Follow Follow

This guy is talking sense. The subtitles are hilarious.

Petina Shoutout

Petina Gappah, (disclaimer: she's also a Faber author) has given me an incredibly nice shout out on her blog. I blush as I give you this link.

P.S

Check out her braids. Next time I go to Nigeria I'm going to do this hair. Unfortunately, it's impossible to do such in England unless you are a millionaire.

Did I Ever Tell You Guys I Sing?

Probably not. Here's a cover of Carmen's God in America that my sister and I did about a year ago. My sister is on the guitar and I do most of the vocals. It's languishing in the backwaters of Youtube. We filmed the rose instead of our faces because we were in our nighties while we were singing and looking rather ming. We don't want to affect our bride prices.




P.S
Just listening to the song again, I feel it's particularly relevant in relation to what's going on in Northern Nigeria. If people had spent the money they were supposed to on improving security, improving education, improving the standard of living, training our police officers and not turning them into them brutal tit for tat forces, as bad as the criminals, then we wouldn't be having this situation. We don't need leaders who profess religion. We have them ten for one Naira. We need God fearing men and women in Nigeria.

The Barack and Michelle Obama Effect

The Jonathans as shot by T.Y Bello. Images from onobello.com

Father Matthew Kuka

An excellent talk from a priest who has known all the Heads of State since General Yakubu Gowon and sat on the Oputa Panel. In my utopia, tribe would play a very minor role in the functioning of Nigeria but he discusses, rather humorously, the reality as it is now.

100th Post and the Case of the Reclining Chair

One massive deadline has been slain. I feel I can loosen my belt a bit. Incidentally, it is also my 100th post so I've been thinking of something epic and deep and funny to write about. I'll save it for my 1 year blog anniversary. Until then, I thought I should knack you the tory wey happen as I dey come from Nigeria back to obodoyinbo.

The flight was full. Nigerians it seems are becoming more affluent. So affluent that they now travel with their house girls as one woman announced to the whole plane. Her children were sitting together but the house girl had not been put with children. I mean, what is the point of taking a maid to England if she's not going to look after my children. And I can't look after my children because I'm in Upper Class. Did everyone hear that? I am travelling upper class and my maid has been separated from my children. Air hostess please sort this out so I can go back to upper class and stretch out on my fully reclining seat while all of you sit in economy and roast. Of course, no-one wanted to switch seats to let the children be re-united with their nanny. I don't know how that matter ended because I started eavesdropping on the phone conversation taking place next to me.

The woman had just 'flown in and flown out.' It was a 'quick one.' Just 'a few days.' You know how we big girls do. In fact, she wanted to go upper class but the plane was full so she had to settle for an economy ticket because she needed to get back to work. You know how we big girls do. If that's all that happened on the flight, it would have been enough gist for me. A little lighthearted showing off from my fellow Nigerians is always of interest. I settled down in my seat, hoping the six hours would go quickly. I was on my first movie when a woman in the row behind me, tapped my neighbour and said,

"Excuse me. Please move your seat forward. It's disturbing me."

My neighbour replied, "No sorry I cannot. The person in front of me has reclined their chair so I must recline mine."

I thought the matter had ended. I returned to my movie. Next thing, the woman punched my neighbour's chair until it was in an upright position. What followed was the most bizarre sequence of events. My neighbour would recline her chair fully. The woman would punch it upright. Recline. Punch. Recline. Punch. During this sequence phrases like,

"You're making me uncomfortable."

"It is my constitutional right to recline my chair."

"You cannot inconvenience me."

"I should have travelled upper class."

were thrown around. Eventually, air hostesses had to be called in.The uncomfortable lady could not see her screen, her knees were cramped.

"Then recline your own chair madam," one of the hostesses said reasonably.

"I do not want to recline my chair."

And that was the end of that line of persuasion. Another hostess tried a different tack.

"Madam, why don't you swap seats with your husband if you're so uncomfortable."

"I do not want my husband being inconvenienced by this woman."

At this point, my fellow Nigerians began to join the fray.

"Madam raise your chair small."

"No, she is not the one that should raise her chair. It is this woman that should push back her own."

"Why must we Nigerians always embarrass ourselves outside."

My people I laughed ehn. At first, I tried to hide it by covering my mouth but as the confra grew noisier my laughter increased in volume. Eventually a compromise was reached. My neighbour reclined her chair half way and the matter was closed. I returned to my movie with tears still in my eyes.

About an hour later, the inconvenienced passenger's husband decided to try his own luck. He too felt that the lady in front of him (also on my row) had reclined her chair too far back. He had also seen how successful his wife had been. So he tapped the lady and said, "Excuse me, your seat is too far back."

Her response was classic.

"Don't even start that nonsense."

And that ladies and gentlemen is how you shut up the passenger behind you when he/she tries to impinge on your constitutional right to fully recline your plane seat.

Caine Prize Shortlist, Southbank Reading

Just back from a reading with all the shortlisted authors for the Caine Prize. I was 15 minutes late so I only heard 3.5 stories but all 3.5 were excellent. The winner will be announced tomorrow. I have a favourite but I wouldn't place a bet on it because the standard is so high. You can read the entire short list here.

Lauri Kubuitsile author of 'In the Spirit of McPhineas Lata. Her story was very humorous. It left the audience laughing at loud. Read her blog here.

NoViolet Bulawayo. Author of Hitting Budapest. Particularly loved the fro. Also the name is very unusual. She described herself as a 'literary activist' but unfortunately there was not enough time for her to expand.

Beatrice Lamwaka author of Butterfly Dreams. She had an interesting explanation for why she used the butterfly as a metaphor in her short story. It's because butterflies are difficult to catch, like dreams.

David Medalie, Author of The Mistress' Dog. I really enjoyed his story. It was simple, yet imagined in such detail.

Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the last author on the shortlist, Tim Keegan. He's a Historian, which is right up my street. Ah well.

Of course the perennial question of whether the writer's considered themselves 'African Writers' came up. Eye roll. Been there. Done that. I liked Tim Keegan's answer. He's a white South African and he likes being called an African Writer because being African is part of his identity, even though his skin is white. Short, sweet and simple. Ok folks. Back to the deadlines.

SAN Class of 2011

I don't understand why anyone would wear a scratchy wig and a black gown in such heat. The sweat collecting on them could probably irrigate a farm. Someone needs to redesign ASAP. This colonial mentality has gone too far.

My Song

Everytime I tell people my name is Chibundu, they promptly begin to call me Chibuzo. I have never understood why and I have never seen any benefits to this misnomer. So I was glad to stumble across this song. Now it's my own personal theme song.

Beautiful

Deadlines

Hello readers. I'm afraid I have quite a few writerly deadlines looming and breathing down my neck. So I'm going to take a break from this blog for about 3 weeks. Nigeria was fantastic, my flight back was incredibly comic and I'll tell you all about it when I return. Ka chifo nu.

Sirens

Everyone is a big man in Lagos. Even those you look down on are big men in waiting so be careful how you speak to them. One day, you might be insulting them, the next, they are driving past you in their convoy and splashing rain water on your new clothes. That's how it is in Lagos. Here today, there the next. I love the social mobility of this place. I hate that the most popular way to show that you have arrived is with a siren convoy.

You see, a big man cannot wait in traffic like the rest of us. Even when the most pressing matter on his plate is to go home and cut his finger nails, he still cannot wait in traffic like the rest of us. Come on, can't you see how demeaning that is. A whole big man, sit in his air conditioned car and actually wait to get somewhere. No. Abomination. Switch on that siren now! And it's funny, the Nigerian psyche has been so brutalised by decades of military rule that no-one questions what right this big man has to turn on his siren and force a way through traffic. It's amazing. Once people hear the siren, almost as if by magic, a way begins to be made in the most gridlocked traffic. It is like watching a modern parting of the Red Sea.

Last week, I was sitting on third mainland bridge when one of these big men decided to switch on his siren. The driver taking us home is a rather strong headed individual and he refused to stop or clear to the side for them to pass. That is, until the armed guards in the big man's convoy got out of their vans and began to bang people's cars, telling them to stop and move to the side. Of course the driver stopped after that. Who wan die? As the convoy drove past, I saw the number plate of the main vehicle. It said ADMIRAL 1. If I had a stone on me, I would have hurled it at that car and probably been arrested for attempted murder, like the unfortunate hawker who threw a sachet of Pure Water at a governor's convoy. Thankfully, there was no stone and so I am not typing this from Kiri Kiri maximum security.

As the convoy passed, the driver said, "They didn't born us properly. That's why we must sit in traffic." It's true. We were the one's that were born with one head while they were born with two. That's why a big man cannot queue in this country anymore. For goodness sakes, where are the dividends of democracy, those thieving politicians are always talking about. You mean after a dozen years of having the vote, I still have to clear road because an Admiral is passing? Are we at war with anybody? Is he rushing to command a fleet? If not, he'd better sit in traffic like the rest of us.

The Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola, is famously known for not using a siren when he moves about Lagos. As I have heard him say in an interview, "Sirens are for emergencies. Using one when I move around implies that we are constantly in a state of emergency in Lagos. Which we are not." Unfortunately, B.R.F is leading by example and we all know how famously bad Nigerian leaders are at following good examples. It's about time someone started legislating against this big man syndrome that expresses itself in the unnecessary use of sirens.

I know out of all the problems that face Nigeria, you may think that sirens are the most insignificant but I beg to differ. They are the most visible sign of the culture of impunity that exists among our big men and leaders. A culture that says I am not subject to the same laws as everybody. That's why they steal, that's why they kill, that's why they inflate contract prices. When sirens start getting silenced, other illegal practices may soon follow the same fate.

Literature is Not Dead

The prevalent view is that literature is only for the rich in Nigeria. Poor people don't read. If they do, its by accident and its nothing intellectual. Thus when my Aunt, Mrs. Mobolaji Adenubi, invited me to a meeting of the Association of Nigerian Authors (A.N.A), I had a very clear picture of what the meeting would be like. It would be on the island, because as we all know, nothing posh happens on the mainland. There would be a few expatriates.The people at the venue might be simply dressed but there would be many fancy cars in the parking lot. Now I must confess that I've never been to a literary event in Nigeria before but from looking at pictures and reading the news coverage, the vibe I've gotten has been that these events have swung more towards the aje botas.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the people who attended yesterday's meeting did not belong to the privileged class. Even though it rained terrifically, many of the people present took public transport to make that meeting. You cannot understand the full import of this until you have been caught in Lagos rain. The only umbrella I had was my England one: a sturdy thing that has served me well over there but was no match for the Eko rainy season. I came in a car to the meeting and only had to walk about ten metres to the venue. Yet by the time I reached the entrance, the rain had made a mockery of my umbrella and beaten me well well. Now, imagine coming to such a venue in a danfo or even worse on an okada. Even after sitting under a roof for four hours, there was one lady who still left the venue with damp clothes.

The meeting started about an hour late but that was due to the rain. The roads flood in Nigeria during the rainy season and thus traffic increases exponentially. Again, it wasn't a full house because of the rains but those that came, came with their works, ready to read them. Even I, first timer, was offered a chance at reading to the gathering. There were about five poetry readings and one prose piece. After each, the members would critique and advise. The two poems that caused the most debate were about Africa. One member protested about the blanket use of the 'black' to describe Africans. Another countered that majority of the people in Africa were black and even those in North Africa had dark skin. One member found one poem too optimistic about the state of Africa. In his view, the writer was 'deceiving herself.'

Perhaps it was because he was a man or perhaps because the woman who wrote the poem was a shy, the other women in the group took up her cause and after some close text analysis, dragged the rest of the group to the conclusion that the poem was neither overly optimistic or pessimistic but a good balance. There was one man who read so passionately that he could not remain on his seat. He read his poem twice and each time, he started sitting and by the end he was standing, pacing and declaiming his work.

Even I got my own few minutes. Though I had nothing of my own to read, when my Aunt told Dagga Tolar the Chairman of the Lagos branch that I had a book coming out next year (D.V), he put me next to the guest speaker who had come all the way from Ibadan and did a sort of joint interview with both of us. At the end, a small library of books was brought out for members to peruse. Some of the books were from members who had self published and left a copy of the book with the organisation but quite a few were international works. I spotted a copy of Isabel Allende's House of Spirits. All in all, I enjoyed my first meeting of A.N.A. It has shown me that high culture is for everyone.

Why I'm Not Afraid of Flying Anymore

When I was younger, I loved flying. In fact, I loved the journey more than the destination. Neither London now could live up to the joys I experienced getting there. I am perhaps the only person I know, who loved the steamed mushiness of plane food, the dry air, the glamorous hostesses. Once, we got a surprise up grade to business class on the Belgian airline Sabena. It was perhaps one of the most beautiful memories of my childhood. Then, individual television screens had not reached economy, so to have a personal entertainment system, where you could rewind, pause, and fast forward at will, with a choice of over 50 films, with seats that reclined almost horizontally, with air hostesses offering you extra without you having to ask! It was the life.

As time progressed, flying began to lose its lustre for me. It must have been a gradual deglamorisation but looking back, the change seems stark. One flight, I was wishing England was more than a paltry six hours away, the next, I was counting down the seconds to landing. One flight, the air hostesses were the most sophisticated men and women who had ever been born, the next I was noticing varicose veins and the layers of make up that cracked in the dry air of the plane. Yet, the most pointed marker that my attitude towards flying had changed was that I began to take note of this thing called turbulence.

Thinking logically, there must have been turbulence when I flew as a child. It cannot be that the air has suddenly gotten rougher in the past six years or so. However, I have no recollection of any plane I entered before c 17 shuddering in the air. Then suddenly, one day, I was sitting in my seat, the plane gave a small heave to the left and my heart was beating at a frequency that was abnormal. Half an hour later, the plane dipped a little and again my heart was beating wildly. I was afraid. In a plane, one of my favourite places to be, I was afraid.

Why this sudden change? The truth is simple. I, Imachibundu Onuzo had discovered that I was going to die. You might say that it took me a rather long time to come to this conclusion so let me explain myself before your jump to derision. At about 5 or 6, I found out that everybody was going to die. This did not concern me to much. At about 10/11, I realised that my parents were going to die. Death had become a little more personal. The thought filled me with terror. I calculated how many years my parents could possibly live. I generously gave them I think 90 years but still that meant I would only be about 50 when they left. My mother came home one day to find me sitting on a bed, very still.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"You're going to die," I said, bursting into tears.

"But I'm not ill," she said, perhaps a little alarmed.

"Not now. But you're going to die one day."

She started laughing. "Is that why you're crying? Everyone is going to die one day."

Everyone is going to die one day, the universal truth I had known since I was six but now at c. 11, it was hitting home that everyone included my parents, daddy, mummy. Then finally the penny dropped. Everyone included me. True, it took about six years for this final penny to drop. In the interim, I got pimples, lost some, made friends, lost some, made more, did my first weavon and then suddenly one day, I realised that I, Chibundu Onuzo was going to die. The thought terrified me and it made things that had hitherto been easy, very difficult. I was afraid of entering the tube because I was scared I would be in the same carriage as a terrorist and he would blow himself up and I would die. I was scared of passing between two buses because the driver of one might not see me and he would crush me and I would die. And of course, I was scared of flying because the pilot might fall asleep, the wind might break the plane, the plane engine might explode, so many things could go wrong, then the plane would crash and I would die.

I was a Christian when I was having these crippling fears and after they had eaten up all of my mental peace and quiet, I prayed. Very simply, I wanted to stop being afraid of death. God answered. Very simply I had to start believing in eternal life. Not in the half hearted, lip service, there's a heaven way, but in a very real, practical, heaven is where God is. If you believe the claims of Jesus and follow His teachings, then you have a taste of heaven inside you. When you die, you get the full experience. Shikenna.

Sometime c 18/19 years of age, I started believing this completely again. It's made life a lot easier. I can get on the tube without having palpitations. I can enter a plane. I can eat spicy food. The way I see it, when death comes, however it comes, my spirit will be unzipped from its body suit and fly back to God.

P.S

I went to Houston and Atlanta while I was in America. Now I am back in the motherland. More on that later.

America

America has given me a virus. Not the human kind. The computer kind. For months, I've been surfing the Internet in England: I've gone on secure connections, unsecure, semi secure, everything. Three days in America and gbosa, I have a virus. Now I have no laptop to divert myself I must turn to the television for amusement. But American TV, it's something else. I can't watch any shows here because I find it difficult to follow the story. The main actor says five lines and it switches to fifteen minutes of Buy Orange Juice. By the time the show comes backs, I've forgotten what it's about.

However, watching adverts can prove to be a diversion in itself. You can learn a lot about a country that way. For example, I have deduced that many Americans are overly concerned with their weight. Every other advert is diet this or gastric band that. Every other show is Biggest Loser, How I lost Weight in One year, Help I'm Too Large. Or, if it's not about shedding weight, it's about suing somebody. I kid you not (to use an Americanism) in just three days, I've seen about fifty adverts calling on people to sue somebody. If you've been hit by a car, or slipped on a floor, or taken X medication and have an ingrown nail then call 1-800 SUE. If you think I'm exaggerating, dial that number and find out.

The adverts don't seem to have affected peoples' nature though. You would expect that with so much incitement to legal activity people would be more querulous. Still, I think I've met the most good natured people in America. I pass people on the corridor and instead of doing that furtive eye contact, look away quickly thing that people do in England, or hissing at you like we do in Nigeria, people smile and say hello. I'm not used to smiling at strangers or friends or even close family members.

However, this their friendliness can sometimes tend towards familiarity. At immigration, there was a nice jokey guy at the booth. How you doing today? How was your flight? He asked a few more questions, the answers to which his job required he know. How long are you staying? Where do you go to school in England? What are you studying? "History," I told him. Mr. Immigration officer replied, "History? Why you studying that? You won't get a job with History." If that wasn't enough he added, "You'll need to do a Masters to get a job unless you want to work in the university." I laughed. It was all meant in jest but really, it was a little unexpected for this immigration officer to be giving me career advice on the basis of a three minute meeting.

In other American news, I think I'm getting a warped view of the world from listening to the news here. It seems like only three things are happening: Maria Shriver, IMF guy and Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you don't know what I'm talking about, maybe you live in the real world. I just don't understand it. Even CNN that bastion and paragon of international news has succumbed to the dissection of Maria and Arnold's private life. How can the news anchor be asking me rhetorically, How would you feel if your husband cheated on you and got another woman pregnant at the same time that he got you pregnant? Is this CNN or Jerry Springer? I'm confused. Elsewhere in the world, revolutions might be happening, planes might be crashing, dictators might be tumbling and I'm stuck watching the nitty gritty of Arnold's affair. He's done a bad thing but for goodness sake, let him and his family deal with it in private. Too many panels of amebos have been convened over this issue.

This is not to say that I don't enjoy being in America. I love the place. I can stretch my hands without touching the ceiling, which is a vast improvement on England. I haven't slept so well in months. The cars are bigger, the roads are bigger. There's really nothing to complain about. I'm going to feel like Gulliver in Lilliput when I return to the U.K.

My exams went alright, we thank God. More on that at a later date... maybe.