the decision to have been made. Granted our adventures in the Delta, and the general reaction to them do not fill me with confidence. However more people are at least paying lip-service to the notion of sustainable development, so the need to practice what we preach may force our hand somewhat.

In closing, you are not going to develop any country including Nigeria with no impact on the people and the environment and I am not saying that we should try. What I am saying is that not taking it into account is like playing russian roulette; if you play long enough it will eventually end with brains everywhere. Check out this depressing story about Dubai if you doubt me (long read but well worth it).

On Infidelity Part 2

2009-04-09T14:05:00.002+01:00

So it seems that it has been a minute since I have dropped some knowledge on this blog. Was going to do a Young Snazzy piece on the first of April only to discover that I had lost my journal from college. Tres annoying. Work was sufficiently distracting to keep me away for a week, but I have managed to claw my way back from the thickets of deadlines and obligations to bring you some extra read all about i blogtastic goodness.

This post is basically a follow up to my last piece on infidelity, where I outlined how most of the conversations about these things generally go in my office. However listening to today's iteration of the topic, I realised that I left a particulary significant talking point out. So I have decided to remedy this lack, and discuss it here.

Basically the other leg of the infidelity debate is on what it takes to stay faithful. Most people in my office think that only God can keep a man faithful. The argument is that if there is no moral authority underpinning to your decision to stay faithful you are likely to stray. This argument is easy to agree with and easier to disagree with. It is not saying that people who believe in God don's cheat, but that they have an added check on their cheating that non-believers don't have.

Now i think it is possible that I have heard all the arguments for both sides that anyone can make. I think I have even taken both sides of this argument in one discussion :D. However I am interested in hearing your take on this. So how about it - do you think that God is a significant factor in the fidelity patterns of the Nigerian male?

On The Motorcycle Man

2009-03-30T17:48:00.003+01:00

I have found my Naked Man, I have found the hero that epitomizes all that I want to be, but can't be. I have found the one man in Lagos that is taking a stand against the status quo, and chosing to forge his own path. The road less travelled was to crowded for him, so he took his machete and headed off into the bushes.

So who is my hero? I hear you ask. Who is the Motorcycle Man?

Well I cannot just tell you, I must show you, after all you must appreciate the wonder that is the Motorcycle Man.

So Snazzy as was his wont on a Saturday was avoiding the scorching of the noon-day sun, when a neighbour of his held in high regard crossed the threshold of his humble abode. The neighbour's visage was masked by a motorcycle helmet that the okada riders recently awakened to the object could only dream to own.

My intrepid neighbour soon disappeared into the sun leaving my housemate, followed swiftly by myself, to brave the sun and enter the compound. It was here that we saw the Motorcycle Man, however he was not the Motorcycle Man then, he was just a guy on a power bike.

However it was during the course of the conversation that we realised that greatness stood before us. We stood before a man that had saved 3 hours everyday in traffic and N3,000 a week. Here was a man who could say without fear or favor, I choose to live on the mainland and still sleep in. Here was a man who dared the highways on an 850cc bike, breezing past us all as we struggled through the various bottlenecks of the third mainland expressway.

As we watched him drive off to the island, our neighbour perched behind him, we saw in him something we could never be. We saw a trailblazer to whom we could only admire, and never aspire. The courage to be him, to solve the problems of living in lagos definitively, would never be in us. We could only watch and know that somewhere out there a hero lives, doing his part to ensure that traffic doesn't always win. A hero known as The Motorcycle Man.

On That Soludo Article

2009-03-24T11:38:00.003+01:00

So it's been a bit of a minute since I've been around, but like Mystical it a'int my fault. Honestly, between random work jumping off, and hitting the final stretch in the cfa I just haven't found the time. One of the things I did want to blog about was one of the most talked about Next articles. The article was on the "embattled" central bank governor Chukwuma Soludo. I forgot about it, but remembered when This Day printed a back of the page editorial by a friend of Soludo referring to the work of a weekend "tabloid" (ouch!). Granted his 'take-down' of Next was not really anything, however it did bring the issue back to my conciousness.

Next, for those of you who don't know, is a new paper in Nigeria. It promotes itself as being a different breed of newspaper. Now anyone who is being honest will tell you that it is. Currently it is a Sunday paper, but has plans to expand to a daily. First off, I will say that Next is one of the better things to happen to journalism in Nigeria in recent times. The fact that these guys are commiting to putting out a paper with high print quality in a land that doesn't really see that as priority should be commended. Also their stories aren't half bad, in that they generally don't annoy me half as much as most newspapers do.

However the article that was published on Soludo rubbed me the wrong way. The article started brightly enough, pointing out the incongruencies in the lifestyle of Soludo and the salary he currently earns, while also pointing out that he used to be a university lecturer (so no past life arguments here please)

However where the article falls down is on the hearsay and ignorance bit. Some of the allegations are single sourced or don't make any sense. For example, they cite a bank executive who claims that Soludo must have colluded with Zenith Bank for a forex transaction because Zenith won the bid for that day. There are too many different reasons for this to have occured for them to publish the allegation without verification. The second thing regards the Ascot loan. It is not the job of CBN to check the collateral for bank loans. It is the job of CBN to make the banks provision for bad loans. The article somehow implies that CBN is reponsible for checking all the loans in the country before they happen and every dodgy loan that happens is its fault. I could go on, but then this gets long. Oh and the less said about the Turai Yar' Adua bit the better. Though I suppose it fit in with the breathless tabloidy tone of the article.

Ultimately I was disappointed by the article cos it was by a paper that was supposed to raise the rhetoric of reporting in Nigeria. The article read like a political hatchet job, and opinion masquerading as reporting. This is one of the things I can't stand about Nigerian reporting, and it is sad to see Next sinking to that level so soon into its run. Still here's to hoping it is an abberation, and the paper can fulfil its potential.

Flyin Free?

2009-03-16T14:09:00.003+01:00

In the last month, a story has been making the rounds in Nigeria about the private planes of Nigeria's elite. There were stories on the private planes of the bankers, the oil companies execs, and the pastors. The purchases of the planes were universally decried as an extravagance that we could do without in these economic times.

However unlike the media firestorm in America surrounding Citigroup's purchase of a private jet (which they eventually returned) there has been no comparative firestorm. Granted the "talking heads" media phenomenon in the states is miles apart from what it is here but we can whip up firestorms ofour own if we feel the need - see fuel deregulation and refinery privatization as examples.

Anyway all the organizations involved trotted out the standard soundings of cost effectiveness, convenience of scheduling and all that. Which of course are valid reasons, however this doesn't change the fact that it is extravagant.

While there is a "plague on both your houses" thing going on with everybody involved in the private plane saga, I feel that a special one should be devoted to the religious insitutions that indulged in the private planes.

The fact that a church can spend $28 million (N4 billion) on a private plane that seats sixteen people is insensitive to say the least. When the majority of your members are earning a small fraction of that, it doesn't seem like the best use of that cash no matter the "convinience factor." Of the top of my head I can think of at least ten uses for the money that would impact greatly on the lives of the individuals both spiritually and materially. Now my challenge to those of you who would justify the purchase as "not extravagant" is to think about what you would do with N4 billion if you were a pastor of a church in Nigeria and compare it to buying a jet.

On Infidelity

2009-03-10T13:32:00.003+01:00

No one was more surprised than I am that I was away from blogging for a month. I had tons of posts I wanted to write too. It's just that by the time I was done with work enough to write a post I was generally too drained. I would blame the fast, but that is not really done in polite circles. Well I'm back and aim to stay there in keeping with my 2009 swagger.

Aiight so today's post was sponsored by the lunch room at my work. We have had this conversation a few times, and by now it has become like that old friend that comes around once in a while to liven things up. There are a few issues that generally get hashed out during this conversation.

Issue 1: Who is doing the cheatin?
So conventional wisdom is that men cheat a helluva lot more than women. Of the tops of most peoples heads if they had to guess, they would say 90:10 or 80:20 in favor of men. However I rememeber reading somewhere that it was somewhere in the neighbourhood of 60:40 in favor of men. If that stat is true (big if) then it probably means that women don't get caught as often. However as the stat was for US or Europe, I strongly doubt that Nigeria would be that high. Our conservative nature argues for the 80:20. I think that 90:10 is male wishful thinking

Issue 2: Why are they cheatin?
There are generally three main reasons to cheat. There is attraction, emotional connection, and boredom. I suppose, if you through in retaliatory cheating, then you have a fourth. So men are more susceptible to the pretty face cheating, while women are more susceptible to the boredom cheating. One of my people thinks that emotional connection cheatin is a lie people tell themselves to excuse attraction cheatin. I think that emotional connection cheating is the working professional cheating, and so will get more common in women as work place participation increases. Boredom cheatin goes down as fewer women are expected to be housewives but this of course leads to increased opportunites for emotional connection cheating as mentioned earlier. There is a question, as to whether mid-life crisis cheating should be given its own separate label after all a lot of the cheating that goes on in Lagos is men trying to discover their lost youth. However I would argue that all mid life cheating can neatly fall under boredom or attractiveness.

Issue 3: Women versus Men.
This is the debate about why female infidelity is seen as infinitely worse than male cheating. I'm all about equal opportunity when it comes to cheatin, I am neither unnecessarily forgiving of male cheatin, nor unnecessarily censorious about female cheatin. I think cheatin is cheatin. I think that it is unfair that women have to have a higher degree of self-control than men. This is one of the weirder effects of the slut/stud dynamic. However in this particular case it is worse because most people believe that women do indeed have more self control than men, biologically speaking that is. I think it is socialisation myself. Granted, it takes more in general for women to be attracted to men, than vice versa however once that hurdle of attraction is crossed, women do not have inherently greater self control. I have four years of undergrad in the U.S. to back up my claims.

Issue 4: Repercussions.
The issue that we normally end at was actually skipped today. We normally come to the conclusions that people (read men) in Nigeria cheat as much as they do because there are no real repercussions to infidelity, apart from the religious ones anyway. Though if you were going to be restrained by religion in the first place you wouldn't be cheatin. Until divorce law becomes a helluva lot stricter than it is currently, the whole cheatin thing would not go away. Lagos is one of the few places I know where a man will take his mistress (sometimes even a sturves) to a location / event where he will run in to his friends and sometimes her friends and not even think it is an issue. Our conclusion is normally for the fear of God, oh and for California style divorce law :D

Conclusion:
These are the general issues we cover on infidelity, so what do y'all think. Oh and are there any others that we should add the next time this topic comes to visit.

Who's Doin The Rockin?

2009-02-13T15:50:00.002+01:00

As most people are currently aware, the world is going through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Most people are worrying about the effects the crisis would have on both their company and personal bottom line and are acting accordingly. However one of my colleagues made a comment the other day about how Nigerians are still partying like its 2007. I thought about it for a second and realised he was right. I have been out three times this year, and heard jist and I can confirm that people are indeed rocking. Think about it, there are there are three drivers in the Nigerian economy; oil, financial services and telecoms. The oil price has fallen through the roof, the stock market has crashed and the banks are rumored to be in trouble, telecoms on the other hand is still booming. However everybody rocking cannot work for MTN/Glo/Zain. So who can be doing the rocking? Let's break it down:

Girls in general are fine, after all this is Naij where they are not expected to pay for themselves. So females in their twenties and thirties (prime rocking age) are good. They can even still rock the expensive restaurants on girls night and still be cool. However I predict that guys will start watching their wallets and all that "of course you can bring a friend" will be a thing of the past. Tachers take note :D

Similar to the girls are the Expats. These guys get paid in dollars so no naira depreciation for them. No real bills as everything from housing to car to groceries are provided. So these guys are the true I Feel Alright Crew.

Bankers are not so fine even though they are rocking like they are. There are rumors of layoffs and paycuts, the subsidization of interest rates for bank staff is said to be over and they were definitely over-leveraged on the stock market. Any Banker that is Senior Manager and below should definitely not be rocking.

Oil company peeps are still alright, if they work for the international oil companies that is. If they work for a company providing services, they might not be doing so good. There are tons of rumors flying around about IOCs cutting back dramatically. Now these guys can still rock however only if they've built up substantial saving with all that cash they were earning in the good years. However this begs the question, why would you be using your savings to rock?

Manufacturing peeps should not even think about it. Granted there aren't that many of them rocking to start, mostly kids of rich manufacturing parents. However with the dollar depreciation slamming they hard, they definitely don't have any disposable income for the meanwhile.

Real Estate people can rock right now, but should be saving their money for when the bankers come knocking. Real Estate in Lagos has not softened as much as other assets, so those that deal in real estate still think that the boom times still on us are on us. These guys are banking on the inflated asset prices to continue and they are all in for a rude awakening. Anybody who knows what banks are like right now, would defintely stay away from the real estate guys. After all you don't want to be collateral damage :D I suppose if you funded your real estate with cash then you are alright. However if you did you more truly belong in the next group.

Of course the super rich amongst us will continue to rock without even blinking. After all if you are worth $100 million and you lose half of it you can still rock. I mean you might not be in St. Tropez this year, but you can still oppress the crowd at AutoLounge.

However I'm not saying don't rock, I'm just saying don't rock like it was 2007. Well unless you owe on your margin account, in which case you had better go on home. Yes that mean you Mr. Stock Broker.

The Third Rail

2009-02-11T08:24:00.003+01:00

In the West Wing episode in which they 'solved' Social Security, they referred to Social Security as the "Third Rail" of American politics - i.e. you touch it and you die. Touch it means try to interfere with the current status quo. This is a reference to the third rail being the electrified rail in old track systems, and thus being the dangerous one that kills you.

It is somewhat ironic that the third rail of Nigerian politics is power. One of the sad truths about Nigeria is that the country would probably go into a recession in the short term if we ever get a long term power solution. This is because the power provision industry is a significant part of our economy. Granted the figures commonly reported are gross overestimates, however even cutting the figures to a quarter of their stated value still paints a pretty depressing picture.

Bluntly put a lot of livelihoods depend on the non-provision of power in Nigeria, and as such there will always be incentives for people to try and blunt any effective solution. This has not meant that people have not tried to solve the power situation, however it has meant that any real attempt one way or another has been stalled.

The first genuine attempt to solve the power situation was the decision to privatise PHCN and have the government get out of the power provision business and become a regulator. Request for bids went out, and sat unopened in Bureau of Public Enteprises (BPE) for months before being trashed. There were rumors that the DG of the BPE almost lost her job over the power thing.

The second attempt was the NIPP scheme. This scheme was wasteful in the extreme but the end result would have been power. There was a National Assembly power probe that recieved a lot of publicity. However the report was never released and the project has been delayed by a minimum of two years, even though the government continues to be commited to completing it.

The third attempt was for the African Finance Corporation (AFC) to take over management of the assets of PHCN in the first step to prepare them for privatisation. No sooner was this announced than were there two separate probes into the AFC. The end result was that the CEO lost his job, and was to be prosecuted. Funnily enough though, once AFC stopped being in the running to manage PHCN we stopped hearing noises about the CEO being prosecuted.

The lastest attempt was the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) trying to exercise its authority. This one will take a little bit of explaining. Lagos State apparently agreed with PHCN that PHCN should deduct money from its Federal Allocation to provide funding for PHCN to build a power plant. The agreement was so that PHCN would dedicate the power from the plant to Lagos State. So according to the state Lagos State FAC was being deducted every month, and PHCN was not providing the necessary power. Lagos State went to court to either get its money back or get the power it paid for. The Chairman of NERC said that the commission could hear the case. There was nothing more heard about that but suddenly "Light in Lagos" got a whole let better. When "Light in Lagos" gets better, the diesel suppliers suffer greatly as Lagos is the major consumer of diesel. So two weeks later, the EFCC arrested the heads of the commission on corruption charges. The wierd thing was that the initial charge reported was N5 billion, but was further reduced to N1.5 billion. However a few days after the arrest, "Light in Lagos" started getting worse.

Having all said all this, I remain optimistic that we will find a way to beat the special interests involved in the power situation. I know, I know, these interests are protecting their livelihood and to them it is a fight to the death. However the pressure on the government to do something is continuing to grow, and later rather than sooner (unfortunately) one or more of these attempts will succeed. Whether it is serious state governors building power plants for their states, or the NIPP scheme finally coming on stream, or privatization happening; all it takes is one breakthrough to show that it can happen. The next candidate for breakthrough status is the Geometric Power Plant in Aba. So we will be watching this one with closely. Here's to hoping y'all.

P.S. minus 100 cool points (but bragging rights) to anyone who can say why its ironic that power is third rail.

On Retoasting

2009-02-03T10:53:00.002+01:00

Some of you may not think you know what Retoasting is, but I am here on very good authority to inform you that you do. So let's break it down:

Picture this scenario if you will; a guy meets a girl at a house party of a mutual friend. They get to talking and sort of hit it off. No sparks fly or anything, but there is enough there that they exchange numbers and such. They talk on the phone a few times, maybe even meet up once or twice. However like flint and damp tinder, sparks never really burst into flame, and things peter out - he stops calling, and they stop hanging out etc. Flash forward a couple of months. The guy is looking through his phone and sees girls number. Optimism kicks in and he thinks that maybe it is possible that this time would be better. He rings her up to find out what's going on with her.

This my dear readers is the definition of the retoast. Obviously there are a lot of variations around the theme but the general outline is that same.

Now I can say without fear of contradiction that all straight guys (Can't speak for the gay relationship dynamic) are retoasters by nature. Take me for example. While I wouldn't identify myself as a chronic retoaster, I have been known to indulge in the phenomenon on occasion. I mean my personal record for retoasting is a year after we stopped talking. While it didn't work out, I would definitely say that it seemed like a good idea at the time :D

Here is one of the fundamental differences between women and men. Men generally think that retoasting is a good idea, women... not so much. I mean the inspiration for this post was two women I know complaining about retoasters that had just resurfaced. Well to be completely accurate, one was really annoyed and the other was ruefully amused.

As a seeker after knowledge, I wanted to know what women found so distasteful about the retoast. It turns out that to the mind of the woman these things peter out on purpose. That is they are actively discouraging the guy until he goes away. So while the guy is not exactly an irritant, he is not exactly a desired toaster either. So him chosing to retoast comes across as an irritation. To them the retoaster has become a bugaboo, to be put in the same class as those that mark register at 10pm every night. To me it sounded weird until it clicked that girls seem to put people in two classes - those they want to call them and the others.

The other reason that women aren't fans of the retoast that it is often confused with the re-up. The re-up is the practice where a guy goes cold on a girl who likes him because he is engaged in other interests only to then return when he is "disengaged."Obviously I cannot sanction the re-up as valid male activity :D Though it is a shame that it is bringing the retoast into disrepute.
In the words of a smart woman that I know, here is a simple way to distinguish between the retoast and the re-up - "if you are clearly into a guy and he is blowing hot and cold, he has other interests." So ladies keep that in mind the next time you shoot a retoaster down thinkin he is a dog. Though I suppose certain situations could be a retoast to the girl and a re-up to the guy but lets not complicate things :D

I suppose that with all these obstacles it is clear why retoasting generally ends in failure. There are obvious exceptions to the rule, but then again that's why they are called exceptions. I would argue that women are too rigid because of their general exclusion of retoasting, however when they have the options that they generally do they have no real need to re-examine that which was already rejected (say that last sentence five times if you dare) In closing I would say that for the guys that choose to continue retoasting, you might have better luck if you wait until you "run in" to the person again as opposed to random calling with the intent to retoast.

Financial Engineering - Naija Style

2009-01-28T12:00:00.002+01:00

One of the hallmarks of the financial meltdown currently going on in the US were the securities that promised high returns in dollar terms for minimal risk. You could get apparently AAA, basically risk-free investments, that yielded 10% per annum. The argument then, was that they had done all the necessary risk mitigation to guarantee such a result. Obviously in hindsight this was not the case as most of those AAA securities turned out to be worthless.

So flash forward about a year and I get in my inbox an invitation to invest a minimum of $50,000 in a fund guaranteed to return the equivalent of 19% a year over a three year period. Now I basically ignored it, figuring that it was a Madoff in the making. However I heard my colleagues talking about it, and decided to take a closer look. It actually is a pretty good transaction however it is not "guaranteed" or "risk free"

So the transaction is basically this - FSDH an independent capital market player with its hands in a lot of things in the Nigerian market wants to offload a portion of its holdings of the GT Bank Eurodollar bond (it may be the entire stake, I don't know). However it also wants to leave itself the possibility of making some significant upside. So it comes up with a "win-win" transaction.

The GT Bank bond is convertible - basically it can become shares. So FSDH says that if you give us your money for three years, we will pay you all the interest that GT Bank pays us. After three years we will turn the loan into shares, sell those shares and pay you a certain amount.

Sounds like a great deal, GT Bank is definitely going to be in existence in three years, so where is the risk? Well there are two risks. The first is obviously that GT Bank may not be in existence in three years - highly unlikely but still possible. The second risk is around the conversion.

FSDH has commited to a conversion amount. The way convertibles work is that there is an agreed price at which the loan converts into shares. Now FSDH is planning on selling those new shares and paying you cash. However if the price of GT Bank is less than the conversion price, they may not be able to pay you the amount they commited to pay you.

FSDH is taking the view that GT Banks share price will be higher in three years and that they will be able to sell the shares for more than the amount they promised you and keep the excess, thus making money twice on the transaction. After all you are paying them a premium on what they paid for the bonds in the first place.

As I said it is a win-win transaction for both people, though it does have quite a bit of market risk (with regards to GT Bank's share price) and obligor risk (with regards to FSDH). In addition to there might be significant exchange rate risk depending on the value of the naira at the end of the three years.

As I said at the start, it is a good transaction but not for the faint hearted. Still it is good to see derivative financial products of this nature being produced in our market. Our financial development countinues apace. Now if only the stock market will stop misbehaving then we will all be alright ;)

To Phonee or not to Phonee?

2009-01-26T14:03:00.004+01:00

Now this question is only relevant for those of you who can still put on a semblance of a Nigerian accent. When I say "semblance" I mean "semblance." Trust me you do not sound as Nigerian as you think. For the rest of y'all you are just not there yet.

In general I tend to sound as Nigerian as I am able (which as I am told is very razz :D) However I still have that irritating tendency to turn on the phonee in certain situations if I am not thinking about it. I have come to realise that this is not limited to me, but to the majority of returnees in Naija (also a returnee phrase I am told) stumbling around trying to find their way.

The first situation is what I call the government interaction syndrome - you know when you are dealing with the government of the foreign land that you are in you automatically start dropping that serious speech. GIS caught out many a returnee during their first few encounters with government officials in gidi, you know LASTMA, immigration, police and so on. However after exorbitant taxes were paid, people stopped falling for the GIS like that. As an aside one of my friends on full GIS tried to talk his way out of driving the wrong way down a one way street. Look at the bright side he at least did not end up in the psych ward for mandatory testing.

The second situation is as relates to the service industry. It kind of happens like this, you roll through a restaurant or a bar, and during the course of generally horrendous service your accent gets more and more clipped until you are cutting glass on the posh. It 's kind of funny to watch actually, and usually there is generally a "this would never happen if I was in..." thrown in. I tend to call this the "please don't let them spit in our food" situation.

The third situation is the gate crash. You know, you and your friends are rolling through a zone that you are not really supposed to be at. The house party or wedding that you weren' invited to, or the VIP that you are trying not to pay for. You walk up to the bouncer saturating the zones with phonee so thick that you can breakdance on it, nodding to the bouncer as you breeze past on your phonee cloud. The one fun thing about christmas is that all phonee clouds are punctured albeit breifly.

The fourth situation that I shall mention should be obvious to anyone who runs around in Las Gidi (another returnee phrase). It's the blocking phonee, or as we like to call it the BP. It is truly tragic the number of high BP cases there are in Lagos today (C'mon you know you liked that pun). It is a standard thing, you hear a guy yanning with his friends like he just dropped out of AJ and then five minutes later you would have sworn that he was from Sandhurst. I am told it used to work in the past, but that was before my time, and I've been here a while. Now most girls think "loser", or for the unlucky this happens

The last situation I would mention also happens to be my favorite, I call it IP or more particularly isho phonee. You know when some random guy hits on a returnee girl, and she is having none of it. She tries all the standard smiles and sturves, but the dude a'int getting the message. She eventually turns it on and cuts him dead. It's a beauty to watch

Aiight I'm done, however if you have any instances of inadvertent phoneeing please feel free to share with me. Oh and I will also ignore all corrections of my interpretation of the spelling of "phonee" My blog My rules :D

Your Top Ten 2008

2009-01-19T13:05:00.004+01:00

INTRO

Is it bad of me to wish y'all happy new year on the 19th of January? What can I say other than... you know you love me? C'mon y'all you know you love me. nudge nudge wink wink :D

Aiight so while I haven't forgotten the whole Aijuswanaread thing, I will be starting the year the same way I started last year; with my dear readers top ten posts of the last year.

Just like last year the following caveat applies

Caveat

Most people come straight to my home page as opposed to the individual pages so these may not actually be the top ten posts. However having had an additional year of data to look at I am more confident that these top ten bear some resemblance to the truth

And just like last year I will be running commentary on your choices. So without any more demo, here are your top ten posts of 2008... Oh one last thing, unlike last year I'm starting with number ten not number 1... it makes more sense that way it seems :D

YOUR TOP TEN

10. Friendship

Now this struck me as rather random cos it's one of my first posts from 2006 and it only got one comment at the time, and that was Mona promising to hook me up. Anyway it is notable for the coining of a phrase that I still use "predatory churchgoing" and one that fell by the wayside "Idowu tayloring". Oh and also notable for me admitting that I was an idiot, but I guess that you knew that already

9. Sunday Corper 1

Ah how the mighty have fallen. This was number 4 last year. Oh well these things do happen. I suppose enough time has passed that I am no longer the wierd guy that publishes a series called Sunday Corper on Monday. Anyway glad you still like it... even though not as much as you did last year :D

8. Private Sector, Government and Taxation

I wondered why this post was on here until I read it. I swear I read it and I was like "I didn't think I was this good" Omodudu's comment basically is on point :D So here is to you my discerning readers :D

7. Separating Equilibrium

This is kind of a relationship theory post. Though it was one that relied heavily on audience participation to make it work. My readers, meaning you guys brought your "A" game on this one cos the comments on the post are the hotness. With all those witty comments I even got propositioned :D

6. On the Skye Bank Shelter Fund

With the rumblings in the Nigerian real estate market this post is looking better and better. Hey it's not patting myself on the back, clearly y'all liked it too :D Anyhow I haven't heard much about the fund, but its listed so i'm sure it got killed in the current market downturn.

5. My Nigerian Revolution

This post was inspired by SolomonSydelle, the Grand Dame of Nigerian blogging :D As you can tell I'm clearly not a fan of revolutions :D If you are the drama loving kind then there is something for y'all in the comments. It's good to see that Fashola is the living embodiment of the incrementalist ideal. It is also heart wrenching to know that so much could have been done in the past eight years if the other governors were like him. Oh well, muddling forward is what we do.

4. Prelude to a Fraud

Well last year's number 1 has dropped a few places and there has been no more mention of this project in the papers, though Delta State has recently announced a $4.5 billion project to do something similar. The link to the businessday article has gone, even though they redid their website and that may have screwed up the linking system. Good to know that people are still reading this post.

3. On Your Kneels

This was almost a given I feel, judging by the response it got when I published it. The comment totals were like my 2007 heyday:D With your level of outrage you would have thought that it was y'all that they asked to get on your kneels :D There was also the odd gramarian or two that wanted to know if kneels was indeed correct english :D

2. Hot Girl Syndrome

One of the two upward movers in this year's countdown. What can I say about this post... other than that broda was inspired :D I suppose I should stop posing with this post, but you know you love it too :D

1. Sunday Corper 2

Now this was a surprise to me too. I want to go round you people and start shaking you, but I suppose that is what democracy is about, no? I went to read it again and see what the deal was, but i still don't get it. I mean the post doesn't even have one comment. Still it is what it is, Sunday Corper 2 was the number 1 post of the year 2008.

CLOSING

So there you have it, your top ten of 2008. Clearly I did not put in as good a shift as I could have done this year because only two 2008 posts made it into the top ten. I promise that I will aspire to do better in 2009. So thank y'all for sticking with me through '08 and here's to a great '09. Laters.

Newlyweds vs NEPA

2008-12-23T17:59:00.002+01:00

BACKGROUND FACT

With very few exceptions, most women marry men that are lower in stature than their fathers. After all it is very rare to find twenty and early thirty-something that come ready made enough. The result of this is that most women find themselves moving to a "lower-class" neighborhood. Granted for some the move is from south-east ikoyi to park view, but the general principle holds.

THE STORY

Most women accept this intellectually, however when push comes to shove they may discover that intellectually is not the same as actually. Case in point is the delightful story I heard about the NEPA couple.

So after the marriage the couple moved into the husband's house - a nice three bedroom flat in central ikeja (probably around oregun side). The husband got himself a nice little honda petrol generator that can power a few fans and generally keep the place "cool-ish"

After a couple of months katakata burst in that house. You see it turns out that the wife was from one of those all gen all the time type families. To her NEPA was something that happened to other people. She could not deal with sleeping without A/C maybe one night a year, but all this day after day no A/C was not what she signed up for.

So the lady loved her husband, and new that she would come to hate him if this situation continued. She was honest with herself enough to know that she was just that type of person. She came up with a solution that she thought was best for everyone. She suggested to her husband that they move into her father's house for a short while to give her respite from the heat.

THE KOKO

Now you are the husband, and you love your wife. She has been complaining about this light situation for a couple of months. You know you cannot afford anything more than the 5kva generator that you are currently using. You know that there is the risk that the "short while" can turn into "until you can afford a 17kva"? However you also feel resentment that "for better or worse" came with the NEPA exception clause.

What do you do? Do you move for peace or stay for manhood?

Let me know what y'all think.

P.S. This post is dedicated to one of the not-so newlyweds I know, happy birthday babe, much love. I know she wouldn't have wanted to move back :D

Aijuswanaread - The Fam Part 2

2008-12-16T13:55:00.002+01:00

Hey y'all I'm back again after another lengthy hiatus. I would swear that I'm here to stay this time, but I don't know if you would believe it. Notwithstanding 36 biting my idea :D I continue on with the Aijuswanaread series, and will now complete the last three members of my fam. So without further ado:

Geisha.Song: She deserves honorable mention as the only person I know who currently reads my blog. Well she may not read it, but she is the only follower I have sha! She's a relatively random witty person; from sticking her tounge out at us as she whizzes past on her BRT bus, through scolding us for not leaving proper comments, to scandalizing us with illicit lurve she always manages to stay on point. Even though her penchant for big brother africa leaves a lot to be desired. She hit a new high with what I decided was her signature post (series in this case) - the ongoing Twelve Days of Christmas.

Uzo: Even with her unfortunate love for indian movies, it is easy to come to the conclusion that Uzo rocks. She is a scary music head as her myriad music series would show you (my fave being the He Sang She Sang) She also never met a meme she didn't like. I mean how many does one have to do before she is all memed out. We became cool during her hosting of The Bachelor series on blogville. I planted myself as one of the main judges, and honesty compels me to admit that I was awesome. She was blined by my awesomness and quickly came to my blog to look for me, and the rest as they say is history. Her signature posts for me were her women's issue posts insightfully raising awareness one post at a time :D She's gone away now, even though I don't get the whole staying for 595 posts versus 600 thing, smacks of laziness to me ;)

Cheetarah: Now I suppose technically she had a blog, but I have not seen an update on my reader since November 2007 when she went bye bye shutting down her blog in the process. However she has been one of my more consistent commenters, even though she does not believe in signing in and such. The only way I know it's her most times is because of her decision to label me God's Son. Knowing she reads is one of the few constants in this my blogging life. Here's to you chee ;)

Looking at it and seeing only 8 people that I can fairly call my blog fam, probably means that I should get out a bit more in blogville :D Still it is what it is. Stay tuned in the near future for the Stalkees. Laters.

The Selectivity Principle

2008-11-25T15:24:00.002+01:00

Hot Girls are one of God’s great creations. Think about it, they are the only breed of human that is appreciated by all humankind regardless of sexual orientation. Straight, Gay, Bi, or Les, We all stand in appreciation of the phenomenon that is the hot girl. I, your resident relationship theorist often muse on the role that hot girls play in our society. As a result I have in the past brought you such insights as the Hot Girl Syndrome and the Cheerleader effect. I am now pleased to introduce another one to my adoring public. This particular insight is a little thing known as The Selectivity Principle. This particular one is near and dear to my heart because it rights a great wrong that has been done to our hot girls. It once and for all debunks the assertion that hot girls in general tend towards slutiness

So let’s break it down:

Say you have two girls, Hot Jane and Plain Jill who are both 25 years old. Hot Jane is a 9 out of 10 in the looks department, while Plain Jill is a 6. Assume both girls have about a 10% gel ratio. For those of you that don’t know it just means that they will gree for 10% of the guys that hit on them. Now let us further say that Hot Jane being a 9 would have about 100 guys hit on her for every 50 that hit on Plain Jill who is a 6. Now as they have the same gel ratio, this will mean that Hot Jane would have been with 10 guys while Plain Jill would have been with 5.

Now as most people would only see the 10 and the 5 and they would naturally think that Hot Jane is a bit of a ho compared to Plain Jill. As you can now see, this is patently unfair. I mean Hot Jane would have to have a gel ratio of 5% to be considered as “good” as Plain Jill. Is it right that a girl be held to a higher standard just because she is hot?

Consider that the next time you call that random hot girl a strumpet.

Aijuswanaread - The Fam Part 1

2008-11-18T11:53:00.004+01:00

Well the hiatus was again longer than I planned, but I supposed y'all are used to that by now. Anyway we continue our journey with discussions of those luminary individuals that I would term my Blog Fam. Yes I like to believe that I do have blog people that do indeed care about my well being- or rather have cared about my well being at sometime in the past. The last caveat is that y'all should also consider the Mona mentioned in the last post as one of me blog fam.

Daddy's Girl: She will always have the dubious claim to fame that she was the other first person to leave a comment on my blog. In that I didn't know her in real life. You know the friends that know you blog don't really count (just kidding mona). Anyway her blog was an interesting mix of insightful commentary and short stories. There was some personal stuff in there also I suppose, but then again that's a general blog for you. There were a lot of stories I liked on her blog, but the highlight post for me was classroom politics Part 1 and Part 2. Unfortunately she's no longer around, but the blog is still up and you can delve into back issues if you so desire :D

Confused Naija Girl: aka my second blog wife. I would leave it to her to explain that one since I never got her reason :D. We started blogging at around the same time and she was one of the blog celebs of that time ;) I clearly wasn't but she read me anyway. Her blog was the definition of personal, and her raw honesty gained her a devoted following (well percieved "raw honesty" she could have being lying her arse off of course). She put that to good use in her Share Your Story series which was my selection for her highlight post. I would have selected her tribute to me as the highlight but she took it down with the other posts (apart from SYS) when she left blogville :D.

Olawunmi: He was one of the people that got linked a lot in the early days. Bloggers (mostly girls) went on about his poetry and the like. I read some of his stuff and liked it, came back for more. Something about poetry makes me reach for my critic hat, and he was kind enough not to run me off as the pretentious git that I was :D. I even did a guest post about the fugees on his blog, the only guest spot I ever did. He was the picker during blogger bachelorette, london buki ended up being his lady love. He too has been sporadic in his affections for blogville even though he found his way back about a week ago. The Highlight post for me was his post on past relationships. The rejoinders written by guest posters were also worth a look. Hopefully he will find blogville a little more often in the coming year but if not, his back issues are also the hotness.

36: I suppose I have to add her, only to avoid her hunting me down and killing me. Really I don't want to count her as one of the fam, but she believes that threatening people is the way to do things. I think her black belt has gone to her head. I suppose it was almost a given that we became friends, after all we work in the same industry and she beats up okada riders for fun (always a pastime of mine). However she claims she had a dream about me way back when, but now that there is a rock on her finger she is denying it :D She is also no longer around but she drops in occasionally. Highlight post for me is the london shopping trip - though that is mainly because of the drama. What can I say, drama sells.

There you have it, the first five (if you count mona) of my fam outlined for your reading pleasure. Will be back in the near future with the final installment of the fam edition. Stay tuned if you dare... Fine please come back :D laters.

Aijuswanaread - The Beginnings

2008-11-07T14:29:00.003+01:00

This post / series was a long time in the making, and work jumped up at me and kept me from posting (fine laziness played a role). For some reason I never got around to putting up a blog roll. I have at least 50 Nigerian blogs on my rss reader and have a passing familiarity with a few more. I'm not up with all the gist but I get around.

So in honor of my 2-year anniversary doing the whole blog thing ,which was sometime in the end of October, I decided to finally set up my blogroll. However I decided to also do a bit more than that, and give a brief description of the blogs I read in addition to setting up a blog roll. Another disclaimer is that a number of the blogs have also gone offline, and are no longer active. To those who have gone, call this an itty bitty tribute.

As they say you should always start at the beginning. So without further ado, we start with the blogs I read before I started blogging. As most bloggers know, you read a lot of blogs before you start blogging, but the ones below are those that I read consistently:

Dilichi: One of the first blogs I read, it was funny, well written, and had a huge following in those days. Highlight post for me was the Island vs Mainland post, come and see racking as people claimed up and down the place for their favorite side. The blog was what I classify as an opinion blog, something similar to mine. She wrote about what interested her, as opposed to what went on in her life. She ended up leaving us with a few gems in her time in blogville, so if you haven't had a chance to check her out, just add her to your reader or run through the back issues.

Mona: Another of the early blogs I read, and one that should get props for continually being in existence through out my time on blogger. She is generally an events blogger and is normally up to speed on stuff going on in las gidi and on the expat scene. She also did a few non-events posts and got a guest blogger by the name of Suzy Peaches. Like most of the oldies, she has slacked off a bit in recent times but she still manages to keep her hand in. I should also mention that she was the first person to comment on my blog, which of course makes her famous :D

T-Minx: Another general opinion blog that I was reading a lot. Didn't really comment much, and beefed continually that she did not have an rss feed (i think she has remedied that now). For ever grateful to her for her definition of the various crews of lagos: the I Feel Alright moniker is still a classic. As a shameless recognition seeker, I wanted to appear on her Friday Gist series as one of the noteable posts, or new blogger discoveries, but I never did. Oh well as they say "a man's reach should exceed his grasp"

So those are the main three that I read before I dived into the whole blogging thing. I will continue this tale of reading next time, with the Fam. Laters.

Tales From Traffic: Armed Robber Edition

2008-10-23T17:22:00.001+01:00

INTRO

I recently received an email that detailed the depredation of armed robbers in the streets of Lagos over the September /October period. It was mostly focused on V/I and Ikoyi and primarily on the bank robberies and the like. Those incidents are rare, in that you can go your whole life in Lagos without being in one, however the more mundane incidents that affect you are rarely commented on. That’s right, I would argue that almost everyone has a story of a direct encounter with an armed robber on the streets of Lagos. I would also bet that everybody has personal knowledge of someone that has been in direct contact with these men of the night. By the grace of God, I am in the group that knows people who have been involved, and I decided to bring you a few tidbits that I had gleaned from some of their stories. Basically you can read the following as a few theories primarily concerned with avoiding armed robbers on the streets of Lagos.

JUST DON'T DO IT

“Just don't do it” is like abstinence for road users. The logic is also similar; if you are in your house the thieves cannot find you (well at least the road thieves sha). Going out only when you need to, is the best way to avoid being caught up in the random vagaries of the Lagos robbery scene. This philosophy is frequently espoused by parents of expatriate returnees :D

MOVE IT TO YOUR RIGHT!!!

This piece of advice is best illustrated by the accompanying story. My colleague was at the Lekki 1st roundabout one day when someone came up to his window in the time honoured style of Lagos robbers. The robber tapped on his glass and demanded the usual “phone watch wallet” combination. I think the robber had a crowbar rather than a gun. My friend was on the right side of the roundabout close to the curb, so he took time to stall, pretending he was reaching for his valuables, and he climbed the curb and zoomed off. So from that day on he stayed on the right side, allowing him access to the curb if robbers also come calling.

YOU DON'T EXIST !!!

The story here is a work of beauty that comes to you courtesy of another colleague; though this time his wife was the participant. She had been confronted by thieves on Ozumba Mbadiwe on the way from V/I to Lekki. Other than the frequency, the story is noteworthy because she was approached twice and her strategy worked both times. As you all know repeatability is the hallmark of a good scientific experiment. So a thief once walked up to her and knocked on the glass demanding the bag and the contents therein. My friend’s wife proceeded to look straight ahead leaving the robber tapping on the window trying to get her attention. She continued to ignore said robber and when traffic moved she moved. Just like that it worked, once and then it happened again and she did it again.

FORTUNE FAVORS THE BOLD

A friend of mine was on Osborne one day in traffic, a road with no curbs :D, when he was approached by two men who walked up to the side of his car. Standing side by side, they knocked on the glass, and one of them flashed the pistol. He was sitting there stuck, wondering what he was going to do when suddenly traffic opened up in front of him. Not stopping to think, he gunned his car into the available space and left the robbers in his wake. He proved an inspiration to others in his lane, as they quickly followed his action. The thieves were daunted by this and faded back into the bushes. He was hero for a day as the surrounding drivers hailed him for his bravery.

AKA SCAPEGOAT

I used to be a fan of the motorway variation of this technique during my long distance drives to and from university. The motorway variation was to have someone in front of you at all times going faster than you were so if a speed patrol was clocking someone it would pull him over for speeding first. The robber variation works the same way only you are worried about robbers and not cops :D. I know at least two people who have gotten away from armed robbers using this tactic, both were on third mainland which lends itself very well to the strategy. The caveat obviously is that it doesn't always work, like the time my friend was driving through Virginia and got pulled over as the last of a group of six speeders.

CONCLUSION

In closing I should say that there is no error proof way to avoid being robbed in Lagos. Granted it is kind of obvious but I thought I should say it anyway. We tend to put ourselves in the hands of God, though I suspect for most of us it is a rote thing like some Catholics and their rosaries. Still I thought I would share these stories because there is nothing like good news to brighten up a day.

PS. Someone sabotaged the main internet cable in Nigeria so access may be intermittent for a while (it took them 4 weeks to fix it last time). I will try to be as consistent as I can, but no promises. Laters.

On Our National Day of Reflection

2008-10-03T11:41:00.003+01:00

As most of the readers of my blog know, Nigeria recently celebrated its 48th birthday. Nigeria's birthday is also our national day of pontification. It is that special day during which pundits of all stripes, tribes, and colors (ok maybe not colours) come out of the woodwork and proceed to tell us what is wrong with our nation. Once in a great while the more brazen, nay foolhardy, of the pundits also proceed to tell us how to fix the problems that ail us.

However I noticed that this year there were a lot more proposals made than in previous years. It seems that Yar 'Adua's year of paralysis had emboldened our pundits. Everybody had studied up it seemed, and now had the wonder drug that was going to cure our nation's ills. A cursory glance through the proposals reminded me of a joke that runs something like this:

" if you think about it everybody is going to hell. Every major religion states that if you don't believe in their God you will go to hell. Therefore we are all going to hell, because there is at least one religion you don't believe in"

Almost every plan contradicted every other plan. For a plan that said "give more resource control to the Niger Delta", you have a plan saying "they have enough,". For a plan that said "privatise the power sector." you have a plan that said "government is the answer to power." And so on and so forth.

When you decide to drill down in the plans to discover why the people seeing the same data would come to different conclusions, you quickly realise that there is nothing to drill down to for the most part. The statement of the plan is the plan. More interestingly, implementing the "plan" is tantamount to achieving the plan. The concept of execution seems to be lost on all our national "saviors". We have become used to "commissioning upon conception and not upon completion" and our "plans" reflect that. This is not a particularly Nigerian phenomenon, I mean look at the Paulson US bailout plan which is a plan to have plan in the future. The last statement was not to excuse our failings, but was a fig leaf a la "there is corruption everywhere, no?"

So this time next next year (or maybe before then) when someone starts waxing on about the solutions to Nigeria's problems ask them two questions: "Why will your plan work?" and "How will it work?" If they can't answer both then is either a) the plan will not work or b) they are the wrong person to implement said plan.

In closing, I must admit that "the How" is the main reason that I have not been writing about Nigeria's issues recently. Having seen how important implementation is in this country of mine, I am hesitant to jump out and scream "Eureka" like the rest of them. However I am still talking Nigeria (shout out to Nilla wherever you are) and will continue to do so. Laters.

Those Two In The Bush

2008-09-19T12:28:00.002+01:00

Consider the following scenario:

A guy, let's call him John, meets three girls; Jane, Jill, and Jacynthia at a house party. They strike up a conversation and John is struck by how much fun each of the girls is. It also helps that each of the girls is very pretty, and he finds them all extremely attractive.

Assuming John decides to make a move, this is what might happen:

The Realist John: He hits on the girl he is most attracted to, and if she is down fine. If not, he cuts his losses and moves on. The problem with the realist John is that he is attracted to all three and not just his first choice. As a result it is very hard for him to maintain his realist outlook. As a result he transforms into...

The Optimist John: He hits on the girl he is most attracted to, and if she gels fine, if not he moves to the second, and then on to the third if necessary. The optimist John almost always knows he is pushing his luck, but he can't help himself. He is hoping that if one of the girls likes him enough, she will be able to overlook the fact that he hit on one of her friends first.

The Deluded John: He hits on all three practically simultaneously, hoping that all three will gel. He is no relation to the realist or the optimist. His plan from the first was to try and organize all three. He is the butt of all those jokes girls tell about a guy that tried to toast her and her friends at the same time. However he is also the guy that girls stutter about as they try to explain why it wasn't so bad that they all hooked up with him.

Like most Johns (sorry couldn't resist) I vacillated between the realist and the deluded, only in my darkest days becoming an optimist. I have come to realise that in situations like these, John should not be the first mover. Here is why:

Girls being girls, Jill, Jane and Jacynthia know that John is having a bit of a bother. If any of the three has "feelings", they will discuss, and take pity on poor John. After which the "one" in question will make her attraction "known". Needless to say, guys have a different definition of "known". Thus if John is unable to see that Jill (to take one at random) likes him and starts to hit on Jane, Jane will likely steer his attention to Jill before the situation is irrevocably damaged.

If all three are attracted... let's just say that any action that involves the deluded John normally ends badly. Alas, I cannot comment on the situation because this is a PG-13 blog ;) (just kidding mom! :D)

In closing, Girls generally believe that guys are deluded Johns by nature, and with a little reform can be upgraded to optimist Johns. According to them realist Johns are as rumored as the Higgs-Boson particle ( minus 10000 cool points). I would argue, but the evidence is probably against me. What do y'all think?

Oh and have u figured out what the title means yet?

With Friends Like These...

2008-09-12T16:14:00.002+01:00

Picture if you will this little scene of mine:

A girl picks up a phone and hears a voice she doesn't know. She is about to put it down to a wrong number, when the male voice on the other end says her name. She tries to place the voice, and asks who is speaking. Once the guy says his name, she realises that she doesn't know him. She then asks the obvious question: How did you get this number? H

His answer, nine times out of ten, "your friend X gave me your number. She thought we would hit it off"

This scenario is played out dozens of times around the Nigerian mating or dating scene; Girls from all over get calls from guys their friends approve of. As most people know, the likely result of this scene is the guy chopping isho from the girl and generally making an all-round fool of himself.

However if you think that the title above refers to the friendship of the two girls, you would be wrong. The title refers to the friendship between girl X and the "would be" suitor. As a girl herself, X should know that this approach almost never works and yet she still sets up her "friend"

I started pondering about this when I saw two of my female friends tell one of my male friends to continue his pursuit of a girl using the number on her business card. Now anybody with half a brain knows that this is basically a no-no. However they encouraged him to do so, while I was the lone voice of reason. However like the still small voice I was ignored, and disaster resulted.

When the glow from the satisfaction of being proved right faded, I decided to try and see why women like to lead their male friends down the primrose path. I came to realisation that they couldn't help it, cos like the scorpion and the frog "it was their nature"

This is what I mean: women have different rules for lads they like and the rest of lads. The lads they like can call them 10 times a day and it's ok. However the rest of the lads call twice, and a stalker has been born. Women place their friends in the category of lads they like, and for some reason assume that all other women will see them so (since it is so obvious why the guy is a catch). This is why they will advise their male friends to do things that result in calamities. I suppose the secondary reason is that every woman has heard of a friend of a friend who did it and the two are now happily married.

In closing, guys cherish your female friends but don't take dating advice from them.

There She Goes

2008-09-09T07:50:00.002+01:00

I was almost 27 the first time I cried over a girl, and like all late bloomers I overindulged a little bit. My conclusion is driven by the fact that unlike Crybaby I did not shed just a single tear. I like to think that I was justified, after all she did break my heart. If I were being fair to her, I would admit that she did it, because she was afraid she would break my heart even more later. It goes without saying that I am not in the business of fair.

She broke my heart for two reasons, either of which would by themselves be sufficient to have done so;

She was not sure she liked me enough to risk being in a serious relationship with me. At that time we were possibly heading in that direction and she believed that though we were in the same place feelings wise, the risk was that I would get deeper into it, while she would remain stagnant. As someone pointed out, the fact that she was worried about the risk made it almost a certainty that she had reached the pinnacle of her affection for me, which didn't bode well anyway for any possible future.

She was worried that the fact that I was an oasis of calm in her life meant that she would get dependent on me. That she would not be able to make the decisions she felt she needed to, to take control of her life, if I was there for her to rely on. The fact that I existed may make her not decide to try. I was in a word, too much of a "comfort zone". She had decided to find out if she was with me because it was "comfortable." As all the world knows, the only way to find out is to leave.

Looking at it now, I realise that good relationships come with their own special breed of problems. Knowing some one will be there for you creates its own set of pressure, especially when you are not sure in your heart of hearts that you are ready to be there for them. Ultimately I think that she did the right thing for her, as the saying goes, you can't be a "We" if you aren't sure you are even an "I"

It is even possible it was a net positive for me. After all I didn't really believe in relationships when we started, and I definitely cannot say that anymore. One of my theories was that good relationships are rare and should be treasured even when they end. This one was living proof that one of my theories was vindicated by experience. It is also possible that I am trying to put a brave face on this, after all the bottom line is that I got a variation of the "it's not you it's me" speech. It would take more time than has already passed to tell, I think, but so far so good :D

On Private Sector Corruption

2008-09-02T12:41:00.002+01:00

When most people think of corruption in Nigeria, they think of two things: First, they think of politicians with "ghana must go" bags sipping cognac as they chomp on cigars and wonder which of their student/model girlfriends they will pick up in their newly minted bentleys. Second, they think of greedy money grubbing companies, eager and willing to grease the palms of correspondently greedy politicos to secure the future mounds of relatively risk free money.

As you can see, both of the above examples involve government in one way or the other. The central belief in Nigeria (and outside) is that corruption stems from government. The private sector is rightly seen as the "saviour" of Nigeria. And as with all "saviours" there is the tendency to view with rose tinted glasses.

The private sector in Nigeria has worked miracles. For example the mere fact that people are still manufacturing in Nigeria is amazing. South Africa had an itty bitty brown out earlier this year, and almost every business claimed they would go "out of business" Granted the manufaturing sector is looking a little punch drunk these days, but that is beside the point.

Private sector corruption exist simply because most individuals feel that their salary is not enough compensation for them to do their job. This goes beyond their actual salary, they believe they are entitled to some of the wealth that they create by virtue of their position in the company. Corruption is in two broad types: taking from your company, and taking from your client / supplier.

Insurance companies are the best example of taking from your company. An employee from an insurance company demands an agency fee for doing his job to example an insurance firm employee believes that he should get a cut of the premium he wins for his company above and beyond his normal compensation. If he does not get it, no premium for the company.

Multinational Firms are best examples of taking from your client / supplier. For example, you do an event with a multinational contracted at N100 million. It is almost a given that 10% - 30% of the contract amount will end up with the employees at the firm that approved the contract. After all why should only the promoters get rich?

Don't get it twisted, contracting the world over is one of the most corrupt activities known to man. If you doubt me take a look at the reports on the Iraq contracting scandals. Nigeria is no better or no worse than other countries, except that in here there seems to be no amount to small to escape the eye of the extortionist. After all it is about the principle of the thing.

I just thought I'd give a flavor of the other side of corruption, though to put it in perspective it is a gnat against the elephant of government corruption. Take our Nigerianlocal governments that were given about N3 trillion ($25 billion) during the 8 years of the Obasanjo presidency, and there is basically nothing to show for this amount. I wouldn't want to bore you with all the hearsay tales of once a month sharing activity, because it would be another exercise in futility. The EFCC and ICPC have said that they will focus more closely on the local governments, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

I suppose my nightmare is that corruption always starts small and replicates like the virus that it is. While unlikely, it still is a possibility. The likely outcome is greater transparency as companies become more concerned about leakages. Apparently leakages at the early telcos were legendary, and while there are still rampant, they are a lot better than before. I suppose there is progress, but for those of us trying to do business the right way, I wish it would come a little faster.

Over The Hump

2008-08-28T09:33:00.003+01:00

I was on a roll a little while back posting o so frequently, and then like Icarus who flew too close to the sun, there was suddenly silence. There are many cogent reasons for my absence of almost a month, the major one being a back breaking, potentially earth shaterring amount of work that descended on my head in August. I had so many good posts pop into my head over the month, but there was no creative energy to blog when all was said done. I watched with anger and despair as these ideas faded into the mist never to be retrieved to form a coherent post.

However these were the feelings going through my head, until I fired up the dashboard and realised that this would be my 200th post. I said it 200, what!!! :D

Clearly I could not get over the hump. My subconcious did not want to cross the boundary that was the two hundreth post, not wanting to chart into new territory a path that has not really been travelled by Nigerian bloggers, who unfortunately seem to have the shelf life of a spermatozoa.

Still I persevered and crossed the hurdle with this post which you would all admit is stellar in its ability to take up a whole page while saying absolutely nothing. If you think its easy to do this, I dare you to try it.

In closing it is my pleasure to inform you that I have a new theory - The Theory of the Toasting Hour. What is the toasting hour you ask? I discovered this phenomenon quite by accident really. During the time period in which I was making such calls, I realised that during the week most of my calls to the opposite sex occured during the hours of 10pm and 11 pm. This was the perfect time because most people are at home, are likely to be awake and are able to talk for a while if so inclined. As any one with half a brain can see, all these factors taken together mean that a lot of toasting will be done. While I admit I have not done any random sample testing, it is clear that I have discovered a natural law of the working life in Lagos.

Nuke The Fridge

2008-08-01T16:58:00.002+01:00

I must confess that this post comes to you courtesy of the New York Times (read the article and the post and it will all make sense)

Indiana Jones and the long arse name, was one of my favorite movies of the summer. It is entirely possible that some of my love for this movie was based on my childhood infatuation with all things Indy. However there was a particular action scene where my beloved Indy escapes a nuclear explosion by hiding in a lead lined fridge.

It's one of those delusions of grandeur that affect movies from time to time, think the invasion of Cuba in Bad Boys II.

Sometimes, as in Indy, the trangression is so bad that it becomes a descriptor for hubris. So when you say someone or something "Nuked The Fridge" you mean that he/she/it has ventured into "the realm of the ridiculous and stupid"

I am beginning to wonder if the Nigerian Political Establishment (all three branches of them) have "Nuked The Fridge"

First we have the Federal Court Judge that purported to halt the handing over of Bakassi to Camerooun by declaring "status quo" on the matter and ajdourning it to October, when the handover is middle of August. I suppose it's good to know that the Nigerian Federal High Court is an appelate court of the International Court of Justice. Hopefully he will get the same treatment as the last "status quo" though she only thought that a High Court was the appelate court of the Supreme Court.

Second we have the House of Representatives banning for the umpteenth time the reading of the FOI bill. These august members of the political establishment have not given ONE cogent reason why the bill should not pass. This reminds me of the refusal of the Anambra State House of Assembly to pass Gov. Obi's budget. This is particuarly infuriating when you realise that these guys have not done anything substantive over the last year.

Third, we have again the House of Representatives and their decision to establish a probe panel to probe the probe panel set up to probe the National Integrated Power Project. Ah for the love of probes. I think there is no other comment needed on this one.

Fourth, we have the PDP trying to fault the Tribunal's voiding of the Ondo State gubernatorial elections. This is the state wear the so-called professor of computing could not even boot up a laptop at the hearing. This is the state where the Deputy Governor was caught carrying ballot boxes himself, I guess he hasn't heard of delegation. This is the state where the fingerprint report of the ballot papers would cause even Mugabe to blush (ok maybe I nuked the fridge on that last one... )

Fifth... fine I'll stop. It's not like I want to be accused of nuking the fridge. It's just that I get mad when I read about all these rosy predictions of what we are doing to move the country forward, and then watching the actions that seemed to be premeditated to set it back. Maybe I am wrong, after all Nigeria has seemed to survive (and sometimes thrive) almost in spite of itself. Here's to hoping... but I am almost all hoped out.

The New Battle Of The Sexes

2008-07-29T12:15:00.002+01:00

I like my barber after all I've been going there since I was 12, which is not as impressive as it seems considering my whole decade abroad thing. However there is clearly a bond, you would all agree. My barber has finally paid me for my decades (fine, years) of loyalty. It gave me the inspiration for a blog post. Now this is a big deal, cos I've been slacking a bit on the whole posting thing, and it's been over a week since the last once. So y'all say a big thank you to my barber.

The conversation at the barber was sparked by a Nigerian movie, which is renowned the world over as a veritable fount of ideas. This Nigerian movie chose to focus on the topical issue of children from a previous relationship. As you would expect the child was causing a lot of friction and angst for the romantic leading. I know this based on all the eye-rolling and hand-wringing I witnessed.

A female customer was watching the movie via the mirror while being fitted for an "Anita Baker" At one point of the movie, she tsked about how sad it was that men were unable to accept children of prior relationships. That women were clearly more understanding in this matter.

The men in the room, mostly the barbers, were not willing to take such a comment lying down. They rose as one to declaim that it was indeed the women who were worse. After all it is a known fact that the women would mistreat the child. Everyone knowns that men would be more understanding in those situations. One of the barbers even used himself as an example saying that he wouldn't care if his woman had a child from a previous relationship.

My first instinct was to come down on the side of the woman, blaming the barbers' delusions on too much Snow White as children (Damn Disney!!!). How can any credible person say that women are worse than men when it comes to children from previous relationship. I'm sorry, I just can't see a nigerian guy, let alone his mother, agreeing to marry a woman who had a child from a prior relationship. However I can see, and have seen, women marry men with children from prior relationships.

However I realised that in this instance, as in most others, the men and the women were talking about two separate things:

The lady was talking about the willigness of the women to accept children from past relationships, something that women clearly do more than me.

The men were talking about treatment of children after the decision was made. The men were saying that given the decision of the man to pursue the relationship, he would treat the child better than a woman would in that situation - which I submit is an arguable point.

It still doesn't wash as an argument though, look at is this way. Take a scenario in which a couple that is now broken up had a kid in the last year, and answer these two questions:

who would you expect to be married in three years time?

and

whose spouse would you trust to take care of the kid?

The first answer to my mind, is the guy, and the second answer is a shrug. So I am almost definitely going to declare this new battle for the women.

However I have decided I don't need to, time will sort this one out. After all the Nigerian inability to use contraceptives in the prescribed manner is resulting a lot more people having children up and down the place, and they will give us enough evidence to come to a conclusion.

I will say that y'all don't have to be driven by the facts and can opine to your hearts content. So who wins this one - the "Anita Baker" or the Barber?

On Your Kneels

2008-07-18T14:07:00.003+01:00

There is a story making the rounds in the financial services community that is too good not to share:

Apparently a branch manager at one of the V/I bank branches made all of her marketing staff kneel down for not meeting their deposit targets. After word of this got out, the manager was sanctioned by head honcho at headquarters. In some versions she was reprimanded and in others she was sacked. I like to think that she was patted on the back and told to keep up the good work :D

I know it's bloody absurd, but it's hilarious right. Imagine coming into work one day and being told to kneel down as punishment. I mean the maturity of the lady that she thought kneeling down was sufficient enough punishment for failing to meet a business target. I mean, I can clearly imagine that marketing woman being driven to extremes of offering sex to a client just to avoid kneeling down. I mean I'm not a woman, but I know that I would seriously consider it. After all being made to kneel down is a fate worse than death.

Now let us leave aside the idiot woman who thought kneeling down was the height of punishment, and address those special people that actually knelt down instead of rolling their eyes. As you would expect the male senior managers were the first to go on their kneels. I guess they felt that they had the most to lose. Think about it, if they lose the job, their no-qualified arse would not be able to cop that N15m salary with 100% bonus, rock those two cars, romance the beautiful professional wife, and organise the unilag going model girlfriend. Who wouldn't drop to their kneels at the thought of losing the good life.

My heart actually goes out to the junior people on the marketing team who supposedly were some of the last to drop to their kneels. They do not deserve the gutless wonders that they have as superiors. Telling these young ones that the only thing that matters is job security sets a very bad precedent for them for the rest of their careers. People who would do anything to keep the "job" would literally do anything. It is a short step from kneeling down to not get fired, to coming back to the bank without your skirt to not get fired (true story - it was a long jacket)

I like to think I'm the kind of person that would have rolled my eyes and walked out, but I suppose I cannot judge the people until I am in that kind of situation. Still I just can't see it. What about you? What would you have done?

On Groupie Love and Other Random Musings

2008-07-14T16:16:00.002+01:00

Wow! I got 13 comments on me last post and only two of them were mine. If you guys keep this up, I'm gonna think that people read me blog again. I mean this post got more comments that my last four posts combined. I was talking with another ancient blogger (2 years is clearly ancient in blog terms) and we were of the opinion that we are like those neighborhoods that used to be cream 20 years ago, 10 years ago became a ghetto, and presently are becoming gentrified. I decided that we (at least) I am either in the descent to ghetto phase, or firmly in said ghetto.

I just want to say a brief shout out to all my peeps that were stuck in petrol queues this weekend because of the almost strike. I know y' NUPENG is a %(!*%!!#. However u have to understand that if NUPENG did not flex its power it might lose relevance. After all people have to remember that they are the ones that forced Babangida out of power. I mean NUPENG also cares about you, that is why they went on strike. I mean people are suffering, and NUPENG has to stand up for them.

In other news, I saw one guy pick up 15 chicks in about 5 mins. He did them all at once to. I know, I know. It sounds impossible doesn't it. However when you are a member of the entourage of an American performer at the This Day Music festival, it's a piece of cake.

Here is what you do - be at Eko hotel on a saturday evening around 8, walk in to the resturant where 15 women are seated around the table. Look to see that they are all dressed like it's a Saturday evening and are clearly planning to party. Notice the fact that all of them seem to have shared one bottle of champagne between themselves. Now introduce yourself to them as a member of XX (didn't hear the name) entourage. Ask them to come up to see y'all when they are done. Hear them agree and know that your work is done.

I just want to let y'all know that I am not hating on the women for doing the whole groupie thang. After all I went to a sports mad American university, and some of my best friends were groupies :D

In closing I must say that the New Yorker Obama cartoon is beyond ridiculous, I mean are they effing kidding! As someone said, if they were saying that this was a portrait of right wing views, why didn't they have some republican (read McCain) think it in a bubble.

Aiight I'm done.

The Age Old Question

2008-07-07T13:08:00.002+01:00

Like most people in my generation, I discovered the existence of the question upon my first viewing of When Harry Met Sally

If you saw the movie you probably already know the question, however I will repeat it for those benighted souls who should immediately run to their nearest video club / store and rent / buy this classic.

The question is simply - Can Men & Women Be Friend

The answer in the movie was - No cos the sex stuff always gets in the way

This answer is like the law of gravity - no matter how much you wish it doesn't exit, there a'int nothing you can do about it.

In these so-called "post-modern" days, it is believed that we have indeed dispensed with the past, that men and women can be friends. We have declared gravity to no longer exist

Believing that men and can be friends without the sex stuff getting in the way is like me believing I will fly as I swan dive of Third Mainland Bridge. You cannot wish away the fact that if you click with someone, at some point in time you will think that you should be attracted to that person.

To my mind there are three cases in which men and women can be friends. To be clear we don't mean - "hey wassup, how are you" friends cos those friends come in all genders. We mean deep and meaningful friends, who get each other and all that jazz. Now with that caveat, on to the categories:

1. The Silent Sufferer

One person likes the other but the feeling is not returned. It has come up already, and has been "resolved" - The one is willing to suffer the psychological torture in order to maintain a certain closeness. The other is willing to allow the one to go through the pyschological torture in order to keep a friendship - after all the two click and have fun together

2. The Past Hook Up

Been there done that got the t-shirt. The two have tried the couple route and realised that they got along like a house on fire that finally burnt down. However they still have fun together and so once the scars of the break-up are past they can eventually be friends. This category suffers from occasional Friends with Benefits syndrome.

3. The Wanabe Egyptians

Those souls that think denial is a river in Egypt. These are the ones that believe that all is fine and that they are just friends and everything is fine. That they click, but are like brother and sister and are in fact not attracted to each other. Well eventually something gives, they find out that they are not indeed like brother and sister, well unless of course they are Egyptians (-100 cool points for anyone that got the reference). Anyhow this group of people either become category 1 or category 2. So think of the category 3 people as in transition to either of the two above categories.

In closing, before you attempt to disagree with me - think about your experience and experiences of any and all of your friends, and see if you can come up with a case of close friends of the opposing sex without any lingering sexual tension.

Now discuss.

Arewa & Bill Cosby

2008-07-01T10:41:00.002+01:00

In 2004, our beloved Bill Cosby created a bit of a ruckus when he castigated poor black parents for failing to raise their children to an acceptable stance. The response of the black community to Bill''s statement was basically a replay of the scene in Eddie Murphy's "Raw" stand up when Eddie quotes Richard Pryor and says "Tell Bill I said have a coke and a smile and shut the f**k up"

It goes without saying that there was an element of truth to what Bill said about the poor black parents however people were not willing to hear that figuring that it did not put the blame where it mainly belonged. To their minds, personal responsibility does have a part to play, but government policies and institutional racism are the main culprits.

Flash forward to 2008 and an Arewa Consultative Forum meeting in Kaduna. These Northern leaders were clearly fed up with what they saw as the whining of the state governors in the Niger Delta for higher derivation and decided to hit back. An uncharitable person would say that they were worried that their share of the pie would have been reduced.They said basically that Niger Delta gets enough money and that the state governors are the main cause of the Niger Delta situtation. They said that the governors are corrupt and have stolen the money meant for the people.

For the most part the Arewa were treated like Bill Cosby. Standard reply was that the ACF is clearly an ignorant body, or it is just another ploy of the north to try and gain power they have lost and such like (read this vanguard link for more details on the reaction). There were also some responses acknowledging the truth of the ACF statement, however they were in the minority.

However my favorite response was the guy that said, that the EFCC said that thirty governors were corrupt and the Niger Delta has only 6 so corruption is not just a Niger Delta issue. I wonder if someone pulled him aside later and told him that he actually was helping the ACF make their point.

I'm sure I could have told the ACF what would happen. Even though the Niger Delta governments are the most corrupt individuals in Nigeria nothing could have mobilized support for them in the region like NORTHERN LEADERS daring to criticise them. I don't know what you've heard, but the Northerners aren't the dog's bullocks down on that side.

So what do you think about the political blunder that was the ACF statement?

Nigeria's Own Tet Offensive

2008-06-25T13:58:00.002+01:00

I would willingly swear that my heart pumped fear for at least a minute when I heard about the daring MEND strike on the Shell Bonga Oil Field platform. My first thought was that "they've finally done it." We have been told ever since the whole Niger Delta thing jumped off that in the long run Nigerian oil is safe because the future is offshore and the militants cannot get offshore. Then MEND goes and attacks the crown jewel of the Nigerian oil scene apparently falsifying all those bold claims. For anyone with dreams of a better Nigeria (or anyone with dreams of corrupt enrichment :D) this new found ability of MEND is devastating to contemplate. We are way passed viewing with alarm here.

Just as it is a fond dream of jihadist terrorists to detonate a suitcase nuke in a major American city, it is a dream of the Niger Delta Militants to strike at the oil platforms floating on the Atlantic Ocean. MEND had finally achieved this dream, and by demonstrating this capability they have proven themselves a force to be reckoned with once and for all. This is major league, akin to Truman dropping the bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

As I was out of the country, I eagerly devoured all the news I could about the incident. The first thing I read was a cursory summary with basically no details. The more I found out about the incident, the more skeptical I got about the "success" of the MEND attack on the facility.

MEND basically arrived at Bonga captured four people who actually were in boats and not actually on the platform and left. MEND admitted it's inability to get into the control room, and claims that it would have destroyed the base if not for its decision to prevent the loss of life.

The uncritical Nigerian media has taken this load of crap as gospel truth, the foreign press not so much (FT, Thisday, Bloomberg) However judging by the fact that the American was released almost immediately, MEND has unilaterally declared a cease-fire, and Bonga is up and running again, it is clear that this more a publicity stunt than an actual operational mission. However no matter how much anyone tries to argue as I have, it will not be believed. It will be shouted down as wishful thinking and so on and so forth.

This is why it reminds me of the Tet offensive - the major turning point in the Vietnam war. Basically it was a major offensive by the Viet Cong and was a massive failure. However the very audacity of the attack caused the American public to believe it was successful, no matter how much the American government tried to prove that it was a failure.

However (for political reasons I think) our government is going along with the storyline that the strike was a success. The political fallout from this is yet to be determined, however one can only hope that it would lead to some genuine commitment to development in the region. After all the Tet offensive "defeat" was one of the key factors in the American withdrawal from Vietnam. So too can this Bonga "strike" be a key factor in the long awaited development of the Niger Delta region.

Statute Of Limitations

2008-06-12T09:49:00.003+01:00

So the second installment of the CFA is done, and I am once again available for your reading pleasure for the foreseeable future. In addition to a shopping spree that fell well below 36’s famed standards ;) the trip for my exam also gave me some fodder for a relationship theory post.

Unfortunately for me, my exam finished at 5pm and so there was no opportunity to go straight from the exam to a party (it’s overrated, but it seems to be one of those required things). Flash forward to Edgware and I’m chilling with a bunch of friends (trust me you don’t want a narration of the two hour trip from the Docklands to Edgware).

One of my friends was tackling another (apparently tackling is the new word for taccing (which is the old new word for yapping) ). One of my friends had proceeded to hook up (well kiss) the younger sibling of a good friend of a six-month old Ex. Apparently this was a no-no. The clincher was that it was the YOUNGER sibling of the ex that was the issue. I guess it was somehow demeaning to the Ex that it was a smallie (new word for juvie). There are certain no-go areas when it comes to hook-ups but I don’t think that the younger sibling of an Ex’s friend is one of them.

So this got me thinking. What’s the statute of limitations on other people’s old relationships determining your future decisions.

Some people say there should be none – if two people like each other that’s it. By their lights, you could date your brother’s ex if you so chose. I don’t want to hate on anyone else, but naah!!!

Everyone has their own opinions about this, so here are mine.

Family (Statute of Limitations: None –Kinda Like Murder)

Naah. Not gonna happen. If they’ve dated someone I’m interested in I will regrettably move on. After all there are other fish in the sea, and I have a pretty decent net.

Close Friends (Statute of Limitations: 7 Years – Kinda Like Rape)

Now this one is a bit tricky. My first instinct is to say that while I would have no problem dating someone my close friend went out with in high-school, I may have a problem dating someone a close friend went out with in college. However there are some friends that are like fam…

Friends You’re Cool With ( Statute of Limitations: 6 months – Misdemeanor Territory)

Even that six months sef…

Six Degrees of Separation Folk (Statute of Limitations: 1 Week)

And that’s only out of respect… well and to let the crying die down… unless…

So What are your Statute of Limitations?

Naija Jist - The Power Edition

2008-06-02T15:20:00.002+01:00

Intro
Aiight so it's been like a century since I graced these pages with my probably, nay definitely, inestimable wit. Very many things have changed since that time including the power situation in Nigeria. Walk with me as I examine the recent happenings in the power sector.

The Power Probe
So anyone not living under a rock and is in some way, shape or form interested in the goings on of Nigeria has heard about the investigation of the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP), known affectionately as The Power Probe. The august members of the assembly were in great form as they tut tutted in disbelief about the vast sums of money that were wasted by the previous government in its quest to provide electricity to Nigerians. Contractor after contractor, after minister was called in an attempt to get to the bottom of the scandal. There was no sacred cow as even Baba himself was called to appear before the committee.

The nation recoiled in abject horror when it heard that $16 billion had been spent on power with nary a megawatt to show for it. At first I too rose with righteous rage, at the profligate wastage of our nations wealth. However this rage was quickly spent after a brief discussion with someone who knew about the NIPP. First of all $16 billion was not spent, apparently that was what was appropriated. However the government failed to pay the contractors, as numerous contractors proved (some with color photos in the dailies). There is a reason why there was no call for prosecution. Anyway in as mich as it provided a safe outlet for peoples anger at the situation you can't knock the probes. However as anyone with half a brain knows. It doesn't do anything to actually solve the problem.

MYTO
Here is something only power industry watchers, and dedicated readers of the Nigerian dailies would know. The federal government has planned to increase the electricity tariff by passing the Multi Year Tarrif Order. It will take effect on July 1. Prices per kilowatt hour will rise from the criminally low N8 /kwH to N11 /kwH To put things in perspective, it costs about N60 /kwh to use a diesel generator. As one would expect labor has already started kicking against the price increase, something about the poor man (one of the churches also got in on the act). It's funny. If you ask almost anyone if they are willing to pay more for a PHCN that works, i'd bet that no one would even say phfim.

The Diesel Madness
Here is something everybody, everywhere knows - the cost of diesel has gone mad. However the Nigerian Madneess unlike the foreign one has an added boost - PHCN. Problem Has Changed Name Indeed. About three weeks ago, if seemed like PHCN decided that they were generating too much power and total generating capacity dropped to about 850MW from the standard performance of 2500 - 2800. The resultant scramble for diesel knocked up prices to about N110. However in the past two week prices have jumped again to between N135 and N140 (some people are claiming N150 even) even though generating capacity has now risen "back" to N1600MW. Our tanker drivers have decided to join their European brothers and threaten a strike if things are not done. Which of course would just be perfect - after all with the way power is right now petrol scarcity would be a welcome addition.

Conclusion
I have decided to leave y'all with one of the juciest rumors going around on this whole power thing. The African Finance Corporation (AFC) - a brainchild of Soludo modelled after the IFC of the World Bank - was to be given charge of PHCN in order to get it ready for privatization. All of a sudden, you started hearing members of the House of Representatives saying the the PHCN should not be taking any loans (there was going to be a loan component). Also the Federal Goverment started investigating the CBN investment in AFC (something about due process). Now it's probably coincidence that the investigation started right around this time. However it's mighty suspicious. The fact that no mention is being made about the AFC role in PHCN also doesn't bode well. Regardless of the truth of the rumor. It just means that we should be a little bit less optmistic about the whole power thing. Maybe 2012 for 6,000MW eh?

The Art - The Secret of The Successful Approach

2008-05-07T15:31:00.002+01:00

In terms of practical application of the Way, it is clear to see that the approach is the most crucial part. A successful approach is one in which the female interest is piqued. Every Seeker, nay every man, knows that once a woman’s interested is piqued it is practically at an end. As a result men have come up with various theories of how to pique the interest of women. The current favorite amongst male circles, one heavily promoted by film and romance novel, is the myth of the dramatic opening. The dramatic opening is best known as the witty line or decisive action that will instantaneously garner the interest of the woman in question. A prime offender in this regard is the movie Hitch, whose entire premise is built on the ability of the dramatic opening to work miracles. In the medium of film it is easy for the woman to be impressed by intentionally confusing her for a waitress in order to get her attention, or by ordering her her perfect drink because you eavesdropped, after all the same person is writing both parts of the dialogue. In reality however you seldom get to write your own part, let alone write both.

However guys have constantly and consistently worked the dramatic opening under the impression that it provides results. This has created generations of women that are jaded when it comes to the approach. Sometimes it is almost possible to see them wince as they watch a man walk up, wondering what “not so clever” thing is likely to drop out of his mouth. We men then took the almost inevitable "no thanks" as proof that our dramatic openings were just not dramatic enough and resolved to do better next time.

The Art aims to break the destructive loop, and urges all Young Seekers to eschew such tactics. In its love for shortcuts, the populace has forgotten the original aim of the dramatic opening – to build a rapport with the woman in question. The shortcut has become torture for all intended, with the poor men constantly thinking of trying to find the magic bullet that will sweep away all her inhibitions and trick her into “getting out of her own way” and the women viewing almost all potential suitors with fear and annoyance. For Seekers aiming to practice the Art, there is another Way – introduce yourself. Tell her what your name is and ask her for hers. If she is still interested after that start a conversation.

One of the truisms of life is that in a social setting there is almost no one that will refuse the offer of a conversation. This young Seeker is the secret of the successful approach.

From the conversation an honest Seeker can easily and quickly tell if the pursuit will be worth his while. It at this point, that we must part ways. After all if the woman in question is not interested as a Seeker you will walk away, and if she is then nothing I can possibly say will matter. After all even Hitch knew that the Approach is where the Path of the Guide ends.

The Art - The Myth of The Long Girl

2008-04-28T14:25:00.002+01:00

Welcome Back Young Seeker, I see that the ardor for knowledge is undiminished despite the infrequent guidance along the path. Such dedication in itself continues to prove your worth, and gives me hope that in time you too will become a practitioner of the Way. As I intimated last time, a fuller discussion of the “If She No Gree, Leave Her Be”

A Seeker of The Way has to live by a simple tenet – “There are no Long Girls” I can imagine your disbelief Young Seeker. After all, every man amongst you can point to countless instances of having to jump through hoops for various girls, at various times in various places, finally labeling the girl in question “a long thing.” In contrast to popular belief Young Seeker, the girl wasn’t long, she just wasn’t that into you.

Every guy has a story of a girl that every guy thought was an impossible ice queen, that practically fell into his lap. Leaving his friends and enemies wondering how he managed it. So too does every guy have the story of the girl that everyone else but him knew, no matter how hard he tried. The guy in the first and second instance did not "do" or "not do" anything. In the first case the girl was into him, and in the second case she wasn't. So say it again Young Seeker, there are no long girls, just girls that are not into you.

Guys like to believe otherwise because after all, if she is just “long” the fault lies with her On the other hand, if she is not into you then there may be something wrong with you. However as already established, the first option is false. So is the second option. A Seeker of The Way has to learn not to take things personally. Time and again I see Young Seekers derailed by their inability to see a rejection as not impacting on their self worth. After all the Young Seeker sees himself as eminently desirable, and if the object of his desire does not see him as such, there may indeed be a problem with him.

Instead the Young Seeker should look at the pursuit of a desirable female as sort of a “best efforts” sale. Where the Young Seeker is representing himself as an agent, and is offering a product “himself” to a prospective buyer “the girl.” If there is no sale “dating or mating” neither the agent “The Seeker” nor the buyer “the girl” is at fault. There was just an inability to agree on price. Like most agents, the seeker should either apply to sell to another buyer or seek to “repackage” and then resell to the same buyer. However there are issues with the latter decision, as is discussed below.

The myth that girls are indeed long has spawned another type of misadventure – the overly persistent suitor. After all if a girl is long, that means that if you chase her long enough she will eventually agree to date you. People that hold to this belief use the archetypal story of the man that chased a girl for years ignoring all her pleas and threats to desist as evidence for their actions. They point to the fact that she eventually decided to marry (or date or hook up with) him as proof that girls are indeed long. The fact that every one knows a story like this, only serves to perpetuate the stereotype of the long female. Young Seekers should treat the odds of this story happening to them as the same as the odds of winning the lottery and act accordingly.

The other, and more damning, consequence of forgetting the “no long girls” rule is the effect that violating it has on the rest of us. The inability of the males of the species to realize that a female is uninterested and act accordingly has led to females having the tendency to tar all males with that self-same brush of “bug-a-boo-ritis”. Still one of the goals of the Art is to overcome the obstacles that the misadventures of those that have come before have placed in our way. This is why the next step on the Way concerns the Approach.

An Exercise In Catharsis

2008-04-21T16:13:00.002+01:00

This post sprung like Athena from the mind of Zeus following the exit of Arsenal from the Champions League at the hands of Liverpool. I did not write it immediately because I wanted to wait until the outcome of the following Sunday’s game against Manchester United. I wanted to be sure that the writing of this cathartic article would indeed be necessary. So Sunday came and went with even more need for the cathartic article. I mean Arsenal has had bad runs before but this last run coupled with those heart wrenching defeats to Liverpool and Manchester United were pretty much as low as it gets being a fan, unless of course you were a Boston Red Sox fan. If you want to understand where I am coming from, please direct your attention to the Sports Guy’s level of losing column. Pay special attention to the Stomach Punch and the Guillotine as the Liverpool and Man U games are perfect examples of the respective levels.

Now I would be the first to admit that the analogy about to follow below is not perfect. In fact it may be downright wrong. It could indeed be an Arsenal fan clinging to false hope in the face of un-faceable truths. In effect DENIAL may indeed be a river in Egypt.

After the game, the only thing I could think off was that this Arsenal team reminded me of the 1999/2000 Duke University Men’s Basketball team. In 1999 Duke lost 3 of the 5 starters that propelled the team to the 1999 NCAA finals. 99/00 was expected to be a rebuilding season for the young team, with an NCCA appearance and at best a Sweet Sixteen finish (get to the round of 16 in the end of season tournament). For the first time in a long time, the team was not ranked in the pre-season top ten. As the season started, Duke was off to a flyer. The team unexpectedly started winning. The team rose in the rankings and towards the middle of the season people started writing the “Is Duke For Real?” articles. The team continued its winning streak and finished the regular season as the top ranked team in the nation. It was expected that the team would challenge for the national championship. The team, riding high on all that expectation, ended up losing to Indiana in the sweet sixteen, exactly where the critics predicted they would be come the end of the season.

The parallels with Arsenal are pretty stunning, a young team that lost its main stars being the dominant team for most of the season. A few reversals later the team ended up where it was expected to at the beginning of the season – a champions league qualifier at best.

I am sure my dear reader that you are wondering why this tale is cathartic in anyway. It is because in the 2000/2001 season with more mature players, and a few freshman additions, Duke won the national championship the very next season. It was with these thoughts that I consoled my self as I prepare for another off season without silverware. Tomorrow is after all a day away, as is next season. C'mon Ye Gunners!!!

Who Doesn't Love Ethanol?

2008-04-08T16:58:00.002+01:00

Yes Yes I know, you are stunned that I am actually posting a mere week after my previous post. Well I guess you'll just have to get over the shock. Also I am also doing a current affairs post. One of those hasn't graced these pages in a while.

For those of you that don't know, there has been fuel scarcity in Nigeria for the past ten days or so. After ten days you are not quite desparate enough to buy from people standing on the road randomly, but you're getting close. Though I would avow that the most onerous side effect of the fuel scarcity is that access to Ikoyi Club is severly curtailed due to the club sharing the same road as an NNPC depot.

Well as someone who just got a full tank of petrol today, I am above such petty concerns :D. This allows me to focus and bring to you, my dear reader, the origins of the fuel crisis:

Aiight so about two weeks ago there were rumblings of a spat between Mobil and NUPENG, the main industry union. It seems that Mobil was dumb enough to contemplate sacking twenty odd workers. Not only that, 4 of the workers were sitting members of the NUPENG executive council. Obviously NUPENG went on strike - btw I blame Babangida for NUPENG's readiness to strike. If not for June 12, NUPENG wouldn't have realised that it has the power to bring the country to its knees. Anyway history lesson done, after the inevitable horse trading, Mobil didn't fire the four people and NUPENG called off the prospective strike.

Now dear reader I know you are wondering, if the almighty NUPENG did not go on strike, why oh why is there fuel scarcity. Well I suppose you have Oando to thank for that. About six weeks ago the firm was responsible for bringing in petrol with a high ethanol contend. The adulturated petrol made the rounds and caused a few engines to knock. Oando typically washed its hands of the entire affair, saying that no tests (its or the government's) identified the ethanol and so it could not be blamed.

I remember an industry friend telling me at the time that all the petrol importers bring in fuel mixed with ethanol, that the Oando cargo was just not blended properly. Well it turns out that my friend was right. The current fuel scarcity was as a result of the love the importers have for ethanol mixed fuel.

DPR has mandated an ethanol content of 5% in petrol cargos shipped to Nigeria and a lot of the shipments coming in do not meet that criteria. The funny thing is that the importers are now saying that what obtains world wide is 10% ethanol content in petrol and so DPR should allow the ships to land seeing as they meet that requirement.

Leaving aside the absurdity of the operators arbitrarily deciding not to adhere to the regulations, you got to love the fact that the importers that were a mere six weeks ago all saying that they did not import fuel blended with ethanol are now loudly demanding to be allowed to do so.

So we will watch this drama play out, while the guys with the clear jerry cans on the road continue to look more and more appealing.