Ugo Goes To Cotonu

“Ce n”est pas bon.”
That was the first bit of French I would hear from the driver we had commissioned to help us navigate Cotonu and Porto-novo. In the first five minutes I sat inside the early 2000 BMW, I had heard the driver speak fluent French, English, Hausa, Yoruba and later on I would hear another language I suspect was his native Benin Republic dialect.
The driver had picked us up on the Nigerian part of the Seme border and was supposed to take us to Houdegbe North American University in Porto-Novo. 

I had never seen immigration officers so casually dressed before, from shorts, to half buttoned shirt and those where the better dressed ones. Some others looked like they had never heard of combs or clippers to say the least. 

Every 10 walking steps it seemed there was a new checkpoint or in other words another avenue to loose N100. Alarmed at the way money was disappearing my mum asked the driver what was going on, he told us “its always Nigerians that cause trouble here, no trouble on Benin side but here…” N1,500 later I finally saw a Nigerian immigration officer that looked like one.

I thought he was exaggerating but as we got to the Benin side of the border, the immigration officers were in uniforms, no one was soliciting for money and the road blocks were none existence. To make matters even worse Nigeria’s side of the border looked like a ghetto and Benins didn’t. It wasnt exactly heaven but at least there werent touts everywhere.

The streets in Benin were to my surprise rather neat compared to what people’s gist had made me to expect. I also noticed that commercial motorcyclists weren’t banned from ridding as we try to do here but they were given their own lanes on the road and from what I could tell a lot of them stuck to it. I think it was a wonderful idea to give them their own lanes. They also appeared to have more of a helmet culture than Nigerian motorcyclists did, although there were those who felt their head needed the breeze and took it off. 

We were trying to beat time because it was around 5pm and we still intended to head back to Lagos that night. We got to a toll gate in Benin and the driver gave the woman in the booth 5,000CFA for what was 120CFA toll. I was worried this woman would harass him for the herculean task of finding change. Imagine my surprise when she looked at him handed him a coin, counted the change and gave it back to the driver. The driver said “its not Nigeria.” Yes it wasn’t Nigeria where you and the market woman could begin to fight because she didn’t have N500 change for your N1,000. 

By 7pm we were done with our assignment in Benin; a trip to Hodegbe North American University (I will talk more on this in another post) and were heading back towards the border. Let me just add that when we did get to the university, the family friend we came to visit said he didn’t have sachet water because they were bought in coins and he wasn’t used to keeping coins. I just reminded myself that a bag of ‘pure water’ in Nigeria was nothing less than a N100 note, and a single sachet water is now a N10 note, leaving all of our coins and N5 hanging in space.

My mum stopped to buy fish and asked our driver turned translator to negotiate and translate because although my French is good enough to buy fish, I’m terrible at ‘pricing.’ Imagine my mums surprise when she discovered that the Nigerian currency that has been dancing shoki for months now had even affected the price of the fish in Benin republic. Now my mum had to buy the equivalent of N1,200 when she had previously bought it multiple times for N1,000. 

As we reentered Nigeria, with nothing but darkness left behind by the set sun and the absence of street lights, we had nothing to guide us through the seemingly endless “security check points” manned by nearly a 100 people by my estimation and not one of them was an actual Nigerian immigration officer or even a single policeman either all that was left were people trying to make a living from collecting the N100’s of commuters although we did see one or two military personnel as we drove further into Nigeria. I was told by the driver that the immigration officers had closed and gone home.

As the vigilantes or whatever they are called shone their high powered torch-lights into the car demanding we put on the cars inner light, I became increasingly irritated albeit ashamed as to how we didn’t even encounter this level of harassment with the Benin officials. 

I would have loved to end by saying it felt good to be back but it didnt at least not till i got home. rather I felt like using a cane and flogging all those Nigerians giving us a bad image with their hustle.

Important Announcement

I may not be blogging here for some time because I have moved to www.ugotalksalot.wordpress.com. Sorry for any inconvenience 

Lord Let Us not Go Late To The Market

Emma had finished his sermon way too early sort of like a pastor with stage fright. Having realized he still had 30 minutes before floor devotions were actually supposed to end he opened the floor for anyone who wanted to share a word. I jokingly indicated that Peter had something to say, and being the outgoing boy that he is, he stepped up to the plate. Peter spoke, I spoke after him, Dotun spoke after me and Emma spoke again. Emma decided to bring the devotion to a close and he asked Chukwudi A.k.a "De Main" to officiate the closing prayer. I. Chukwudi in his gregariousnesses said "

lord let us not go late to the market"   

Immediately my eyes popped open. You see we had been discussing Worshipping God and somehow diverted to the importance of starting early in life. And chukuwdis improv discription of not going late to the market was his way of describing starting early in life.

I remember some years ago, My father told me that in life everyone must suffer to make it. At that point in my life I was too birdbrained to understand what he meant. But either way I wanted to do my own suffering immediately and I went about looking for opportunities to literarily suffer. It wasn't untill I became older and more adept that I understood that the suffering my father had spoken about was due diligence. 

See, everyone has their due diligence to pay, some more than others, and everyone's own is  different. Aliko Dangote, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mrk Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio and any other achiever even 419ers and dubious politicians all paid theirs and most started earlier than others. It's a law of the universe. So like Chukwudi I say "lord may we not go late to the market".

What's So Special About John Legend

Anyone who remotely listens to music and has not heard John Legends name before needs help. So I have been listening to his new album everywhere because everybody in school has it! His songs don't have the usual quick tempo and amazing beats as a matter of fact his best songs are just basically composed of his voice, piano and maybe a little background vocals or instrumentals. I don't understand? I thought the age of that kind of music had passed. How does someone do this and still it's very enjoyable!?!

Maybe it's otumopo or juju I don't know? But it's genius! 

Whats So Special About Football Manager?

Naturally I am not a game freak, I am not extra-ordinarily good at them neither do I go out of my way to get them. However I do play games.  So I had heard that FM was an amazing game and it was very addictive and I was perplexed because I wonder how playing a game that looks like you are surfing the web could be interesting not to talk about addictive. 

But about two days ago I got my own FM and though I still don't understand what's special about it I know that I woke up this morning thinking about FM. Yersterday I played it for God knows how long and I have tests next week. AHHHHH! 

So please I would really love to know what is in this game. Is it jazz?

Road trip To KFC

Every academic session in Covenant University is characterized by many exciting and equally irksome activities. It didn't take long to differentiate the fun activities from the centers of boredom. Though the activities occasionally differ, one of the most constant and eagerly anticipated is the excursion excersise. This year my department decided to send its 200 Level students to the South African embassy and National Museum in Lagos. Eventually we ended up at KFC. So how did that happen?

We set out around past 8 in the morning. We were expecting a call from the South African embassy informing us of their readiness to receive us. 

That call never came. 

We ought to have known that when you are told "we will get back to you" it's actually a polite way of saying "go and die somewhere." 

The lecturer who accompanied us suggested (actually demanded) we head to the Museum then from there we should proceed to The Palms shopping mall to relax. (Please don't ask why broke university students would want to relax in a shopping mall, isn't it obvious? We wanted to window shop!) 

After the curator religiously took us on a lackluster tour of the museum, we decided to restart the youthful rituals of taking selfies and other forms of pictures.  We were served refreshments ordered from a branch of a dying chain of fast food restaurants that most of us had never heard of before, although the food was definately worth every bite. 

As soon as the food was devoured by our hungry mouths, the number two fear of every young adult set in- boredom ( the number one being getting dumped). We were eagerly waiting for the drivers to take us for our window shopping rituals at The Palms but in a sudden mental spasm, the drivers insisted that they were not going anywhere besides CU. Suddenly someone had a bright Idea, KFC was just beside the museum.

We headed out of the buses in droves to KFC, both the broke and the rich and those with functional as well as dysfunctional ATM card's. As for me, I was going for one thing only and that was to Enter KFC and gawk. 

I will not display my stupidity (since you don't display yours) by telling you what I was thinking while my friends were buying bottled water and placing them inside the customized KFC nylon bags. Actually a lot of us did by the chicken and burger and all other things that sends Africans to toilet without apology. Eventually we arrived at school around 4pm which was a taboo on its own seeing that the whole point of the excursion is leaving school, comming back anytime past 7pm and shouting at the top of your lungs so that everyone can know you left school.

One thing though I want to add. The NIGERIAN National museum lagos, is beside KFC, an American company operating in Nigeria, yet KFC gets 10 times more traffic than the museum. This is not just because of the food. Especially when you think of the fact that the Museum had no light and none of the staff had the eureka kind of idea to put on the generator especially when there were actually people there! 

When Will Africa Mind It's Business?

I was in my international relations class sometime ago, when we began to discuss on the subject of human rights. The lecturer had tactfully avoided the issue of Gay and lesbians rights to aviod derailing her class. Unfortunately for her another issue took the fore, when the issue of women's right eventually sent the class into an endless and continual rebuttal. 

I was particularly taken aback when the issue of rape came up. I was not taken aback because it was rape but because, instead of looking at our own society here in Africa we went all the way to India! There is nothing in itself wrong about discussing the grotesque nature of rape in India but  I believe there was no need to go that far to look for examples of rape. Turn around to Sudan and South Sudan, where rape has unfortunately become culture. What of Somalia, Rwanda, Central African Republic and even here within the boarders of Nigeria. These things happen and go unreported yet we sit down in our sofas and watch Indians fight their battles themselves yet we quiver in disgust at the inhumanity of the Indians who commit such acts without giving credence to the fact that India as a nation is slowly rising up and taking responsibility especially at the citizenery level. Unfortunately that quiver, that disgust at the repugnance of what goes on within the African continent remains within us as Africans and finds no expression, hence the problem continues to grow unabated. 

 Till today Africa is the most illiterate continent and the backbone of globally poverty, yet the storehouse of global wealth. Statistics show that Africa has 15% of the worlds population and only produces 3% of the worlds economy and by the year 2050 it will have 30% of the worlds population (that is 1 out of 4) and other things being equal produce 6% of the worlds economy. That is quite unfortunate. Why are we always concerned about what's hoping on outside the shores of Africa and apathetical to what goes on in Africa.

There is what is called Social Media Advocacy. This is thanks to technology. What this implies is that campaigns and protests are not only limited to the streets but can also have the same effect and in many cases a greater effect online. Sometimes when I look at the trending topics on social media platforms like twitter I am saddened. You see sometimes important national and continental issues are going on but don't see them trend, instead you will see things like #tweetpicyourface or #TGIF or some other irrelevant thing, or even worse you see #Justinbieber trending in Nigeria and the boy was performing in Australia! Not that I have anything against it, but it goes to show the level of insensitivity of Africans to the happenings in Africa. The debate that street activism is dangerous is no longer tenable. What happened to your twitter, facebook, goggle+ and skype accounts? 

I remember I blogged and tweeted something just a few days ago about Nigeria and some one was telling me that I should not have done such a thing. The funny thing was there was nothing extraordinary about it. My question is if I cannot talk about what I feel about my country and continent at large on social media then what is the whole point of living in a democracy. 

Even travelling between African countries as an African, you are treated with such level of hostility that makes you consider whether truly you are a terrorist. There is hostility between Nigerians and South Africans, between Sudan and South Sudan yet these countries are at peace with countries on the otherside of the globe, with a different race, culture, orientation and language. Once again there is nothing wrong in peaceful relations across continental boarders, but make peace with your brother first. 

Imagine if just 5 million Africans everyday decide to speak about a particular issue on every social media platform alone, how much difference would we make?