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Tag Archives: Africa

The Stockdale Paradox (Surviving the Next 4 Years for PDP)

04 Monday Mar 2019

Posted by yasniger in Essay, Politics, politics, Religion

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adventure, Africa, APC, army, atiku, buhari, Disappointed, Nigeria, PDP

By Ahmed Yahaya Joe on facebook

This is Commander James Stockdale on 2nd September 1965. A week later on the 9th of the same month the Navy fighter pilot was shot down over Vietnam after his plane received a barrage of anti-aircraft fire. He parachuted to safety but captured.

As a Prisoner of War he had to endure multiple fractures due to repeated torture and beatings, sleep deprivation, lack of medical attention and solitary confinement for 8 years. Upon his release in 1973 the US Navy named its school for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape after him. His story in captivity was summarized into what is now known as the Stockdale Paradox which is to “retain the faith that you will prevail regardless of the circumstances but at the same time confront the brutal facts of your reality” The Stockdale Paradox has universal application in balancing optimism with reality, intuition with planning, faith with fact. It is all about being supremely rational in all situations. Being emotional and losing focus are never options. It is therefore against that background that no judicial process in Nigeria as presently superintended will ever unseat Buhari.

With the benefit of hindsight in 2007 and 2011, Buhari spent 24 and 30 months respectively in various courts in pursuit of his mandate. Under the current acting CJN who will certainly be confirmed by the next APC majority senate Atiku Abubakar could spend 48 months. The mountains of evidence of electoral malpractices in the recently concluded presidential elections to be produced in open court will certainly undermine the integrity of the process. But what the courts would decide and how long it will drag is yet another ball game.
In conclusion Goodluck Jonathan did not challenge the outcome of the 2015 polls not because he didn’t have a legal basis to but because there were other political undercurrents. Similarly this time around the PDP flag bearer went into a wrestling contest with one arm tied behind to his back by not reconciling the fundamental differences between APC returnees and PDP stay puts ahead of the polls. Simply put the opposition suffers from lack of internal cohesion. The need for an electoral post-mortem including a SWOT Analysis from the ward to the national levels cannot be overemphasized. If there is anything the Stockdale Paradox has zero tolerance for it is wishful thinking. The signs and symptoms of a massive second coming failure are glaring. President Buhari will be in dire need for scapegoats for the inevitability of Murphy’s Law to catch up with him. The APC will also require a series of major distractions to blame on the opposition. So very soon the chorus of “corruption fighting back” will resume in full force. The gloating and taunting will continue then harassment and various forms intimidation. The opposition therefore requires clarity, purpose and direction with effective counter narratives to weather the storm for the next 4 years. Let us buckle up!

UK & USA Reject Nigerian Elections

01 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by yasniger in humor, Jokes, Politics, politics

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Africa, African, APC, army, atiku, bad, BBC, black, blind, boko haram, bold, brexit, British, buhari, cheats, clean, colonialism, Colonies, commonwealth, conclusion, Conflict, Confuse, crisis, Elections, Politics, uk, USA

Breaking News:

UK & USA Reject Presidential election results, threatens to remove Buhari .
Read full story….

The U.K and USA has rejected the Presidential election held on Saturday.
The Urhobo Kingdom (UK) representing Irodo community in Delta State And the UKwani Student Association (USA) also threatened to scatter the INEC office in Irodo and UKwani, two small communitIes where only about 100 and 300 people registered to vote
Details later….

Happy new month with blessings

Hasn’t Nigeria Decided?

27 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by yasniger in ebooks, Essay, Politics, politics, Religion

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Afraid, Africa, again, Aging, american, atiku, buhari, INEC, Nigeria, politicians, Politics

By Ahmed Yahaya Joe on facebook

When Hilary Clinton lost the US presidential elections in 2016 she wrote down her thoughts on what played out. She entitled her musings ‘What Happened’ which became a major bestselling book. While she attributed her loss to various factors she did not spare herself from blame. In her own words the most difficult part was when she had to attend the swearing-in ceremony of her rival Donald Trump.

Mrs. Clinton’s attitude is highly unusual but commendable. In the coming weeks if not months much will be said about our own presidential elections but what lessons can we all learn despite our deep seated political differences? To start with the cost of organizing the 2019 cycle of elections is N242 billion which recorded a total voter turnout of less than a total of 30 million voters for the presidential elections in a country of 198 million citizens. From matters arising from the February 23 polls the next election cycle must have more of technology introduced and less of cumbersome paper work. The diaspora needs to also be factored in. There are over 260,000 documented Americans of Nigerian descent in the US. In the UK they are actually 201,184.

Put together including those elsewhere in the world our compatriots abroad are actually more than those that voted in the FCT last Saturday yet these same Nigerians remitted a total of US$21 billion back home in 2017 alone. Hilary Clinton dedicated her book to her campaign staff which she all named and thanked. She did not hide her resentment and explained how she had been coping since her loss. She also broke some furniture, smashed various household items and flung objects at her husband. It was all in a bid to get psychological closure. Moving closer home: how should Atiku Abubakar handle the results as declared by INEC? I have just read President Buhari’s acceptance speech and I am wondering how his supporters can look Nigerians in the face and still claim he is a man of integrity. Will they ever accept like Umar Yar’adua did that the process led by Mahmood Yakubu was credible?

That notwithstanding like Hilary declared in the conclusion of her book – “Keep going”. Simply put remain vigilant.

As I was saying before the elections: many relationships have broken down with so many friendships destroyed. Was it really worth it? Life however can always be summarized in just 3 words – it goes on. That is why for me the elections are over. I can now fully resume my hustling because I have got bills to pay. But for those of you who want to continue the political acrimony permit me to introduce you to Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who was deployed to fight the Americans on Lubang Island of Philippines in 1944 during the Second World War.

When the army base the 22 year old Onoda was serving was captured his good self with 3 others refused to surrender instead they retreated deep into the jungles. However by 1945 Japan had surrendered. The 4 soldiers noticed a lull in fighting and repopulation of the island but they nevertheless held on by eating stolen rice, coconuts and meat from stolen cattle from the isolated settlements of Lubang. The victorious Americans from intelligence reports were aware that the 4 were still carrying on the fight so they dropped leaflets from aircraft. They included photographs of the surrender ceremony, current newspapers from Japan and copies of letters from their various families. The relevant authorities also announced from loudspeakers the war was over but the tenacious soldiers did not bulge. They dismissed all those efforts as fake. Not until 1950 when one was killed by the Philippine army. Another in 1954. By 1972 another had surrendered with a message from Onoda that he would only be relieved from duty by his superior. So his commanding officer retired Major Yoshini Taniguchi had to be tracked down in Japan and sent into the jungles of Lubang. As soon as the now 52 year old soldier recognized his former boss he saluted him. He was then ordered to stand down and Onoda finally agreed to surrender. He rejoined civilization in his uniform that he had carefully preserved, carrying his rifle and remaining 500 rounds of ammo with his service sword after 30 years of active service. He is seen here handing over his prized blade to the then president of Philippines Ferdinand Marcos at the Malacanan Palace in 1974. The Samurai eventually left for Japan. He died in 2014 at his retirement farm house at the ripe age of 91. Coming nearer home the 2019 presidential elections will no doubt produce many like Onoda in Nigeria no matter the outcome from the INEC presidential collation center. The struggle continues.

Nigerians, Are we preparing for the future as a country?

05 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by yasniger in collections, Essay, humor, Politics, politics, Religion, Stories

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Abnormal, above, Acquaintance, Adults, adventure, advise, Africa, Aging, alone, american, Chinese, Elections, Nigerian, People, Politics, Time, trouble, uk, united kingdom, universities, USA, vision 20 20, win, worries

On Made in China 2025.
On several occasions I run across these Chinese kids here in Georgia Tech, what surprises me is the type of courses they study. Almost all of them under Chinese government scholarship here to study in Americas best universities are studying courses that have to do with the future.

They study artificial intelligence, systems science and engineering, and hard core courses for tommorows World, their social lives are zero and they always hold sophisticated telephones. Very suprizing, but China is a country that thinks ahead and every Chinese is a potential suspect.

Have you ever heard of the concept, made in China 2025? It is Chinese Development blueprint that had sent fear around the world. It is meant to transform China from a labor intensive economy that makes toys, cloths, pharmaceutical to one that engineers advanced products like robots electric cars, and space explorations.
The Chinese are believed to be the most determined species of the human race. Once they set their minds to achieve a goal nothing stops them.

Earlier today, I listened to a commentary where the presenter clearly stated that the Chinese state would not mind stealing technology and intellectual property just to meet their goal.
I also read elsewhere, that Chinese kids are sent in droves to study unique courses like artificial intelligence, information systems, system science, robotic engineering, systems engineering in American schools. Surprisingly this is a deliberate state policy. You never see a Chinese student on scholarship studying arts, social sciences or religion.

What is most troubling is that they study these courses in America and United Kingdom top ivy leagues. They are here on full state sponsored scholarships.
While the economies of the world including the United States are exporting production distribution and exchange in an era of globalization, China is pursuing an agenda of localizing production.
They promote a policy to get almost 70 percent of their production value chain domiciled locally. This is very dangerous because in the future the entire world will answer to China in terms of production. My concern with China is how can a country and a people get it so right? Always ahead of the rest. Always scheming at a time our own kids are holidaying and eating barbecue in foreign restaurants.

The more I study the Chinese, the more I fall in love with these guys. They have leaders that think. They have leaders that plan for tommorow. More interesting, even children as young as five years in China know in every transaction they have to eat up their opponents or be eaten.
The big question: Can we ever have a country built on values? Unfortunately, this is our biggest handicap in Nigeria. Our leaders think only of themselves. Selfish and greedy, and some of our young people think only of what they can scoop out of these greed.
Vision 2020 we planned, this is 2019, nothing to write home about. Even the government themselves are busy politicking and killing themselves with no regard to attain the goals of vision 2020. Open a discussion with a federal minister on how his ministry plans to meet the vision 2020 goals he has no idea what you are talking about.
Our hospitals are still consulting clinics, women still give birth at home without medical support, our roads in disrepair, our schools abandoned and our politicians clueless.

Is there hope for our country that we can ever plan and execute with precision like the Chinese?
Sometime I wonder, do we embrace the Chinese and be recolonized or do we continue to align with the west?
These young Chinese kids in Western schools studying robotics and artificial intelligence are the ones to compete with our own kids 20 years from now at a time our educational system and universities are dead and lecturers still going on strike. I fear for my country and our future, to be candid I fear!

Princewill Odidi, a Development analyst write from Atlanta.

OPTIONAL  SLAVERY (2)

14 Sunday Oct 2018

Posted by yasniger in Books, collections, ebooks, Essay, humor, Jokes, politics, Short Story, Stories

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Africa, African, african adventure, brexit, Europe, MASSES, People, refugees, Short Story, Slavery, Stories

Second part of the series from the collection of short stories…

Everyone Hates The English

Check it out on amazon or Smashwords https://www.amazon.com/Friendly-Foes-Sentiments-Yas-Niger/dp/1530486718?qid=1538349815&refinements=p_27%3AYas+Niger&s=Books&sr=1-18&text=Yas+Niger&ref=mp_s_a_1_18

Enjoy!!!

OPTIONAL SLAVERY

Joe is the last born and just belatedly finished secondary school at twenty. He didn’t look his age and appears to be age mates with Thomas, his fourteen year old nephew and Mammy’s first child. Most people assume they are both Mama Cyril’s final twins and the family gives its tacit approval to that innocent mistake.
Joe is glad to hear credentials wouldn’t be needed for the trip because he has none. He had accidently burnt his birth and basic school certificates with old
magazines after a general house clean up two years back. When the call to leave all documents with Mama comes, he plans to lie that he had misplaced his somewhere in the house. He didn’t sit for his final secondary school exams just a month earlier.

He chose to buy a new iPhone with the registration fee Mama gave him instead. As such, there wouldn’t be a new certificate for him in a couple of weeks either and all hell will break loose when Mama Cyril learns this too, after a futile search for his older certificates. Being far away in Europe when she discovers will be a life saver.

The planned trip to Europe is God sent for Rueben also, he is the third boy and second to the last child. He is the most industrious of the seven, works at almost
everything, everywhere and for anyone. He is hardworking and gifted. He kept getting all sorts of training from various people on diverse technical disciplines.
Rueben is never idle and always involved in something to earn a buck. He also contributes to the upkeep of the large house hold from his meager earnings without
batting an eye. Mama Cyril could always depend on Rueben to do his best for himself and for everyone else. Rueben had worked his way through his five
gruesome years in a federal tertiary technical institute, graduating with distinction.
It is a marvel that Rueben has been unable to secure stable decent employment.

Rueben has big dreams of making it abroad. He has enough talent, ingenuity, training and drive to make it under the dedicated and selfless guidance of those
knowledgeable white men, where his abilities and capabilities will be properly rewarded. That hasn’t been the case back here, where he needs to know someone well placed to get employed. Everyone in the family knows Rueben has the best chance of making it in Europe. If Mama Cyril will have two of her children stay behind to assist her, it will include Rueben. But none were more deserving of the trip than Rueben and his older sister Monica, the only other graduate in the family.

Monica is Mama Cyril’s second daughter and third child over all, her favourite and the brain behind Mama Cyril’s business success. None of Monica’s advices
ever goes wrong, she is Mama Cyril’s right hand and that explains why Mama Cyril refuses to let Monica marry the man she claims to love. The chap seemed
decent enough, with a steady job. But Mama Cyril always found something wrong with him to jibe at. The chap’s effort in chipping in his bit to assist with Monica’s
schooling was of no consequence.

Mama Cyril claims he comes from the wrong tribe and cultural background. She insists he is destined for no good because of his name, Shawulu. That is Saul, the devious man who killed decent folks in the Bible.
Shawulu ‘s eyes were either too large or he squints a lot when he stares at folks, resembling a thief surveying his next target. Shawulu comes to the store too often and disturbs Monica in her duties. Shawulu stays till late when he visits Monica at home, no decent man does that. Shawulu doesn’t even bow when he greets Baba Cyril. Then there was the most unforgiveable act of all. Two years after Monica graduated with a degree in Business management, Shawulu intentionally got her pregnant to force the difficult Mama Cyril’s hand into consenting to the marriage between Monica and the hateful Shawulu. Thus Mama Cyril summarily refused to
entertain any more talk of their marriage when she finally got her best excuse.

There was no reasoning with her from that point on and the sole child Monica added to the house hold was the only grandchild Mama Cyril celebrated with an
official naming and church Christening fanfare, all in aid of wrestling Monica from
the affectionate clutches of Shawulu. The incessant visits by Shawulu’s people to placate Mama Cyril and make amends for their son’s shameful act was unaccepted. Baba Cyril benefited from these many visits because the delegations always
came bearing gifts, which didn’t interest Mama Cyril in the slightest and the crafty old man did as he pleased with, after they leave. Monica respects her mother to a fault and kept appealing to Shawulu to wait and be patient.

Shawulu will wait forever, if Mama Cyril got her way. This trip will seal Shawulu’s fate, that is that. A quick run down on the progress so far reveals that Monica was excited about
the trip, yet not entirely sold on the idea. Not telling her beloved Shawulu about it was going to be exceptionally hard but Mama Cyril will always have her way with Monica, that much is certain. So Daniel, Mammy, Joe, Rueben and Monica were all in. Rose is still work in progress but if many men, mostly with the intelligence
quotient of day old chicks, could persuaded her into bedding them, surely making Rose catch a boat to Europe wouldn’t be as hard as tackling an algebra equation.

That leaves out Cyril, first born of the house. Mama intentionally left him for last because he could easily scuffle the whole thing before it even started off, if he
so desired. It was her plan to hear all the others before Cyril. He was the only one she earlier told why she wanted to speak with everyone that late at night. She asked him to keep his thoughts to himself, until he hears all the others. Cyril will keep his word, if he can be convinced to give it. She convinced him and now it is his turn. Mama Cyril had already decided that if Cyril isn’t going, he will have to deal with not being able to stop the others from going. There is never telling before
hand what Cyril will like or will not like, he is that unpredictable, even to his mum.

Cyril is not a social retard, he is just simply too blunt. His mind and mouth had merged into the same cognitive organ and he quite innocently doesn’t think things
through before he speaks. Words just come gushing out his mouth like piss as soon his lips part, just as he would when he opens his fly to ease his bladder. He doesn’t
consider the implication before making a statement, even for the briefest second. Cyril is well aware of this shortcoming of his for years and he had simply come to one conclusion about it, without making the slightest attempt to change it.

Cyril concluded that he can not lie and get away with it. As a direct result of this, he actually doesn’t lie casually. It soon became so obvious that he didn’t lie as
often as those around him. Everyone needs to steer other minds wrongly once in a while, to deflect hostile reactions at least. Cyril struggled to socially relate with the people around him. But for someone who is considered a social nerd of sorts, he is still relied on to be sincere in all his dealings. Everyone listened to him keenly.

“Don’t you all see the news?” Cyril started. “People are dying every day in the Mediterranean sea, that is if they make it that far.” Mama Cyril was ready for that.
“That is if you rely on smugglers and we are not,” Mama Cyril returned.
“Besides it a risk worth taking,” Daniel quickly added.
“Risk our lives and die in a strange land, like wild animals? You call that risk
worth taking?” Cyril returned, but Daniel didn’t answer. Unlike Daniel’s carefree attitude towards life as a whole, Cyril’s approach to life is much less mechanical.
He trusts the human nature to disappoint and this is solidly based on his proven notion that human beings will only bend their nature as far as their joints allow.
“Mama, I suggest you forget this plan. Use the considerable amount you plan to spend to either improve on your business or build the house you have planned.”

Cyril had said his honest mind and that was good enough for his mother, who ignored the audible snicker from Baba Cyril. She was well aware why her husband
chose that moment to insinuate his disapproval. The man couldn’t stand the thought of all that money saved in the bank, out of his reach to squander away on hard liquor drinking and frivolous gambling. To hell with him, Mama Cyril thought.
“Are you contented being the long serving Head master of a private primary school with a rarely paid salary? You are not paid on school holidays, that is a quarter of the year. You can hardly meet just your own personal needs. You have worked there for ten years, with nothing to show for it. You are thirty years old, still with only a lowly teacher’s diploma and still living with your parents. You are unmarried, you can’t save or improve your education, can not get another job and fully dependent on your family for your needs because you earn close to nothing.”

Joe had only meant to sum things up nicely for Cyril but he had by extension touched the minds of all the other too. It had hit home to the others that what was different about Europe was they could have a fighting chance at making their lives better. Cyril knows better than to stand in the way of their dreams, if he was not going to do something about his. He didn’t have to say it, they just all knew he was not going to be difficult, if all the others were decided on leaving for Europe. Though Mama Cyril couldn’t predict her first son, she maneuvered those she
could predict into shackling his unpredictability, such that it is of no consequence if he reveals to be difficult. The simple truth might not ever change, but it can be
ideally shaded. Mama Cyril was spot on in her assessment and reeled in her catch.

Rose was still undecided, she is not sure she will get as much attention from white men like she is getting from black men. She couldn’t possibly compete with
those elegant looking European women out there, with their classy clothes, delicate make up, sophisticated way of walking and sexy way of talking.
“They may not even take us to England and Europeans only speak English in
England,” the stupid Rose was telling herself. She was terrified she wouldn’t be able to cope in Europe and was getting increasingly worried that her siblings will not let her off. Rose didn’t like the uncertainty that came with life in Europe, not to
mention the dangerous difficulty of getting there. Daniel intently watched Rose stiffen her back, without relaxing her stomach
muscles. Rose always has this expressively suggestive manner of carrying her elegant body. Her emotions are clearly revealed in her body language. Initially
Daniel couldn’t appropriately decipher her exact thoughts, then he figured out she was planning on not going with them. But Daniel wanted Rose to come along more than any of the others and for a good reason too.

A month or so earlier the elastic string holding Rose’s under pants suddenly snapped beneath her flowing gown, just as they started the long walk back home from church. With nothing to keep her panties from falling down to her ankles, the silly girl had tried to hold her loose panties in place without using her hands. As a
result, she had to walk with her thighs clamped up. Daniel had noticed something was wrong, inquired and Rose told him of her predicament. He offered her the use of his belt and had to wear his trousers up just that once, in her honour. Every male eye trailed her every move that day too. She had dropped four children already and yet every man still drooled over her. She had to come along with them to Europe.
They will need her out there. The others don’t know it yet but Rose might just hold the keys to their success in Europe. Rose is suited for the role Daniel had in mind, more than the cagy Monica with her proper ways or the aging Mammy, who looked every inch a mummy. Rose could quite easily sustain the lot of them in
their earliest days in Europe, until they can settle in later. She only needs to bat her eyes or wiggle her fanny a couple of times. If they are lucky, she could bloom into a fruit for some unsuspecting rich white dude and settle two thirds of their worries.

As if on cue, Rose batted those thick eyelashes of hers and looked straight at Daniel with eyes like glittering dark brown gems set in white marble. He smiled
and winked at her, urging her with a nod. She smiled back, like some strange inter-galactic alien in a beautiful female human disguise. Rose is his favourite sister by far and she is most fond of him too. He knows how to play her and get favours off her. He was certain she will play this ball and many others too, later in Europe.

It was very late, Baba Cyril yawned and shifted in his seat. They weren’t asking for his consent as usual but he realized he could still get paid if he played his cards right. He only needs to insinuate some subtle threat that could throw spanners in their works. He is not as stupid as his wife makes out. So without minding that his sudden contribution doesn’t relate to the discussion, Baba Cyril shuffled his cards.

“Davido is expecting payment from me tomorrow,” he disclosed.
“Who cares?” Mama Cyril returned and glared at him. Baba Cyril’s stare didn’t waver. His wife knows him very well, he can be cheap when his silly threats are
nipped in the bud. But when ignored and not appeased early enough, he could cause enough stink to attract unnecessary attention. With this important plan for a mass European trip, it is better not to risk it in calling his bluff. The stakes were too
high and he just might do something stupid. Just telling Shawulu before hand will
be distraction enough. Baba Cyril had to be settled and Mama Cyril backed down.

She nodded at Monica and the smart girl responded appropriately. The best
leaders never reveal when they concede, subordinates do it for them so they will never appear weak. Mama Cyril is never weak, rather it is her forte to feed on other people’s weakness and Baba Cyril represents a steady promising field for her most
influence. Once his meals are on time and his daily gulp of medicinal gin is within reach, he rarely makes trouble at home. But the most quarrels the couple have is over his weekly heavy drinking and gambling at a local shack, ran by the respectful Davido. The sly Davido sells locally brewed gin and also doubles as a bookie.
Baba Cyril will run one silly scheme after another around the house and in the community, to fund his weekly evenings at Davido’s. But when there is nothing to be had, Davido is willing to extend some credit to the elderly fellow because he is
confident one of Mammy, Rueben and Monica will always pay up.

Mama Cyril never does, she would rather die, like she repeatedly says at the top of her voice. This is just his latest scheme and a highly lucrative one at that. Monica left the sitting room briefly and returned with a number of crisp money notes of the highest
denomination. Baba Cyril never had it this good. As soon as he received the money from Monica, in full view of everyone, he inspected the notes in the faint candle light. Satisfied with the illuminated imprint of the inserted hidden silvery security
components, he put the money in his pocket and grinned. A metal picture of Judas Iscariot receiving payment for his kiss of betrayal flashed across Cyril’s mind, but
not even the devil would dare to wrestle this hand-out from Baba Cyril now. He will be contended for a couple of weeks and if this hyped European trip is still pending after then, who will deny the old man’s right to have another go at the golden goose. But this night he played along as expected, sang the tune paid for.
He nodded and retire for the night with a spared parting good word to aid his wife.

“You children listen to your mother, she only means well for all of you.” Cyril willingly accompanied his eager mother to the hotel this time around. It
was unanimously agreed by everyone that Cyril should get fully involved in every aspect of the arrangement from then onward. His good eye for probity will come into very decent use to ensure there is no foul play or the family is not taken for a ride by dubious fraudsters. The elderly white man Mama Cyril had met the first time, instantly recognized her the moment she entered the hotel room with Cyril in tow.

When they exchanged greetings, Cyril got his first of two pleasant surprises of the night. In Mama Cyril’s narration to the family about the details she got from her
earlier visit, she said Mimi had called the elderly white man in charge, Mr. Bill.

Cyril already had established suspicions of the whole arrangement, so he had
expected to meet some bossy north African, a sort of middle man for his Arab brothers, taking full advantage of the confusion in their nation to make a fast buck
by smuggling sub-Saharan Africans into Europe. But there was no chance of a mistake in identifying where Mr. Bill is from, he looked it and his accent said it.
“You are English?!” Cyril’s querying remark was laced with his surprise.
“Who did you expect to meet, some ancient Roman?” Mr. Bill responded with a smug grin.

Cyril didn’t acknowledge the joke but he looked more relaxed as Mr.Bill offered them seats. Once seated in one of the two armchairs in the sparsely
furnished hotel room, Cyril faced their elderly European host sitting on the side of the only bed and started off his questioning, with Mama Cyril quietly looking on.
“What is the country of entry?”
“Depends on where the boats arrive or where the intercepting joint European Naval forces take migrant boats to. It is likely Italy or Greece,” Mr. Bill explains.
“You’re sure about this?”
“Nothing is certain in this business but nine out of ten times, the task force is involved and take the boats to Italy or Greece, where the migrants are processed as
legal refugees. But surely you know that once you enter one European country, you can enter all the others?” Mr. Bill fished, hopeful Cyril doesn’t just look educated.
“I do,” Cyril replied but clearly he was not done yet. “And the safety of the trip across to Libya, is that guaranteed?” Cyril asked.
“Yes it is, as well as accommodation and security, up till the point of departure
from the Libyan coast. That is what you will be paying for. Extensive arrangement
that involves seasoned transporters, senior border posts officials, top military brass and government officials in all the nations involved, is in place. I came here after setting it up and I assure you it is working faultlessly and I can prove it now.”

Mr. Bill reached for his cell phone and called a line. From their seats, Mama Cyril and her eldest son could hear the other line ring and a female voice answer.
“Mimi, how are doing?” Mr. Bill spoke into the cell phone resting on his right cheek. Mama Cyril smiled at her son and her eyes almost said: ‘I told you so.’
They already knew Mimi left just three days earlier and hearing it had rushed things for their family. Mr. Bill handed the phone to Cyril, electing to satisfy the son’s more pronounced doubt ahead of his already convinced mother’s.
Cyril accepted the phone, placed in on his right ear and spoke. It was certainly the excited voice of Mimi. No doubt it was Mama James’s little girl at the other end of the line. The notable delay in their exchanges was further prove that Mimi was indeed in a very distant place. She had only good things to say about the efficacy
of the whole arrangement. Mimi said her boat trip has been paid for and she will be heading across the calm Mediterranean waters very early the next morning.
Mama Cyril had her turn. She incredibly managed to scream out enough pleasantries, prayers and information in a single minute to last the girl’s lifetime before reluctantly handing back the phone to Mr. Bill. She withdrew her chubby arm, which looked rather like an enlarged midget’s sinewy arm. The fold of fatty
flesh casing sort of shrunk her arms and completely hid her elbows from view.

What stood out for Cyril was that Mimi still had her phone, but he didn’t say it out loud. He reasoned that after money, phones are the first items lost or taken away from persons either held against their wishes or in any kind of difficulty.
Mama Cyril was elated to see her son’s nod of approval and the rest was routine, handled by Mama Cyril and Mr. Bill. Cyril watched his mother make full cash payments for six places on the next available vehicle leaving for Libya. Mr. Bill apologized that the next four buses leaving the next day were already full, but he assured Mama Cyril her children will leave in a couple of days.
Mr. Bill emphasized the need for urgency because the situation wouldn’t be the same for much longer. Once the puerile panic that greeted this rapid unprecedented flow of predominantly economic migrants into Europe has subsided, the European nations will most certainly device some expedient international law to revert to the status quo. Mr. Bill stood up to see them out, paused to reassure the silent Cyril that he and his siblings will safely be in Europe before next week.

It was Mr. Bill’s turn to be surprised. He was stunned to learn Cyril is not traveling with the others.
“Why?” Mr. Bill asked.

“The world is full of loud commentators, with deceptive commendations their many willful listeners obviously find admirable and not coy. But I am an exception to the general norm, among the few appropriating critics who equate affirmation of
evidence and the clearly advertised ruse with serious concern,” Cyril started.
“You and I know that getting into Europe is the easy part. But living in Europe, in the most sub-standard conditions, a far cry from illusions perceived, assumed, created and forwarded, is the real tough part. Africans integrating into evidently
hostile economic and social European societies that segregate against foreigners, as they increasing learn to abhor migrants for clogging their systems and worsening
their already precarious situations, is the reality of things. I will rather accept the fair situation I can manage right here, than pursue an elusive pot of gold at the end of some European rainbow.” Cyril was assertive and Mr. Bill was impressed.

A fellow intellect, the English man thought. The elderly white man tarried at the door to explain further. He felt Cyril has earned the right to understand why it
is only fair that Africans escaping war torn regions or economic difficulties or simply seeking to better their lot, must get a chance to pursue a life anywhere they
desire without any hindrance from those who seek to make choices for them, yet
again.
“I am not doing this for the money,” Mr. Bill said. “I am doing it because it is the right thing to do. For centuries European slave merchants own Africans and
traded them across continents as they pleased. Everywhere they took them, the prosperity that was gotten through their unpaid work for centuries funneled into
making these European nations the model economic and social communities they are today. Then there was colonialism, when European nations arbitrary syphoned the wealth of African nations for free and incessantly bullied them with the same
effect, which resulted in making large economic powers of European countries.

“A lot of people consider the abolition of slavery and subsequent independence
of the African nations as an act of charity, a favour granted the most belittled and unjustly treated people in all history. No it is not and any thing that remotely offers
a whiff of reparations should be encouraged and milked till it is drained. What do you think the world’s racial history will be if the black man was styled as the clear
antagonist? Just consider that before you write off your siblings.” Mr. Bill ended.
“You should consider that most of those going over will end up as liabilities.”
“Then it is only fair that they do.”
“It is fair to unsettle the living standards and security of Europe?”
“Certainly! Centuries back it was the superior Europeans that felt they had the God given right to come to Africa for economic reasons. Now it is only fair that
the African have their civilized right to come to Europe for economic reasons too.”
“The long established tedious ways for Africans to legally get into Europe ensured only the best Africa has to offer do migrate. The new trend only dumps from the dreg of the continent. At this rate Europe will be full of the sort of people that it needs the least. It is like allowing locusts to rest on your farm because they
also have a living right to feed. But maybe the English do not really care and it is a continental European problem, since England is still an old independent island, still on it own and just playing to be part of Europe. Still with its own currency in place, as the presence of a Queen imprinted on it.” Cyril remained every bit as steadfast.
“Good people do bad things for good reasons, my friend.” Mr. Bill appeared offended at the insinuation that he is just being more malicious to his European
brethren than helpful to Africans.

Mr. Bill looked the way of Mama Cyril before continuing. She was already near the stairs and screaming into her phone, eagerly
informing Monica of the good news about their trip to Europe in a couple of days.
“It is the least honourable thing I can do to follow in my ancestor’s foot-steps.

An Englishman was instrumental to ending the brutal carting away of Africans from their homes and it is only ideal that another Englishman is instrumental in the
civilized migration of Africans to Europe as an act of reparation. I should have properly introduced myself. My name is William Wilberforce, the Sixth.”
A stunned Cyril gawked with renewed respect as he assimilated this second pleasant surprise. He accepted the grinning white man’s farewell hand shake and watched as the Englishman shut the hotel door behind him, before hurrying to meet his bulky mother, breathless at the foot of the stairs. She had ended her phone call
and was singing her favourite church hymn out loud, in the most jolly of moods.
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me,” the aged woman hollered at the top of her happy voice, with a spring in her step. “I once
was lost but now am found; was blind but now I see. Was blind but now I see!”
Mama Cyril sang as she led her eldest son through the hotel parking lot that passes for a bar and also the launching pad for yet another compelled economic
migration from Africa to Europe. Cyril only had thoughts for yet another symbolism. He smiled at the irony of one William Wilberforce ending the old
compulsory slavery and yet another William Wilberforce fueling the new optional slavery. It is somewhat fitting and quite English in its concept, Cyril thought to himself as he resisted the urge to hum along to the tune of his mother’s singing.
Like the song, the general mood is infectious, spitefully civilized and English.

THE END OF THIS SHORT STORY

READ MORE FROM THE FULL COLLECTION

Optional Slavery ( 1 )

01 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by yasniger in Books, collections, ebooks, Essay, Short Story, Stories

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Tags

Africa, African, african adventure, brexit, Europe, MASSES, People, refugees, Short Story, Slavery, Stories

Today I start a series from the collection of short stories…

Everyone Hates The English

Check it out on amazon or Smashwords https://www.amazon.com/Friendly-Foes-Sentiments-Yas-Niger/dp/1530486718?qid=1538349815&refinements=p_27%3AYas+Niger&s=Books&sr=1-18&text=Yas+Niger&ref=mp_s_a_1_18

Enjoy!!!

OPTIONAL SLAVERY

“GET INTO EUROPE NOW!”
That is the bold catchy caption on the face of the small sky blue complimentary card, with those unmistakable loose cluster of tiny white stars of the European Union logo at the top right edge of it. A closer look at the card reveals it also has a specific time and hotel address printed on it, with a room number inscribed on it as well. But that is all, no name or anything more, just the all important promise for a better life, where even African cattle know the grass is surely greener.

Each person that receives the card or merely sees it and can memorize the easy to remember address printed on it, could go over for more details. The time on the card is nine in the evening, well after working hours. Anyone can go and everyone who has considered going to Europe did, that is almost everyone. Even the bulky Mama Cyril, a middle aged mother of seven mostly jobless children and the added responsibility of providing for the nine grandchildren they gave her, wanted to know more. She had intentionally closed her shop late one evening so she could look in on her way home. She liked all she has heard so far and sought more information.

The hotel premises was full and busy. The open air bar shared the parking lot but there were no cars in it. It was packed full with all sorts of people, young and old, looking healthy and well fed, many of them looked obese and rather well off.

They sat everywhere and chatted purposefully. If only the rich drive cars, then some here had deliberately left theirs at home before coming, Mama Cyril thought.

Those wicked rich sorts always want more at the cheapest rates and Mama Cyril was certain they were here too, set on depriving the poor of this God sent charity.

Only a few were drinking and everyone seemed to be talking to someone else.

Mama Cyril ignored them, snuck round the back and up a short flight of stairs.

Good elderly Christian women like her shouldn’t be seen in ungodly places at dark hours. Idle gossipers will love to give Baba Cyril a new excuse to start yet another fight. The old fool loves entertaining neighbours with his drunken wrestling shows. Allegations of sleeping around will be an effective excuse for her husband of over thirty years, Mama Cyril concedes. So far the two decades long jobless buffoon
relies on claims of being disrespected as the head of the family to ignite quarrels.

The door into the specified hotel room was ajar and surprisingly, there was no queue outside it like she had expected. Mama Cyril looked in and was encouraged
with what she saw. Seated on the side of the bed, attending to two young girls, was an elderly white man. That was a huge relief for Mama Cyril because everyone
knows white people are honest and do not need to cheat poor black folks like rich black people do. Mama Cyril recognized one of the girls as Mimi, the pencil thin
Mama James’s youngest child in their Church choir. Mimi curtsied and greeted Mama Cyril properly and from then on it was simple really. The details Mama Cyril sought came in fast waves and she was soon contented. An hour later, she was hurrying home, singing her favorite Church hymn.

She was happy she came and thankful for Mimi’s assistance in understanding the white man’s explanations. Mimi has always been a smart girl, a very sharp girl. She is the youngest girl to
graduated from the university in these parts and only returned from her mandatory year of national youth service last month. Now little Mimi is soon going away to Europe. If Mama James’s smallest baby goes to Europe, no one will hear the last of
it in the whole community. That shapeless old stick will brag about it forever. Mama Cyril strongly believes wicked angels in God’s heavenly court had conspired to curse her with the worst possible litter of puppies, with most of them inheriting their useless father’s beastly moronic genes. She doesn’t ever heed her own advise on cursing her children.

She only remembers not to, after she does and then forgets to bless them often enough to neutralize the curses. But God knows her thoughts and forgives her words, regardless of their effect. She is reassured.

Her three girls are only good at repeatedly opening their knees to conceive and retrieve off springs for the worst possible fools, while her four boys are a bad mix of gain less dreamers and doers. Half of her children are too selfish to care about anything other than their stomachs and their appearances. It is a nightmare to get most of them to do anything constructive for themselves, let alone somebody else.

This once it looked like the odds were stacked well in Mama Cyril’s favour to get them all to do her bidding. But she could only hope and pray they even listen. Mimi had already paid for her trip to Europe, if anyone in his right mind can call the amount involved payment. The entire cost is incredibly low by all known
reckoning. It costs ordinary folks an arm and leg to travel to Europe properly and the remaining limbs too, if it is legal. Then every bit of pride and dignity goes with
staying on in the white man’s land. This all inclusive offer is as cheap as God’s air.

Candidates don’t need to be educated or have travel documents and if they have
international passports or are graduates, they are advised to leave their certificates behind. They could easily lose them on the long tedious trip to get into Europe. They can always send for the credentials later, when they are safely inside Europe.

Relatives can easily send them over by registered post, when addresses are gotten. The middle aged white man had explained that the low charges only covers
transportation for the long land trip through Niger and Mali, into Libya and onto the Mediterranean coast. Travellers are expected to hold fares for their boat rides
across the sea, which is nothing much. Accommodation in Libya is guaranteed, where the travellers are known as pilgrims. The pilgrims are kept safe in Libya
until their ride across to Italy or Greece is arranged within a week after arrival.

The Libyans play a key role, ensuring Europeans get the impression they hold back the
pilgrims. But they simply keep them safe while they wait for their paid boat rides.

Then what happens next is completely legal and facilitated by the Europeans themselves. Once the boats are halfway across the Mediterranean, the European
patrol boats must rescue them and help them all into Europe. If the pilgrims’ boats make it near the European shores they are advised to disable their motor boats or puncture their rubber dinghies and wait to be rescued. It is essential they are rescued so that they get treated with more compassion. All the pilgrims are simply welcomed with warm clothes, food and medicine. The cutest Europeans girls welcome them with flowers and hugs at the ports. European governments will give them official documents to classify them as refugees and no one will reject them or deport them because it is against international law to send refugees away. The timing is just right and the public opinion in Europe is still favourable towards the
pilgrims. The world is in turmoil and an opportunity is there to take advantage of.

Mimi helped the much older white man explain things to Mama Cyril. It has never been this easy, cheap or legal for Africans to get into Europe, not since the
abolition of slave trade many centuries ago. With the estimated amount needed by each person, Mama Cyril could easily afford to send all seven of her children, and
she is just a poor trader in the local market. Praise God for all his bounties. She just needs to secure the hefty loan she is eligible for, from her market thrift
and credit cooperative society, which she had been putting off.

She had originally planned to access the credit, combine it with the money she has been saving and buy a plot of land to build a house for her large family. But sending her children to Europe is a bigger and better investment, multiplied into seven places.

For thirty years the family had rented cheap accommodations and a few more years of doing so will make no difference, when a huge mansion, to be financed
with funds from this European trip is assured. Since Mama Cyril started her grains wholesales business just under two decades ago, the quality of life had improved for her family. They paid their bills and live rather well by local standards. Rent is paid, no one went hungry, every school fees and every hospital bill settled. All her seven children still live at home, with their collective nine children added to the
family’s sum. Yet the family is poor because it lacks the official world average and the plenty they see flaunted around them. There is no crime in wanting much more.

“Who will take care of my children if I go to Europe?” That was Rose’s very first query. Her visibly angered mother eyed her with disgust and contempt.
“Shut up,” Mama Cyril snarled. “Who is taking care of them now?”
Rose hissed and looked away, a usual response in her case. Rose ever struggles to talk to her mother. She is the third girl and fifth child, with attractive looks that didn’t help her much. Rose appears to blossom with a new child every spring. Her good looks tripled the amount of romantic advances she gets, with the appending material favours from men of all ages and calling. Rose is not smart, with her intelligence well below average. Coupled with her inability to exercise restraint in romantic settings once she was of age, Rose had popped out four kids in six years. Baba Cyril’s niece called him with news of the last of Rose’s four pregnancies.
He had laughed and asked her to call his wife instead, to tell her directly.

The long banter over Rose’s fourth pregnancy at home went on for months and hasn’t ended over a year later. Mama Cyril had to put her foot down, the trend simply got out of hand and that is the last child yet. No doubt all four girls had their mother’s fertility
rate. Mama Cyril had seven children in ten years and a doctor had to surgically end her ordeal when everything else didn’t help.

Baba Cyril wasn’t consulted, as usual. Rose turned her attention back to her expensive iPhone, same type the female federal minister of finance has. Baba Cyril saw the badly dressed minister caress hers when she came to make more unfulfilled promises to retrenched employees of the defunct government owned telecommunication company after twenty years of not paying their benefits. Baba Cyril couldn’t make sense of why Rose found it ……… or anywhere really. It never makes sense why children are named in this manner, when their names wouldn’t be optimally used. Mama Cyril expectedly turned to Mammy next. Mammy shrugged and looked down at her well chewed finger nails. Mothers always have the most expectations for their first daughters and the shy
Mammy never met those Mama Cyril had set for her. Mammy was the pioneer, she had the first of Mama Cyril’s nine grandchildren and that was considered her first
of many failings to follow.

Pregnant at sixteen and the favourite child of her father,
the roof rose to heavenly hell and back down again. Back then it felt like the worst possible disgrace for a teenage daughter to have a child in her parents’ house. Then
Mammy’s parents incredibly relived the same scenario over again repeatedly, eight more times over. Now it is the expected norm for the girls in the family.
“I will go with Steve,” submitted Mammy. Steve is just two, Mammy’s second
and last contribution to the haul of grandchildren Mama Cyril caters for, alongside her seven children and their hopeless father. Steve has autism and is a handful.

Mama Cyril nodded, proud to see that Mammy is finally living up to her expectation. Mama Cyril hastily interpreted Mammy’s decision to mean she is actually thinking about the difficulty Mama Cyril will have with Steve and it is not just the act of a loving mother towards her challenged child. Mammy always had her uses as the family’s somewhat junior mother. She earns some money and contributes to the family’s upkeep. She fries beans cakes and sweet potatoes at the
top of the street, did so every evening for a decade, except Sundays. Mammy will make a wonderful wife yet for some strange reason none of the her numerous courting male customers ever comes forward for her hand in marriage.

* To be continued …

Beating Your Children

22 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by yasniger in Essay, Jokes, Play, Stories

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Tags

Africa, African, animals, beating, child, Children, children. story, fruits, joke, kiddies, kids, Mother, People, Time, wisdom

If you ever wondered why Africans beat their children, then read up on this repost.

Copied….

Children nowadays don’t even know that in our days you could be beaten for any of the following reasons:

1. Crying after being beaten.
2. Not crying after being beaten.
3. Crying without being beaten.
4. Standing while the elders are seated.
5. Sitting while the elders are standing.
6. Walking around aimlessly where the elders are seated.
7. Replying back to an elder.
8. Not replying back to an elder.
9. Spending too much time without being beaten.
10. Singing after being admonished.
11. Not greeting visitors.
12. Eating food prepared for the visitors.
13. Crying to go with the visitors when the visitors are leaving.
14. Refusing to eat.
15. Coming back home after sunset.
16. Eating at the neighbour’s home.
17. Generally being moody.
18. Generally being too excited.
19. Fighting with your age mate and losing.
20. Fighting with your age mate and winning.
21. Eating too slowly.
22. Eating too quickly.
23. Eating too much.
24. Not finishing your food.
25. Scraping your plate
26. Eating and talking
27. Talking and chewing
28. Sleeping while the elders had already woken up.
29. Looking at the visitors while they are eating.
30. Stumbling and falling when walking.

31. Looking at an elder eye ball to eye ball.
32. When an elder is talking to you and you blink your eye.
33. When an elder is talking to you and you stared without blinking.
34. When you look at an elder with a corner eye.
When an elder points at you.
35. When your mates were playing Street football and you joined them to play.
36. When your mates were playing and you were not playing with them.
37. When you don’t wash your dish
38. When you don’t wash your dish properly
39. When you break your dish
40. When you bite your nails.

41. When you fail your exams. That was a serious crime.
42. When you get canned in school or any kind of offense committed in school. That fetched you more canning at home.
43. When you go to the local stream to frolic.
44. When you steal fruits from trees. This always attracted canning. But it was always worth the troubles for most kids. Can believe now kids have to be tricked & coaxed into eating fruit when we actually risked death by arrows, catapulted stones, flying cutlasses & being eaten by wild domesticated dogs, just to eat fruits.😀😀😀

Some of these reasons for beating a child may seem farfetched to children now, but they sure did give us some solid values, Some not effective but we learnt to be better parents now. 😀

The English Problem that is Nigeria

01 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by yasniger in Essay, humor, Jokes, Politics

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Africa, american, England, ENGLISH, Nigeria, problem

The problems of Nigeria started with the confusion in speaking English.

Let me break it down for you…

While the British will say ‘Extreme’ & the American say ‘End’, the Nigerian will do the unnecessary & say ‘Extreme end’.

The trend continues…

The British say ‘Knicker’

The American say ‘Short’

But the Nigerian says ‘Short knicker’.

British : Salon

American : Barbershop

Nigerian: Barbing salon

British: Bend

American: corner

Nigerian: Bending corner

British: So

American: Therefore

Nigerian: So therefore

British: Tell me the reason

America: Tell me why

Nigeria: Tell me the reason why

British: Ten Pounds each

American: Ten Dollars each

Nigerian: Ten Ten naira each.

Still…
The American says ‘Completely’
The British says ‘Finished’
And the Nigerian says ‘Completely Finished’.

Now you can grasp where the Nigeria confusion stems from.

😂😂😂😂😂😂

NIGERIA: THE GAINS OF CORRUPTION

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by yasniger in Books, ebooks, Essay, Politics, Stories

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Africa, African, Conflict, Corruption, eBook, Nature, Nigeria, People, Politics, Religion, Time, World, Yas Niger

The new government in charge in Nigeria has embarked on a long overdue campaign against corruption. While the main focus is on the bigwigs, it is rather strange that ordinary folks appear to feel the crunch of the latest anti-corruption drive the most. Just maybe, more than ever before, Nigerians will come to terms with the reason why to the rest of the world, corruption is synonymous with Nigerians, not just the Niger-area they live in.

buhari-headache
In an atmosphere where a large population doesn’t have simple answers to the most basic problems of their nation or indeed the slightest inkling of what the problems really are that are responsible for the overwhelming symptoms of such despicable magnitude, rectifing problems become hopeless. The entire nation seems to be calling out for any kind of lingering respite to a problem they don’t actually understand fully.

“The Niger-area calls out its people to arise as compatriots, to answer the call and obey, to serve diverse yearnings with their quest for spoils of all kinds. The people’s labour of long past shall never be in vain, as long as they serve with might and heart, to function based on little selfless wisdom and plenty of eased up selfish insanity. ”

The Niger-area is the freest region on the African continent, if not the world. Its people laugh at the slaves of freedom in the west, who are not aware of what freedom truly gives them, if they are not really free to do as they honestly like. The many limitations that come with the organized lifestyles of so called developed nations render their long tested freedom styles tasteless and makes them a rich tasteless meal, exotic only because its classy whiff is an attachment of convenience to be eaten with only the right kind of cutleries.

However, in a land where business is not about service too, but primarily for the profit craved for, then profit is not the two way traffic it ought to be. Profit should satisfy both ways, and not some individual obsession of those who are able to dominate everything and everyone in everyway. The discipline people show in their business is packed full of the opportunities they create for only themselves. It is this kind of orientation they comes along with functions in the Niger-area’s civil service, where and when the public servants bully their way into roles that further enslaves the common people they already dominate in all aspects of daily living.
The larger percentage of the Niger-area public servants’ stewardship continues to seek personal profit first, as they indiscriminately excel in their private pursuits mainly. The civil service is all about serving others and not self, hence a conflict is eminent at every turn of the people’s daily quest when those paid to serve their interest only serve themselves instead. This trend doesn’t follow the concept of separate entity which business and private ownership thrives on steadily.

It is the peoples’ life dependent desire to suffice amidst a mounting list of inabilities that forces them to react with cooperating with the corruption than solves their lack of fair opportunities. These corrupt civil servants, forcibly imposed military leaders and highly favoured politicians, deny the people their simply right to public service. The people of the Niger-area simply live in a mazy enclave of a grand collusion of all brands of public authority, functioning mainly in the most practicable means of corruption known to civilized man the world over.

The people’s labour for a fair opportunity to live comfortably is denied them by the lustful abilities of the nation’s leadership, represented not just by the elite but even the ordinary folks in simple places of authority. The simple rewards most privilege people receive for work done is full of abnormalities. The typical civil servant in the Niger-area can oddly afford to live well beyond their official means. They accomplish this feat against all odds because literally the land is full of partakers in this national pastime, in one form or another. It is an insurmountable anomaly that is ironically both cruel and favourable to all and sundry across the board, from an objective point of view. The lucky employed people’s capacity to do their work is continuously polished by everyone else, at the expense of the nation’s credibility. The nation appears to breed a long continous line of similarly gifted and well groomed corrupt people. It is a frustrating experience to abolish corruption in the Niger-area because everyone agrees they are not corrupt but thrive on corruption either directly or indirectly; everyone and everybody. The people of the Niger-area thrive from corruption, more than they do without it. For every single thing lost in the proper form, there isn’t a replacement in the improper form to supplement. Planning has to be on a last-card basis, few risks ever taken.

The nation’s leadership lost out on the key point of note. They failed to realize the importance of creating genuine honest opportunities for employees at the best rates of remuneration. It is the best way to reduce corruption, if there is a genuine will to do so. In the depth that makes up the core of the swelling problems of the nation is a deep set adherence to the reliable unwritten laws of corruption, which always sees to it that both the masses and the elite get through their common difficulties of getting even the simplest things done. It is the readily available factor which can be enlisted as the means of the practical aid needed to overcome basic problems of basic origins. Corruption is boisterous and exuberant in being so appropriate in providing solutions where there are none in sight. The people have always faulted corruption for many of their woes, hypocritical adjudging their assumed or presumed high standards for what they consider as fair and justified. They generally speak ill of the same corruption they rely heavily on to get undue advantage over each other at every given point they feel stuck, which is often.

Nigerian-Presidential-Seal1
Almost every time in the most corrupt circumstances, it is the undeserving person who deserves but is made unfortunate for purely manipulated reasons. The elite and the masses alike, readily use their privileged placings to their advantage and utilize bureaucratic bottle necks to their personal favour and this is always to personalized effect. The whole nation has stereotyped its view of institutionalized entities as a complex world of activities that render specific selfish functions to those within it that are favoured. Member of the society forget that what constitute an organized setting is basically the people. Formal entities are made of separate single individuals that function in their own personal capacities of family and at community levels first, and these are practically informal. Their daily functions as separate micro units are guided by their orientations and relationships with others.
These play a huge role in the manner people present themselves, within a larger context. This also includes how they represent their selfish desire to explore every possible means to get the upper hand at all times, irrespective of who is most deserving. Their efforts always buttress those actions that are constantly seeking to unset the perceived advantage of rivals. All visible encouragement obviously given to this trend is strictly insinuated by the general popular acceptance it receives. This is so especially from the inactions of the multitude concerned with it, the same people that get the bad end of these constantly reoccurring discreet corrupt practices. It is these same clearly disadvantaged persons who actually cheer the numerous gains of corruption and they identify with the reverence it gets in their communities that claim to abhor corruption. This irony is not only contradictory to their verbally professed beliefs, but it is also genuinely complex in revelation. It is completely opposite to what the aspiration for their nation as a whole is.

The country has become filled up with steadily growing perpetrators of the ills of corruption, so much that it is so hard to tell which form of it is derogatory and which isn’t anymore. Corruption has lost its bad face and with its constant gains as a sure means to get firm results; deservedly or not, its human vice status has gained more public appeal and taken on a popular human face. Corruption has bought itself an esteemed status with its visible gains and encouraged more and more people to partake with increasingly conscious intent. With its new air of acceptability, corruption naturally leads the whole community, with a visibly conscious flair. Almost everyone but not everyone, lives in the Niger-area with the honest knowledge that given the same opportunities as those in the most privileged positions, most of those now disadvantaged will happily do the same corrupt stuff, the very same corrupt things they are noisily criticizing others for doing presently.

The ordinary folks readily make all the other less privileged people around them as disadvantaged as they are and don’t think twice about it, because they see through the smoke screens and identify with the origin of their indigenous corrupt tendencies. The ethical origins of corruption are still evident in its manifestation as it was the case in the old days. Definitely the archaic and primitive ways of doing things had not been alone in bringing out the odd need to seek favours from those who can deliver and to gratify their own personal natural needs and lustful wants for merely doing so. Their resolve is to ensure that they follow their lust for selfish gains and still adhere to the dominant national principle of taking advantage of others always, and letting others take advantage of them on the same parallel.

They pay for these corrupt practices in every possible way, through varied and quietly unclear means, with clearly stated or insinuated terms. The insinuation is always clear even if the mode of payment isn’t always. The generous nature of all the perpetrators of corruption deceives by its actions and the lies it tells are quite intentional in every sense of it. All the benefactors are fools because they are used to satisfy a bigger need than they could provide for themselves and are thus only a means to another person’s brief joy, which they can not claim to enjoy too.

That is the only telling streak of corruption that is never necessitated by its course of action, an action not initially viewed as the selfish act it is. It is an action that always resumes its pull for a solution within the sphere of human attraction for individual needs first of all, and then a desire to maximize gains by all workable means. Each lie used to achieve this goal is a generous tool that is evidently steered towards that singular purpose of offering an insinuated insult to the individual who yields to corrupt advances. By succumbing to these advances, the individual is lowering the logical sense of value of their individuality. What credible worth that accrues to an individual is tainted and lost in due course with corrupt practices.

The Niger-area is heavily dependent on corruption and its civility lives within a peaceful anarchy, as a direct result of this. Civility endures the pains of justice when it is denied and suffers the roughness of a terrain it has no exact control over but must still live in. Strangely, it is unfairly just because it appropriately makes a case for the kind of prosperity the society finally attains. The kind of value the society gets at the end of the day characterizes the value it attaches to its well-being as a knitted modern society. A massive majority of the people represent this rude truth that runs in the essence of the nation. More than anything else, this speaks for the holistic national character of the entire nation, if nothing else does.

nigeria

The popularity of corruption is cultural in the Niger-area and its visible effect makes it an accepted norm, embraced mainly because of its success, employed for its viability and endeared for its reliability. It lingers on for this simple reason as the whole country stares with awe as nothing else steadily brings a logical end to corruption without also ending established cultural norms, as they have always existed. Corruption has taken on the same meaning as what was erstwhile proper in the people’s custom. It has suitably taken on a similar face, like the use of faith and belief interchangeably. By admitting this contrasting advantage and shortcoming of malicious corruption, both perpetrators and critics of corruption simply affirm its strengths. The futility in the people’s competing selfish thinking and eventual deeds always comes to the fore even when it is negatively accepted. This likens how true faith always takes root with the illogicality of hope, while it is logical to assume that the reasoning of hope establishes individual and collective faith.

Corrupting became excusable in a land that symbolizes despots as successful icons, where incredibly expensive luxuriously reliable strong four wheel drives and huge standard utility vehicles aren’t only symbols of waste but essentially convenient means of transporting ostentatiously paid important public servants over badly maintained old highways. In a land where hard working people who desire to work for their earnings and have no wish to achieve anything from being lazy but from the harsh unpleasantness of earning an honest living, nothing has proven to be as resourceful to the diverse people as ramifications of corruption has.

Nothing fashioned against the resounding might of corruption prospers in the Niger-area because nothing has as yet replaced or promised to replace its real abundant achievements for the people who grew up relying on it for succor. If the people as one whole identifiable package, with the same single identity, do not have guaranteed legal access to the benefits of their nationhood and they must remain as one entity, then they will obviously take it without any consideration for how legally they do. They will stream out of their shores in search of the golden fleece they know they world offers and will look from it to the ends of the world. The people of the Niger-area will search in the most obscure lands, much poorer than their local villages, which they ran away from. They search in streets that are dirtier than their toilets or refuse heaps, look inside jails more hostile than their indigenous battle fields, in communities that hate them for just visiting. They look for more the only way they had learnt at home; the only way they see work.

The people’s determined whispers stir reasoning ideally fake, just like the leadership they always follow. They mimic a wrongly expressed sincerity and they have raised a banner that says as much to themselves and every other onlooker. Theirs is a fakeness that is too pronounced to be viewed as something else. They reek of shame as a people but individually claim holiness. A whole tradition altered itself to suit its fakeness and finds itself functioning not like it envisaged but like it fraudulently dared to, only so that it can sustain itself, as it calls itself.

FEVER SERIES

fever-1-copy
Fever: The Origins of Fever (Book I)
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/397851
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YULOCXQ
http://authl.it/B00YULOCXQ
https://www.createspace.com/5195609
http://okadabooks.com/book/about/11388

fever-2-copy
Fever: Rising Temperature of Fever (Book II)
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/425270
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YUNKGK2
http://authl.it/B00YUNKGK2
https://www.createspace.com/5195612
http://okadabooks.com/book/about/11389

fever-3-copy
Fever: The Appetite of Fever (Book III)
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/425271
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YUOGCTA
http://authl.it/B00YUOGCTA
https://www.createspace.com/5195617
http://okadabooks.com/book/about/11390

fever-4-copy
Fever: Gentle Aching Fever (Book IV)
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/432470
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YUOGDFS
http://authl.it/B00YUOGDFS
https://www.createspace.com/5195618
http://okadabooks.com/book/about/11391

fever 5 - Copy
Fever: The Coldness of Fever (Book V)
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/451306
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YUOYL7K
http://authl.it/B00YUOYL7K
https://www.createspace.com/5195619
http://okadabooks.com/book/about/11392

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And Development Is?

11 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by yasniger in ebooks, Essay, Poem, Poetry, Politics

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Africa, African, Conflict, Corruption, culture, eBook, Home, Life, People, poem, Poems, Poetry, Politics, The poet in the poem, Yas Niger

czsxkum

There aren’t pinpoint developed or under-developed nations. The difference in development levels of nations are classed according to proximity to the best examples of the two extremes of the stages of development. Thus the term developing is firstly relative to both extremes. The seemingly endless process of developing is still quiet evident at both extremes. This fact is open dispute and debate.

Stagnation in under-developed nations isn’t permanent either, but the term aptly describes the state it appears to be in presently, just as being termed developed doesn’t describe the former. Development isn’t an infrastructural state, principally. Development is mainly attitudinal; a state of a culture and not the process it had under gone to get where it is. Development isn’t a stage a nation is but the state of the circumstances that surround the entirety of the national entity currently, not where it is at. Development isn’t a stage but a process, it isn’t ever finished but dynamic.

Here is a poem by Portia Nelson that might help us see that if we ever want this misconception of what development really is to end, we must do things differently not merely shutting little people up when they crave for true development.

There’s A Hole In My Sidewalk
Chapter 1
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in. I am lost….I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
Chapter 2
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the side walk.
I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
Chapter 3
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I fall in….it’s a habit…but my eyes are open.
I know where I am. It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
Chapter 4
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
Chapter 5
I walk down a different street.

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