Join me at SOAS this Thursday

 

I'll be in SOAS on the 29th of March from 6-8pm discussing my book with Ore Disu and Tricia Wombell.

The full venue address is Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS, Brunei Gallery, Thornhaugh St, Russell Square, London, WC1 H0XG.

The nearest tube station is Russell Square on the Picadilly Line.

Full details are here.

Also, a review in the FT. Read here.

And I've uploaded some pictures and reviews I can't post here to my facebook fan page here.

Tabia Princewill Speaks

Musings of a frustrated Corper

To face up to the glaring deficiencies of the dinosaur we call NYSC, government needs to implement more than surface reforms. For many today, NYSC is an ordeal; a necessary evil; a rite of passage whereby one learns to adapt to the flawed codes of conduct in our society. Indeed, NYSC is a foray into the real world which ideally should teach best practices and attitudes conducive to our development and progress as a country. Ironically, the scheme in its current configuration does quite the opposite.

Corpers are regarded as cheap labour by the organisations who employ them and one very often spends the service year running errands, some highly degrading others simply pointless and non relevant to the job at hand. There is no obligation for the corporate world or even the public sector for that matter, to train the corpers they take on. Rather, youth service becomes a sort of demeaning servitude. Let us speak plainly about the real issues at stake and go beyond surface reforms: female corps members are harassed not because they have no martial arts training (contrary to what proposed reforms would have us believe) but because there is little to protect them from sometimes predatory and unwanted attention. Their inability to mimic Karate masters is irrelevant. It is the very philosophy of NYSC, the unequal relationships between corpers and their would be co-workers that is the problem.

Different sets of rules apply for individuals depending on their class, social status or occupation. Corpers, hard working graduates called to serve their country, are perceived as being at the very bottom of the social pyramid rather than the nation’s pride. So they are ridiculed and taken advantage of. Despite the present reforms there is still nothing to protect corps members as concurrently there is no social security net to protect the poor, the elderly and the weak in our society. NYSC currently is an exercise in adaptation to the functioning of a dysfunctional society: a way of learning in practical terms about inequality and injustice.

So what is the point of NYSC? Beyond the objective of national integration, what is a corper meant to gain at the end of his or her service year beyond an often thoroughly degrading and sometimes even traumatizing experience where girls face the lewd advances of men in a position of power and young men are frustrated and angered by the fact that after being used in all sorts of ways, most companies will not retain them? Our government asks Nigerians to love their country, serve it with all their heart and mind, respect their leaders and the laws of the land but gives nothing or little in return. No modern society is based on such unequal dealings. The National Youth Service Corps must provide young people with a career path, a set of skills from which they can earn a living. This should be the core requirement of the scheme, a key term of the contract between the Federal Government and all organisations in both the private and public domain.

NYSC can not be a success, will not add value to both corpers and organisations if there is no training process or clearly defined tasks for corpers to undertake during their service year. As for being retained, so few companies do. This should not be so. Abroad, many organisations hire interns for the year and review their performance at the end of said year. It is impossible to offer a job to everyone, but it is unheard of to offer a job to virtually no one besides the children of those who have family or friends in the organization. As for corpers in the public sector, for them too there should be the possibility of a career path beyond NYSC.

 The current reformist idea is to post corpers mostly to rural areas in dire need of the manpower to develop these communities. The problem here is that corpers are regarded as ‘manpower’ and not as individuals with dreams and aspirations and who deserve, just like anyone else, to have a fighting chance at achieving their potential. Should corpers pay for the inefficiencies of governments who were not able to develop rural areas? Serious reform is not to decide that corpers should solely be posted to rural areas where they can serve their country as teachers and doctors when they might have no desire, interest or more importantly ability to do so, thus creating another generation of dissatisfied Nigerians who take out their frustrations on the future youths they encounter!

The path to real reform is to ensure that corpers in different sectors are properly trained for a job and acquire skills and prospects. A nation which fails the youth by its inability to provide them with a decent future is surely failing in its developmental objectives. I would also like to remind government that “without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive” (John F. Kennedy) so rather than believe criticism to be the work of enemies, real, spiritual and imagined I would like to urge government to act. As the grunt of Nigerians continues to suffer government’s inaction in silence, as some members of society respond to their frustrations through violence, one can only hope that we are all able to rise to the responsibility and challenge of creating a better Nigeria.

                                                                                                Tabia Princewill

Tabia Princewill is currently a corper in Lagos. 

Blog for the Thought Fox

 

"I started writing The Spider King’s Daughter when I was 17, got an agent at 18, signed with Faber at 19, finished editing while 20 and got published at 21. Condensed into this sentence, the whole thing looks incredibly neat and simple. That’s what summarising things does and this is why in my first cover letter to my agent, I refused to write a synopsis of my book. With only thirty-three pages written, I technically couldn't have produced a summary. However, as I was also ideologically opposed to the synopsis, I informed my future agent: “I usually miss the point of summaries so I have enclosed the first three chapters for you to read and find out what the novel is about.” I am quoting from memory but the obnoxious sentiment is accurately transcribed."


Read the rest here. 

 

Also, I'll be at the Southbank tomorrow with Noo Saro Wiwa tomorrow.. Join us if you can. More details here.

BBC Radio Scotland

On BBC Scotland's 'The Book Café' tomorrow at 1.15. Tune in if you're free. You can tune in online here. You can also catch my short story Easter Sunday on iplayer until Thursday this week. Click here to listen. My story starts at about 32 minutes but the entire show is great so I'd listen to all of it. :) Have a lovely week.

Short Story on Radio 3!

My reading of my short story Easter Sunday will be on Radio 3's Verb tonight at 10 pm. To listen live online click here or do it the old fashioned way and tune in on your radio.

N.E.P.A

Growing up, many evenings and nights were spent in darkness. I did not mind too much when the power was cut off in the afternoon. Though the house became dim, there was still enough light to read and play Ludo and hopscotch. It was around 6pm when N.E.P.A had still not brought light that the absence of electricity became annoying. There were candles but reading by candle light had been embargoed by my mother for fear we would be partially blind before we reached our teenage years. So between 7pm when we ate and 9- 10pm when we slept, there was a lot of time to kill.

Sometimes we played with fire. This could take up a good half hour. We started by running our fingers through the candle flame. There was no winner in this game but the slower you passed your finger through the flame, the more of a pro you were. If you ran your finger through very quickly, you didn't feel anything and chicken that I was, I always took this option. Also, there was the two finger candle game where you tried to put out the flame by pinching it between your thumb and your index finger. I never attempted this round but some of the maids would show off  by putting out the flame in this fashion. Then of course there was the candle wax game, which entailed spilling the molten wax on your hands and then scraping it off when it cooled.

However, my personal favourite was the matches game. You took a match, held it to the flame and let it catch fire. You then held it for as long as you possibly could. The further down the match the flame burned, the more proficient you were at this game. One of my proudest moments was when I managed to burn the whole match stick, right from its sulfuric head to its wooden stump. Usually, I could only burn the match for a few seconds before the heat got too close to my fingers and I dropped it. Then one day, I realised that if I held the charred end, I could burn the whole match with ease. After I'd beaten the system, I grew tired of the match game.

I tell this story because over the weekend I went to a seafood restaurant which was mostly lit by candle light. And it wasn't any of those fancy scented candles but the thick, white wax ones that I grew up with it. Of course, we began playing with the flame. I would break off pieces of wax and liquidize them in the blue part of the flame. I would spill the melted wax down the side of the candle. My friend opposite me even ran her finger through, a feat I found I no longer had the liver for. I don't know how but at some point, I tipped the candle too far and the molten wax that builds up under the flame spilled onto the back of my hand. I flinched but to my surprise I was able to chest the pain and even enjoyed scraping the wax off when it hardened.

After we got tired of playing with the flames, we made shadow puppets. I wasn't very good at this, my fingers are quite clumsy, but my cousins could do some wonderful shapes. I never progressed past the perfunctory butterfly but others could act out complete dramas on the walls. When we tired off puppets, we moved to singing. I played the piano, my sister would drum on our much bruised dining table and we would all sing, soprano, alto and tenor. I can still play with my eyes closed because of this training in the half light of the candles.

Sometimes we would go to bed without them having brought light. Other times the light would come suddenly, mid-song. The electricity would startle us, our eyes would squint at the artificial brightness of it and the flame would suddenly lose its magic.  "Up NEPA!" we would shout but we didn't mean it entirely. We had been enjoying  the camaraderie of the candle. With electricity there was no excuse for sitting together and singing. To switch off all the lights and continue making shadow puppets would be foolish when work clothes had to be ironed. And why play with wax when you could watch TV. So we would disperse until the next time NEPA had not brought light by evening and there was not enough diesel to power the generator.

A few months ago I was in America during a storm and the power was cut off. In the evening, candles were lit all over the house that only a day before had consumed an entire village's supply of electricity. It was my favourite night of the trip. This is how things should be sometimes, I thought as I played my uncle's piano with my eyes closed. This is how it should be.

An Evening with Chika Unigwe

Photo Courtesy Ike Anya

The reading was in a swanky South Kensignton hotel called The Gore. The event was organised by the Dutch Embassy and was billed to start at 7pm. At 7:15 I rushed breathless into the hotel lobby and was  pleased to discover that the Dutch are as flexible with their time as their Nigerian counterparts. There was a nice, dim waiting area and the main event was downstairs.

It was an informal space, with a few sofas against the walls and a wide floor space in the middle. Nigerian that I am, I sharply found a sofa arm to perch on. Sitting on the floor outside your house is just not done. Before the reading began, Chika mingled with her fans. She was gracious, greeting people like me who she's only met once, very warmly. By the time we were ready to start the room had filled up.

She read from a short story called The Love of a Fat Woman. It was about a Nigeriam man who'd married a woman he found unattractively and nauseatingly fat, in order to get immigration papers in the Netherlands. It's a common story that most Africans are familiar with. Interesting, however, was the manner in which this story was told. Chika neither condemned nor condoned the practice but rather wished to humanise it and did so in a very humorous way. The anti-hero prefers his fiance's svelte and attractive friend but she doesn't not notice him. So he settles for the papers that unfortunately come with a corpulent bride attached to them. When he takes her home he promises his mother that he will marry a 'real wife' later on.

 We felt for the main character's over weight and insecure fiancé who believed that their love was genuine. But we also understood why the main character felt that this deception was the only way. We were moved by his close relationship with his family and because of that, it wasn't so easy to write him off as a cruel and unfeeling paper hunter.

The next story she read was  told from the perspective of his relatives at home and their reaction to the Agaracha's new wife. I found this different outlook on events hilarious. His brother's wife, speaking of the Dutch bride's size, described her as a 'room and parlour.' Her earrings which were wooden had to be African because they did not look like they came from anywhere else and there was a lot of wood in Africa. They tried to offer her Western food but she refused insisting on eating pounded yam and even worse, insisting on eating it with her hands. Her in-laws rather uncharitably concluded that she was trying too hard.

Chika and her fans. :) Photo courtesy Tokunboh @toksy27

Too soon the reading segment ended and we had reached the QandA. In the second short story she read, she had written in English, Dutch and Igbo and one member of the audience asked how she found the process of moving through those languages in her writing. She spoke of how and why she learnt Dutch. She used to suffer panic attacks because after she moved to Belgium with her husband, she couldn't go anywhere by herself because she didn't understand a word of the language. And when she met her in-laws, she couldn't understand them either. So she had to pick up the language quickly.

She spoke about Belgium and why she had felt compelled to write 'On Black Sisters Street', her novel about Nigerian prostitutes working in the red light district. She described the Catholic home she had grown up as one where sex was rarely talked about. One of her favourite songs in her childhood was 'Let's Talk About Sex' by Salt and Pepper. However, the word sex was such a taboo that she substituted it with 'bread.' So whenever she sang it, the song became,  "Let's talk about bread baby." I can imagine that the next line would be, "Let's talk about yeast and dough."
 Dry.
 I know.

So anyway, coming from this background, to get to Belgium and see sex everywhere was certainly a different experience. She described women in their lingerie, posing in glass windows waiting for their customers and she discovered that many of the girls were Nigerian and in particular from Benin. So at first, she tried to write the story without meeting the girls and on showing it to someone, they advised her to meet the women if she wanted an authentic story. So she put on her mini-skirt and took her husband with her to the red light district to meet them. The stories she heard were harrowing. One girl had been invited to Germany by her estranged father who had then sent her to live with a 'friend' in another European country. This 'friend' had run a brothel and the proceeds of her work had been sent to her father in Germany. She told of women without papers arrested by police and allowed to leave on the condition that they slept with the police men first.

She also, very excitingly, said that her next book was coming out in June. It's set in Nigeria and is about a relationship between a mother and a daughter. And her next-next book is going to be a work historical fiction set in the eighteenth century. I'm very, very excited about that one, being a history student et al. It's just been delivered to her agent so hopefully, we'll see that on the shelves soon as well.

And then just like that the evening was over and it was time to go and face the more mundane things of life like grocery shopping and dissertation writing. Chika closed to applause and flowers, which was exactly what you would expect.   

Black Book Swap

So this Saturday I'm going to be reading at the first ever Black Book Swap. It's free, so do come along if you're not busy this weekend between 1 and 5pm. There's a great line up, including Colin Grant, Sonja Lewis and Bim Adewunmi of Diane Abbott twitter fame among other things. It's going to be in the fabulous Jamaican restaurant Cottons, (70 Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QP) so come if only for the jerk chicken. To reserve a place email blackbookswap@gmail.com. I've updated the events page on the blog to show all my upcoming events so even if you can't make this Saturday, there'll be other readings. Hope to see you at one of them.  

Full details here.

Awoof Tales

I do not intend that this post serve as an analysis of  the Nigerian behavioural pattern known as 'awoof'.' Neither do I want to discover the etymology of this word, interesting though such a process might be. What I am concerned in documenting, is three instances where this behaviour has risen to the surface of the cultivated exterior that I and my close ones often try to exhibit. I leave analysis and explanation for another more appropriate forum.

1. A few weeks ago, whilst perambulating down my university corridors, I noticed a rather large crowd gathered in a rather large room appropriately called the Great Hall.
"What's going on?" I asked the lady making sure that only those who attended King's were admitted access into the usually unmanned Great Hall.
"It's a law careers fair."

I was on my way somewhere but hearing that a careers fair was in town, my plans for the day were suspended. This of course would make sense if I was interested in pursuing a career in the law. But I am not. I rescheduled my plans for the day because I knew that wherever a careers fair is, freebies must also be there. So I presented my student ID and was let into the hall.

And what a hubbub of law firms all welcoming passing students to their stalls. In the corner, I spied some snazzy pens. On the far right were mugs. To my left were water bottles. Where to begin? I took a step forward and stopped. What was my strategy? After all, I couldn't just walk up to a stall, grab its free goods and run off to the next one, only to do the same. A pattern would soon be observed. A girl of African descent, sidling up to a desk, snatching a highlighter and then making a dash to the next table two feet away. I realised that I would have to strike up conversation at every law firm whose freebies caught my eye in order not to give my people back home a bad name.

What a boring task it was. These lawyers can talk. And talk. And talk. At first I just made mmmm sounds, waiting for their monologues to be over so I could ask,"Please may I have a five-headed highlighter?"

Quite by accident, I struck on a way to make these talks more interesting. One lady, who intended to make me work for my gel pen, asked at the end of her speech, 'Do you have any questions?"
 "Umm. Do you have-- Umm, do you guys do any human rights law?"
"Umm. No. Not really. We have some clients in Africa though."

Each law firm rep, took a different approach to this question. Some, like the first lady were embarrassed by their firm's lack of altruism. Others looked at me like I was stupid before replying, "Of course not." And one lady said to me, when I had walked through the halls and by this time was laden with my loot and a little weary, "To be honest, you won't find anyone who does human rights law here. I wanted to go into that for a while and the best thing to do is to look online." Ah, honesty from a lawyer. How refreshing.

Eventually, I struggled my way through the doors, carrying almost half my weight in freebies and law brochures. I left the brochures on a College Bench for anyone who was interested and went on my merry way, eating my giant lollipop.


2. My sister was fortunate enough to get to the final stages of an interview with a large multinational. Lucky for her, the interview was in luxury hotel in the country. She gushed about how beautiful the place was. The large rooms, the excellent breakfast and of course, the bathroom. For some reason, of all rooms in the house, Nigerians are most enamoured with the bathroom. Perhaps it is because our heavy diets ensure that we spend large portions of our time in there. Anyway, my sister oohed and aahed over the wide mirrors, the deep tub, the towels and then she spotted the soap. It was the same colour as cognac: dark liquid orange and it was kept in a glass carafe.

Needless to say, my sister came back with one. Now before you start shouting and saying, "We knew it! Awoof runs in their family!" let me explain how my sister returned with this rather weighty souvenir. At the end of her stay, she had considered taking the carafe. It was beautiful, stylish, just the right thing to improve the tone of our bathroom at home. But then she thought better about it. This was not like taking a plastic bottle of shampoo or a face flannel, this was more akin to stealing. So she left the hotel as she came, awoof free.

On the train journey back however, she sat with her Nigerian friend from primary school who had also incidentally been called for the interview. Of course, they spent ten minutes gushing about the room. Then the breakfast, those scrambled ehn, freshly laid by a chicken that morning.Then they got to the bathroom. Oh the bathroom. That wonderful place. My sister expressed regret at the morals that stopped her from permanently borrowing the hotel's beautifully packaged shower gel.

Her friend laughed long and hard and then opened her bag. Inside were not one but two glass bottles. One with shampoo, one with shower gel. This friend was generous however, and gave one bottle to my sister. It still sits on our bathroom rim till this day and we refill it and ooh and ahh over the lovely way the glass displays the different colours of shower gel we have poured into it.


3. I have an aunt who was on extended stay in America. We visited her and at some point, went shopping at a well-heeled supermarket. When we got to the till, she declined the woman's offer of bagging and said that we would do it ourselves. Meaning I would do the bagging. As the goods were passed to me, I began to put them in a single bag.
"Double bag them," she said. Some of the goods were quite heavy, so her request was understandable.
I double bagged, and moved on to the next items.
"You're putting too many things in one bag."
I thought the amount of around five items per bag was quite reasonable but clearly my aunt didn't think so. She shoved me aside and I watched as she put a tin of sweetcorn in a plastic bag and then double bagged that. A cabbage was triple bagged, a pack of chewing disappeared into four plastic bags.

The till lady was staring at us but my aunt did not seem to notice. When all the items had been scanned she paid. I went behind the trolley, ready to go when she grabbed a handful of about twenty plastic bags and shoved them into a double-bagged bag of peanuts.
"For good measure," she said as we walked back to her black, SUV.

Now that ladies and gentlemen is how you do awoof.

N.B
Awoof does not directly translate to freebie but nothing reasonable came up when I google imaged 'awoof Nigeria'.

Black Humour in South Africa

These two comedians are using comedy to address South Africa's racist past and the issues arising today from it.

Here are the first lines of the Reconciliation Song
"Make a white friend, don't be afraid of them,
I know that their great-great-great grandparents....
Probably killed yours
But that was back then."

Too controversial or just the right tone to confront the problems about race in South Africa today.

Opening a Bank Account in Nigeria

Last summer, I got a writing gig in Nigeria and it was a paying gig. The problem was I didn't have a bank account to cash the cheque. I asked around and the majority of people I spoke to said I should bank with a certain new generation bank.

"They're the best."

"Most modern."
"Most efficient."
 I don't know how comparatively onerous opening a bank account in Nigeria is but as I find all form filling challenging, I knew the experience was not going to be fun. I went to my aunt's office on the fateful day. She was opening a company account so she asked the two men handling that account to bring forms for a current account.

One of the men was dressed in a normal suit and tie get up, the recognisable uniform of most Nigerians who work in the higher end industries of banking, telecoms and petroleum marketing. The other, who would prove the more obnoxious, was wearing a dark blue sweater over his shirt and tie. I don't know why but this really annoyed me. In this heat, somebody was walking around Lagos in such a thick sweater? Rationally, I knew why most office workers in Nigeria dressed for an English autumn day. Often, the air conditioning in their offices was turned down to such goose bumpingly cold temperatures that most carried jumpers, pashminas and extra blazers to work. Why someone didn't just increase the air conditioning temperature has always been beyond me? 

Thus, I understood why this man might have felt the need to wear a sweater in his office. But he was out of that office and the room we were in had only one fan. "Aren't you hot?" I wanted to ask.

I was handed the form. Name: Chibundu Onuzo. DOB: easy enough. Then I got to state of origin and things began to get a little complicated. First of all, why does a bank want to know my state of origin? 

"Aunty S," I said, "Is it ok if I put Lagos?" I had consulted her before I filled most of the preceding lines. 

"No, I don't think so."

"You can't," the sweatered man said. "I've never heard of a Chibundu from Lagos."

I tried to explain to them that I had once heard Governor Fashola say that everyone born in Lagos was from Lagos. They were having none of it. I tried to point out that my Grandfather who hailed from Ijebu Ode originally, collected a National Honour as a Lagosian because he had lived there for so long. They were having none of it. I am sad to say that between my aunt and sweater man, I was cowed into putting Imo as my state of origin. In a way, it is my state of origin because it is where my father is from but then so is Ogun State because that is where my mother is from and so is Lagos state because that is where I was born. Surely I should be allowed to choose which I put on my bank form without interference? 

At some point, sweater man said to me, "You know you need a minimum of 50k to open a current account with us."

"50K are you serious? Isn't that expensive?" I had enough money, just with the skin of my teeth, but I was wondering how the average Nigerian could have such an account when the opening fee was so high.

"Some banks charge more," sweater man said as if to suggest that an opening fee almost triple the minimum wage was generous.

"But how can people who aren't rich afford it? That's too much surely?"

"Well it used to be free to open a current account. Then all these market women came and started opening accounts."

"What's wrong with that?"

"They'll just come to the banks and be making the place smell. They have their own co-operative banks they can use if they want to put their money somewhere."

I could not believe what I was hearing. Really and truly I was speechless. To disregard the informal economy of market women when in its entirety it was worth billions of Naira.  It's the kind of thing you suspect bankers are always thinking about the little fry that deposit small amounts but to here one actually say: we don't want their custom; they're not our kind of customer. He was unperturbed by the shocked look on my face so I went on filling my form in silence.

In the end, after all that wahala, the form bounced. I had failed to fill a section correctly and as I was travelling the next day, I never got a chance to alter my mistake. I'm glad. I want to live in Nigeria one day and I will probably need a bank account but I will try and steer clear of this new generation bank which is too proud to take the money of market women.

P.S
Funny video I saw first on Jeremy's naijablog.

Graduate with a CV

The Minister for Youth Development in Nigeria, Mr. Bolaji Abdullahi has come again. It seems for the Nigerian corper, one week one trouble is the recurring theme. The government has not effectively addressed how corpers can go to the toilet without having to squat over a hole in the ground. Yet, our Minister for Youth Development has come up with a new plan to completely re-design the NYSC scheme. If he is successful, from next year NYSC will 'post corpers to rural areas only with no provision for redeployment.' Mind you, Mr Abdullahi of course is very sympathetic to the plight of the youths. In his own words, 'Corpers would no longer be posted to banks and other organizations where they are always being rejected.' They will now be posted to villages where their main concern will be 'agriculture, rural health, infra structure and education.' Mr Abdullahi's idea it seems is to turn our graduates into farmers using primitive instruments because I for one, have never seen a tractor in my village. 

This talk of reform got me thinking of a conversation I had with my cousin last year about the NYSC. He currently lives and works in America and I asked him when he was going back to serve. Never, he said. He felt the system was useless as it failed to provide students with meaningful work experience. He then continued to detail the direction he wished to see NYSC reforms going in. With a little editing (cutting out the bad bb speak), I'm just going to cut and paste that conversation here. Let me know what you think.

E: NYSC should be incorporated  into the university system. That is where it will be beneficial.
Me: Ehen go on. Explain.
E: It is a form of internship (since the job is not guaranteed)
Me: So when should you do it. Over summer or something?
E: It would be beneficial to incorporate it to a student's major so they can get a taste of what they would be doing when they graduate. Over summer for their third and final year.
Me: So twice. Some universities here do a year out type of thing.
E: We have it here, it is not mandatory but people get it in their third year and intern the whole semester. It also counts as college credit. And you get paid as well.
Me: By who, the job or the university?
E: The job.
Me: But university is already so long in Naija what with strikes etc. Some people just want to graduate sam.
E: The job pays them, the student pays the school and gets credit towards the degree.
Me: Ah I see. If it was added to your degree, you wouldn't have to spend an extra year. Then the options could be: do NYSC for a year as credit for university or graduate and do it, thus spending five years.
E: Well it could be mandated.
Me: That's not fair. In America etc its by choice isn't it. Too much by force tings for Naija.
E: It is, but we don't have NYSC. So if you have to mandate something, mandate it when folks can actually apply what they are learning.
Me: It's not a bad idea. And that way people can actually get relevant work experience because sometimes, you are posted to things you don't have a background in.
E: Exactly. You graduate with a 'CV'
Me: That can be the tagline. 'Graduate with a CV.' But wait! What about the foreign graduates. They must suffer too.
E: Why does it have to be considered suffering? The camps are a waste of time. It is another avenue for politicians to chop. It is not needed.
Me: This is true. But that community development part should be there. It's important. How will foreign students get that?
E: How many people utilise the community development?
Me: You'd be surprised. People in rural areas don't have much choice really. It's the people posted to Lagos etc that skive.
E: The money that would be spent on the upkeep of NYSC should be allocated to specific individuals to perform these tasks.
Me: I don't get.
E: It will create more jobs sef. What does community development entail?
Me: One day a week you do CD and the remaining days are for your job/work experience. So for example, M[another cousin] was posted to work in a school and she was an SS2 English teacher in a state school for a year. Also, another thing about NYSC is its supposed to create national unity.
E: Chibundu you have more sense than this nah. What is supposed to happen and what actually happen are totally different. The sad part is that the actual vision of NYSC has been lost and now we hear all the ills that are going on in these camps.
Me: No but people still get posted all over Nigeria. A new scheme has to incorporate the ideals of the old. Maybe your work experience must be found in a state you don't live in and you can then do community development one day a week during your stay in that state.

That's how far we got before the conversation petered out and moved on to more trivial things. But what do you think about my cousin's 'Graduate with a CV' idea? I think it's excellent. There are still some holes. How does one incorporate foreign graduates into such a system for example? But for the bulk of students who take part in this scheme and are Nigerian graduates, I think such a plan would be a massive improvement. What say ye?

An Evening With Lamido Sanusi

He was crisp, the kind of man you can imagine refused to wear rumpled clothes to school when he was a child. Slight of frame, he walked in with a shrinking gait, head down but once he stood behind the podium he grew more comfortable. His speech was clipped, almost British in cadence. He started off with a self deprecating joke. "I've been told that this is the closest I will ever get to a Nobel lecture," he said, clutching the podium. So this is the Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, I thought as I settled down in my seat.

His talk was titled 'The Global Banking Crisis: an African Banker's Response' and  even though at times he retreated into an obscure financial lexis of mutual funds, recapitalisation and long term financing, I could generally follow the gist of what he was saying.

In 2007-2008 when the first round of the global crisis hit, Nigeria was spared the impact because in many ways, our financial market is isolated from the big deals. In the second wave of 2009, Nigeria took a hit. Oil prices crashed from $147 a barrel in 2007 to $47 a barrel in 2009 and our crude oil based economy took a plunge. According to Sanusi, in 2007 the Nigerian stock exchange was one of the best performing in the world. By 2009 we were one of the worst performing. It was in this same year that Sanusi became Central Bank Governor. He was too modest to say that since his advent the banking industry in Nigeria has changed for the better but this can be inferred from what he told us next.

With banks about to collapse, the Central Bank stepped in. The industry was a mess. Banks were lending people's savings to speculators and petroleum marketers who rarely repaid their loans. Some banks owned 25% of themselves and traded in their own stock. Sanusi spoke of the 'biggest fool theory' where someone who bought a share for $10, sold it off to a bigger fool for $12 who sold it off to an even bigger fool for $15 who after some wrangling sold it to the biggest fool for $20. At which point the biggest fool realised nobody would buy it from him for higher than $20 and the value of his stock plummeted.

Sanusi spoke of a culture of failing banks in Nigeria where C.E.Os would run their banks aground with poor management, the government would take over and these C.E.Os would go and build houses abroad, come back to Nigeria and become senators and governors. In Sanusi's words, "Banks don't fail. They are cured. We were going to save the banks and find the people who killed the banks." On further inspection, after the Central government had taken over some of these  banks on the verge of extinction, it was discovered that it wasn't just poor management that had killed these banks but blatant fraud. Lenders and borrowers were the same people. Money had been taken out of the bank to buy real estate abroad. In one case, 200 pieces of Dubai real estate were found to be owned by a C.E.O.

What followed was a process of carrot and bulala from the C.B.N. Every bank CEO who had been in office for ten years was forced to leave. Most had become entrenched, too powerful for their boards or workers to resist their schemes, whether legitimate or illegitimate. Non-executive directors who had been sitting on a board for over twelve years had to leave. And on the part of the executive, no C.B.N governor could take an appointment in the private financial sector for 5 years after leaving office to get rid of allegations that the C.B.N governor had made policies that would benefit him in his retirement from office. As a result of these new measures and investigation, Sanusi stated that 'we have so far jailed one bank C.E.O and are looking to jail two more.'

On the carrot side, Sanusi organised a weekend away with the C.E.Os of all the banks in Nigeria to find out what went wrong. It was the first meeting of its kind where the C.B.N and the private banking sector had a chance to talk in an informal setting. As Sanusi surmised, there was a 'complete disconnect between the balance sheets of banks and the real economy.' In a country where 42% of the work force was connected to agriculture, why was only 3% of bank lending devoted to this sector? To put it simply the banks were afraid. To lend large amounts to any sectors outside telecommunications and oil and gas seemed too huge a risk in a country like Nigeria.

A country that grew tomatoes locally but was the world's biggest importer of tomato puree; a country  whose highest UK import was refined petroleum, a country that exported imported petrol to other West African countries, a country that imported 5 year old rice from grain reserves, Sanusi even quipped, a country where "General Abacha conducted free and fair elections in Liberia when we didn't have elections in Nigeria. We actually exported democracy." In such a topsy turvy place, you can see why banks were afraid to invest in anything other than the proven cash cows: petroleum and telecommunications.

Of course, the subsidy issue came up. Early on in the evening he joked, 'If there are any Nigerians with shoes, please warn before you throw them.' He added before the QandA session began, 'I've read all the facebook comments. I know half of the people in this room are not happy with me over subsidy.' And in true form, once given the opportunity, many in the audience zeroed in on this issue of subsidy removal.

Sanusi taking questions

Just as an aside, our people can be very funny. Some stood up and listed all their qualifications before they finally got to their question. Really, do we all have to know what your Common Entrance score was before you ask your question? Others didn't ask questions but made impassioned speeches about the unfairness of subsidy removal. One audience member asked in what I assume was a rhetorical question, "If the UK government catches people claiming welfare benefits they are not entitled to, will they decide to scrap welfare altogether?" I'll leave you to draw the link between his question and the removal of the petrol subsidy.

We've all heard the economic pros and cons of subsidy removal. For perhaps the millionth time in the last 23 days, Lamido said, 'I don't have any ideological opposition to subsidy but subsidise production." He added that the subsidy was a hedge because there was no arrangement for rising oil prices so sometimes the government in paying a subsidy, paid more than the consumers 65N. He explained that subsidy payments were made on the basis of documents. 'If you bring me documents saying you brought in 10 million litres of fuel, I will pay you 7.5 billion. If you're a Nigerian, you will bring me those documents." On the matter of policing smuggling of subsidised petrol to West Africa, he pointed out that 22 out of 36 states in Nigeria shared land borders with other countries. He painted a grim picture of the furlongs of barbed wire that would be needed to secure such borders. Even in his adamant defense of subsidy removal, he was at least gracious enough to admit that government had failed in communicating the policy to the people.

What I enjoyed more than this subsidy rhetoric, was Sanusi's poking fun at Nigerians. He spoke of how at a meeting of bankers he had said, "The Nigerian stock exchange has a total capitalisation of $40 billion." Those assembled had applauded. Next he said to them, "This makes ours the third largest stock exchange in Africa." Again, more applause. He concluded, "Yet that is only equivalent of half of the total value of Goldman Sachs...after the financial crisis." The room went silent.

And of course there is the characteristic irreverence he shows to those in power, making you forget for a moment that he is one of them. He joked that the people who complained most about the C.B.N cashless economy initiative, were those who needed to carry Ghana must go bags of cash around in the night. He added that whenever he goes abroad and people ask, 'how come oil prices are going up and foreign reserves in Nigeria are going down?" he would very much like to answer, "Because people are stealing the money."

I found myself warming to Sanusi. It was unfortunate that nobody asked what austerity measures government members were applying to their pay cheques now that they were making the country swallow the bitter pill of subsidy removal. It would have been even better to find out what measures Sanusi himself was taking to make sure his expenses sheet tallied with this mood of austerity. Perhaps such a question would have made him squirm and his effortless delivery may have stuttered. But I doubt it. The man is a cool fish.    

He ended his talk by saying that 2012 is the year of the woman. The C.B.N will allow loans taken by women at single digit rates of interest. It is well known that women are the driven force in small and medium scale enterprises. I will clink my glass to such a policy any day.

The First Time I Was Corrupt

It was in secondary school. I was thirteen. We were going for a state wide basketball competition. Ten girls and ten boys were chosen but each team would be made up of only five. Five would play, five would be subs. I wanted to play, badly. Every Tuesday and Thursday for the past month or so, I had woken up at 5am to jog round the school compound. I had run sprints and shot hoops in the half morning light. Every time I missed a shot, I complained about the poor light. I would have made it in the afternoon, I protested when the ball left my hand and bounced off the rim. I made the ten. I was on the bus, going for the tournament. But would I make the five?

We got to the venue: a large but shabby state school. The hoops were sparse metal rims. No netting hung down from them, like in the NBA. Our first match was scheduled. We went to our court. Our P.E teacher, Mrs O, read out five names. None were mine. She must have seen the fallen faces of the rejected five because she said to us,
"Don't worry. There are many matches today."

The match began. The rival team scored early. Mrs O began to grow agitated on the sidelines.
"Amaka shoot!"
"Deola pass the ball!"
"Shoot! Shoot!"
We were losing, time was passing. Mrs. O called a halftime.
"Deola come and sit down. Chibundu go on."

Me. I was going to play. Me!

The referee brought the sheet that had to be filled whenever a player stepped on the court. Standard questions, Name, School, Age.
Name. Mrs O wrote Chibundu Onuzo.
School. Mrs O wrote Atlantic Hall, Poka-Epe.
Age.
"How old are you?" Mrs O asked, her pen poised above the page, impatient to write. Time was going.
"Thirteen."
"Ah this tournament is for twelve and under."
"But I'm thirteen."
"It doesn't matter. I'll just put twelve."
"Wait," I said, my heart beginning to pound.

It's not that I hadn't lied before. Lies a plenty filled my past. Who drank my Fanta? Who wore my skirt? Who moved my cheese? All questions, I had lied to. But to lie on an official document. To lie about something as fundamental as my age. To tell such a lie, though sanctioned by my teachers, went against everything my parents had ever taught me.

"If I don't put twelve, you can't play."

And I'm afraid to say that sealed the deal for me. Not play, after waking up so many mornings. Not play, after driving two hours to reach this venue. Not play and let one of the other subs take my place. Tofia.

So with my heart pounding, I walked onto the field. Needless to say, I was rubbish. I missed the ball when it was thrown to me. When I caught it, I lost it immediately. I couldn't concentrate. My lie hung too heavily on me. I could hear Mrs. O screaming on the sidelines but it did nothing to spur me on. When a pass I intended for a team mate, ended up in the hands of an opponent who scored a few seconds later, Mrs O shouted, "Time out. Chibundu come and sit down. Deola, you're going back on."

I walked back to the side benches. The other subs made room for me as they offered their condolences.
"You did ok."
"You'll do better in the next match."
"Don't worry."
But I wasn't sad. I was relieved. For the rest of the day, I watched my mostly thirteen and fourteen year old team mates cruise to the silver medal position. When the medals came, even the subs got them. I wore mine proudly around school but secretly, inside, I was glad I had nothing to do with the winning of it.

It was my first taste of corruption and it left a funny feeling in my mouth, like the taste of fruity lip balm, sweet but toxic nonetheless. Hitherto, I had never been directly complicit in anything corrupt. True, bribes had been given on my behalf. I had sat in the car and watched the driver pass money to the low ranking officials whenever we were flagged down for no reason at a police checkpoint.
"Give us something," the bluntest of the police men would say as we pulled over. I was relieved when the drivers paid. I was afraid of the guns but every time money changed hands, I was also angry.
"When I'm older," I would say to the driver after we had driven off, "When I'm older and I have my own car, I won't give those people money."
"If you don't give them," the most pragmatic of the drivers once explained to me, "they will make your life hell for nothing. Better to just give them the twenty Naira and go your way."
I would be different, I thought. I would be the one who would stand by the roadside and refuse to compromise my integrity for the sake of my convenience. Yet, how easily my moral defenses had crumbled when I had to choose between them and something I wanted.

I imagine it is the same for many of our bloated politicians. It is true, some have always been thieves but enough were scrupulous enough in their private careers, for one to wonder how such volte faces took place. We have watched honest enough doctors become thieves. We have watched cabinet members who were highly ranked in the private sector and relatively honest there, become treasury robbers over night. We have watched speakers of the house come from abroad, where they never had criminal records, and begin to dream up the most inventive acts of fraud.

I had never had the opportunity to lie about my age and I had never had the motivation to do so. I imagine it is the same for many of our politicians. Opportunities to steal abound. Motivations to steal can always be found. School fees are due, new house is needed in the village, wife wants diamond earrings for anniversary and of course, chances of getting caught are slim. If I knew that someone would check my passport after Mrs. O wrote that I was twelve, I would have snatched that pen from her.

I want to live in Nigeria one day. And if this happens in the near future it is likely that the opportunities for corruption will still abound. I hope that I will not look for motivation and will dismiss the fact that the chances of my getting caught are slim. I want to be different. I pray I will be different.

P.S
It was my birthday yesterday. I'm now 21. We thank God.

Me on the BBC World Service

Short clip where I talk about what's going on in Nigeria, re Boko Haram and subsidy removal.