Jay-Jay Okocha

As the Bolton fans always remind us - JJ was so good his parents named him twice.

In a few minutes time (the kick-off has been delayed! - knowing our folks, it might start just before midnight) Nigerians at the Warri township stadium will bid JJ a befitting farewell from international football and maybe the game on the whole.

Thanks for the memories JJ, Thanks

Unrepresentative

Where are the northerners?

Sitting back on Saturday and doing something I haven’t done for such a long time was pretty pleasant. It was watching the Super Eagles live on AIT over a cold tipple and rediscovering the beauty of Nigerian commentary. The Super Eagles, for the record, beat some pub team from Equatorial Guinea 2 nil. The second goal by Ike Uche would grace any ‘goal of the season’ competition.

After the game, I wondered what the head honcho of Nigeria would have made of it. Is Yardy a football fan? Maybe not, but that wasn’t what I was thinking of. The Yard man’s post match analysis to be honest wouldn’t interest me. I just wondered if like me and all other Nigerians he felt there weren’t enough Northerners in the team.

Personally I think it is a scandal that the team that represents our great nation started on Saturday with possibly no northerners. I think it calls for a Senate/House of Reps panel or probe. The wave of current appointments in Nigeria dictates otherwise. Not having at least 7 northerners (whatever their abilities) starting any matches involving the Super Eagles should be considered a criminal offence.

It is therefore important that Shaibu Amodu (I thought he was a northerner before I discovered he was born in Edo State. Still doesn’t mean he isn’t from the North) gets, discovers, or manufactures more Northerners and gets them into our national team ASAP or face the prospect of getting his P45.

The Southern players on their own part should volunteer to stand down and make room for more northerners. They can go into the villages in Zamfara state and enlist any able bodied person they find. It wouldn’t matter if the team is successful or not. What matters is that our masters are properly represented in our national team.

;-)

No Knickers on Show

Royal Ascot, the posh horse racing event starts today and women attending the event have been told they must wear knickers (some don’t), but not show them off (So how can you tell that they are wearing knickers?)

Bosses have been forced (by the Queen and her ‘player’ husband allegedly) to launch an illustrated guide to the rules for the increasing numbers of ‘chavs’ who are going to the races. The queen wants the ‘fillies’ to cover up, Prince Philip is getting on, and she doesn’t want his 'ticker' racing more than it should.

For the ladies going to Ascot this week, the dress code is as follows: You can’t wear skirts that are more than two inches above the knee; off-the-shoulder dresses; anything showing off your midriffs and streaky fake tan (The last code doesn’t apply to many of the Nigerian ladies that go to Ascot each year)

This madness brings me swiftly back to Naij and the ‘controversy’ surrounding Eucharia Anunobi’s highly revealing dressing at the recently concluded Nigerian Music Award (NMA) in Owerri. She seems to have incurred the annoyance of some people, particularly one Chief Ifeanyi Dike, Chairman Board of trustee, Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN). In an interview I read online, this man described Eucharia’s mode of dressing at NMA in Imo State as embarrassing. “Nollywood is not a platform for nasty acts. Millions of people are looking up to us as role models and we are not going to let them down” I am not sure I caught his drift, but this is my take on it. The dress wasn’t at fault. Eucharia - a fine ‘Nollywood’ actor - just couldn’t carry that dress.

The wahala didn’t stop there. One Chioma Toplis – an actress - also seemed to cause some storm by wearing a dress that exposed her ‘airbags’. This was her defence - “I couldn’t have thrown that dress away, it’s expensive. I brought it from Australia, so I must wear it. Because I am big-sized, I should not be left out and wear only iro and buba. I must wear what slim people wear as well.” According to Chief Zeburudaya – told them!

While travelling back from Nigeria the other week, I witnessed a scene that I thought was totally uncalled for. A couple of customs guys in Lagos were determined to stop a lady from travelling because in their eyes she was indecently dressed! When I tried to intervene they pounced on me. “Would you allow your sister or wife to dress like that?”

See me trouble!

What do we (some of us) have against with the way some women dress? And should we?

Lekki - Is it all that?

OK, Lagos isn’t my favourite hunting ground. I wouldn’t live in Lagos even if I got paid to do so. The town is too hyper for me, too quick, too crowded and still the best spot in Nigeria. Just like London, Lagos is one of those places where the inhabitants don’t want to live anywhere else. I know that feeling which makes my aversion of Lagos a contradiction. I haven’t inhaled Lagos air for about 8 years, its Abuja or PH for me anytime I come in. The custom officers there give less grief.

Anyway, out of no choice of mine, or should I say the special offers thrown in by KLM, I had to fly into Lagos during my spur-of-the-moment visit to Nigeria 2 weeks ago. I spent the night at some humble but nice hotel near the local airport called Skyline. It’s understated, has no signposts and is so close to both airports. I came in so late and didn’t want to put anyone’s life in danger. The next day I was on a plane to Aba via PH. I must say, Arik looks the business despite its alleged questionable ownership.

On my return from Aba/PH heading back to the UK, I spent my last 3 days in Lagos. I was nicely offered a number of roofs, a few places to stay, all in a place called Lekki. Most of my friends and their friends live there. Ensuring I didn’t get in the way, I opted for a B&B like hotel in Lekki called Aristo. It was conveniently a couple of doors from my cousin.

Lekki

Before this time, I had heard so much about Lekki, but hadn’t been to the place. There was always the odd picture, spam mail about new developments and a number of blogs, but what I knew about the place one could write on a postage stamp. I was also aware of the fact that most ‘relocatees’ (sic) seem to either own or rent a house there. My friend - who later on turned out to be my guide- rents a house there. He is also building something quite immense in an area called Lekki Phase 2 or did he say Nicon?

Taking me on an unplanned tour of Lekki a day later (we were actually out to see some friends); I was to some extent impressed with what I saw. I still had Aba images firmly stored in my brain, but I don’t think that had anything (or much) to do with it. It was fairly notable even if it looked like work in progress or a building site. I inquisitively asked how much a reasonable plot of land would cost, and my friend said something around the 50 mil mark. Its easy to note how the word million has been devalued in Naij.

And then I thought, hang on!

The roads are shite (excuse my Welsh), the generator had been on all thru my stay (i.e. no light), a little rainfall seemed to flood the place, folks seemed to be putting up some building that were so ugly they (the owners) should be thrown in jail (The house in front of the Aritso is an example, it has this huge eagle sculptor). There are some ugly houses, and I am not just talking about the blue roofs. It looked like you needed a car to get around; unless you were willing to jump an Okada (They seemed to have uniforms!). There was little supporting infrastructure/amenities, so why the 50mil plus for a piece of land. And then my mental calculator got to work. How much was it in sterling. About 200K, I kept my counsel. If there are ‘mugs’ willing to pay that much for it, so be it. My cousin told me she got her piece for close to =N=2m just about 8-9 years ago. So one could safely say that such price hikes cant be sustained.

One of the places my friend took me to was a modest shopping centre called The Palms. My friend in his unflattering way said it wasn’t any better or bigger than Selborne Walk in Walthamstow. Selborne Walk! OK he wasn’t too far off the mark, but I wouldn’t go that far. It seems a pretty neat and maybe small shopping mall. I expected to see top brands/names, but I was so delighted to see so many Nigerian branded shops with nice Window displays. That did it for me. It was a first for me.

My friend informed me that most of the people that visited the mall wanted to be noticed as being there. I guess that included us. Unlike other shopping malls were you see most folks with loads of shopping bags, majority of the people here had free hands. It was more like they were on an outing, visiting some tourist attraction rather than shopping – cameras in hand – everyone feeling cool, and giving the impression that they were not doing their first shopping mall thing. How hilarious! I told my guy that I did the same when Bluewater opened, only to be reminded that it was an unfair match. The Palms is supposedly the biggest shopping centre in Nigeria. It is a single floor shopping centre with 69 odd shops, and covers 10 acres of land. It has a total retail floor area of 20,000m² and parking space for about 1000 cars. Bluewater on the other hand has a couple of floors, is built on 240 acres of land, has more than 350 different shops, with a total retail floor area of 155,700 m² and parking spaces for 13,000 cars and 100 coaches. I wasn’t getting carried away, I was just happy to see what I will term a proper shopping centre in Nigeria.

After a bite at Nandos, we headed back to the car. The car park reemphasized that well known fact/myth, that there are cars in Nigeria that you wouldn’t find on the streets of London. OK, maybe it’s not true, but you always see the single or few top range cars in Nigeria - maybe not in the same numbers as one sees elsewhere.

We saw a few more spots during my stay, but it all happens away from Lekki. Lekki is an uncompleted dream (gated community?) that we shouldn’t get carried away with. It isn’t yet all that, but its heading that way, or is it.

Don’t be weak, Obama

I never knew I would dislike the Clintons this much. Before now I had so much respect for them, what they stood for and what they fought for in the past. Which is, was, thinking about it = Nothing.

The Clintons, especially Nnanyi Bill added so much weight to the adage that politics is a dirty (mugs) game. Race/Sex/Lazy you name it; they tried each one in equal measure. That said, nothing annoyed me more than a specific act Hilary Clinton consistently pulled each time she was about to make a speech after a victory. It is a trivial act - something one cant accuse her of being the only perpetrator - but for some reason, it just gets me going. It’s the bit were she walks up to the podium, points to an imaginary friend in the crowd and beams into some ‘fake’ snooty smirk.

Anyway, it’s been reported that Hilary, while not admitting defeat, is now setting her sights on the VP spot in Obama’s team. Can you beat that? After all the trash talk from her and Mr ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky’, she now wants to be his VP? Obama will be well advised to stay as far away from the Clinton’s as he can. Hillary Rodham’s reference to the Kennedy assassination during this campaign should be enough warning. And even if the Clintons would go as far as hiring a professional hit man to take him out, it would be a sign of weakness if he accedes to such pressure from her or her supporters.

Be your own man, Obama, don’t let the desperate Clintons railroad you.

Obama, Obama, Obama ka anyi ge so, mo na ejeje mo na alala, Obama ka anyi ge so

The Prat @ the Lagoon

I was at ‘The Lagoon’ in VI on Saturday evening. It’s the first time I’ve been to this spot, and my need for a cold beer (I haven’t had one for 4 months) took me into a bar in the compound overlooking the lagoon. Not a bad bar by most standards - seemed neat but pretty quiet. I was the only one in there and it was already 5pm. {possibly too early}.

After my second bottle of Heineken I noticed that I had run out of Glo credits. I asked the barman if he knew where I could get some credit. In his bid to make the place look more upmarket than he needed to, he dismissively informed me that ‘they’ didn’t do that sort of business there. He advised me to head towards Lekki if I was that desperate. I was, so I started stepping. As I approached the gates I asked again and some dude turned up with a bundle of cards. I got what I needed and went back to my position in the bar. As I sat down, I noticed that the telly I was watching had been turned off. While asking the bar man to turn it back on, another worker joined us in the bar. “Yawa don burst, Oga don dey vex again”, he told his colleague. Before he could say more, some pony-tailed guy turned up beside a set of doors that I think led to a kitchen. Not sure if he was Italian, Brazilian or Lebanese - didn’t really matter – he appeared calm. He stood there for a little while and ten clicked his figures – twice or so.

From all angles of the bar and from the inside, members of staff that I didn’t know existed started dashing towards him. My fascination meant that I took my eyes off my third bottle of beer and solely focused on this show of utter ridicule. Le boss stood there, disdainfully looking at members of his staff for a few seconds, and then went on to put into practice a full exhibition of the lack of respect that can exist between a boss and his/her employees. In my presence, the boss glided into a noisy tirade. Every sentence that I could discern seemed to start and end with an expletive. Grown men and women were being belittled and they seemed powerless to do anything about it. The one folk that showed a bit of bottle was told in no uncertain terms to keep quiet or…. In all this show of strength, I couldn’t figure out what the original problem was. All I could see was a vulgar show of control. When he finished, he told them to ‘f’ off. Like little kids who had been spared a more severe punishment, they all went back to their positions submissively. He stood there like an emperor as I eyeballed him with scorn. An evil voice in my head wanted to confront him; another one just told me to stick with eyeballing him. After a while, I drank up, paid up and left

Recounting the story to my pals who I later met with, the consensus seemed to have racial conclusions. I didn’t think so. Over the past few days I had seen a few Nigerian bosses do the same. It seems to be the way. This guy for all I know may be such a great guy who was just having a very bad day. I just feel he could easily have been less of a ‘prat’ (at the time) if he didn’t have to let me into his art of bad people management. He could have shown them a little respect.

p.s. They have some great looking food and excellent Latin Music

Sorry {been away}

Family illness and a short visit to Nigeria. That is what has kept me away.

I am back - Thanks Wienna.