Nigeria Content Online

Oluwadamilola
Olusola has lived up to the calling of the national youth service. The
25-year-old corps member in Ogun State on her own steam renovated the
children’s ward at the State Hospital, Abeokuta, as part of her
community development contribution.

Olusola is not a
doctor or an architect but a lawyer who graduated from the University
of Lagos. On a visit to the State Hospital the sad conditions prompted
her to do something about it.

“I just wanted to
do something to influence the community, so I embarked on this project
to renovate the children’s ward at least to make the ward conducive for
the sick children.”

Olusola spent her
service year that ran from November 2009 giving the children’s ward in
a makeover. New paint, mattresses, bedding, mosquito nets ceiling fans
and electrical fixtures and notice board were some of the standard
features she brought in as well as other touches to make the ambiance
more pleasant for the young patients.

Ms Olusola’s
story of how she raised the money for this project is a lesson in
enterprise and resourcefulness, no contract padding no obstacles to
“settle”. She made her appeals on the basis of charity but also
displayed a most democratic approach to raising the necessary funds
went to those who should have had more than passing interest in the
subject she had set her heart on. Both church and state were happy to
contribute to this laudable cause.

“I generated the
funds from corporate bodies and individuals like the state Commissioner
for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Permanent Secretary,
Ministry of Justice, Permanent Secretary of Local Government and
Chieftaincy Affairs, Permanent Secretary Ministry of Environment,
Permanent Secretary Bureau of Cabinet and the Redeemed Christian Church
of God, Soul Winners Chapel, Lagos state and the Attorney General of
Ogun State also donated generously.”

The project took
ten weeks from idea to completion, which also included getting approval
for the National Youth Service Commission. The launching was a happy
occasion featuring Oyin Sodipo permanent secretary, in the Ministry of
health, representing the state commissioner who expressed her pleasure
with what she called an example of individuals complementing the
efforts of government and indicated that more of such activity would be
greatly welcomed.

When Olusola who
works at the Ogun State ministry of Justice was asked if she would like
to build a children’s home on day she gave this answer:

“I am a lawyer,
it is not likely that I will build a children’s home but what I hope to
do, is to continue with this ward renovation yearly and if possible
moving from here to other state hospitals. I believe that by doing
things like this, other people might see it, and do something of such
in the future to help others in need.”

What a complete
package in this example of young Nigerian enterprise: initiate,
independently finance complete and maintain with a plan for progressive
future expansion. What a contrast to the government: “Government cannot
do everything on its own,” the permanent secretary, Oyin Sodipo. Truth
is that the government can certainly do far more than it does to
provide the basics of a health care delivery system.

But with people like Oluwadamilola Olusola there is hope for Nigeria.

The recession has taken a toll on the institution of marriage, we keep hearing.

Last month, for
instance, when it was reported that the proportion of Americans aged 25
to 34 who are married fell below the proportion who have never married,
it was quickly attributed to the economic downturn. Young adults,
according to this narrative, have less money to spend on a wedding and
are less eager to enter into a lifetime commitment during times of
uncertainty.

Again last week,
when a report from the Pew Research Centre noted that, for the first
time, college-educated 30-year-olds were more likely to have been
married than were people the same age without a college degree, the
news was interpreted as another side effect of the recent recession.
After all, the downturn has been especially hard on young men with no
college degree.

But if you look at
marriage in the United States over the past century, this
interpretation doesn’t stand up. Marriage and divorce rates have
remained remarkably immune to the ups and downs of the business cycle.
Unfortunately, the marriage statistics are easy to misread.

It’s misleading to
count the wedding rings among people in their 20s and early 30s,
because the median age at first marriage in the United States has risen
to 28 for men (from 23 in 1970) and 26 for women (from 21 in 1970). The
fact that these folks aren’t married now doesn’t mean they won’t marry
– many of them just aren’t there yet.

Look instead at
40-year-olds, and you see that 81 percent have married at least once.
Yes, this number used to be higher – it peaked at 93 percent in 1980 –
but, clearly, marriage remains a part of most people’s lives. These
statistics are not a perfect barometer either, however, because they
reflect weddings that were celebrated years earlier.

To most accurately
track marriage rates, you need to focus on the number of wedding
certificates issued. In 2009, the latest year for which we have data,
there were about 2.1 million marriages in the United States. That does
represent a slight decline since the recession began. But it’s the same
rate of decline that existed during the preceding economic boom, the
previous bust and both the boom and the bust before that.

Indeed, the recent
modest decline in marriage continues a 30-year trend. And even as the
number of marriages falls, divorce is also becoming less prevalent. So
a greater proportion of today’s marriages will likely persist 30 years
into the future.

This is not to say
that marriage looks the same today as it always did – over the past
several decades, there has been a tremendous shift in married life.

It used to be that
a typical marriage involved specialised roles for the husband and wife.
Usually he was in the marketplace, and she was in the home, and this
arrangement led to maximum productivity.

But today, when
families have easy access to prepared foods, inexpensive off-the-rack
clothing and labor-saving technology from the washing machine to the
robot vacuum cleaner, there’s much less benefit from either spouse
specialising in homemaking. Women, now better educated and with greater
control over their fertility, are in the marketplace, too, and married
couples have more money, more leisure time and longer lives to spend
together. Modern marriages are based not on the economic benefits of
playing specialised roles but on shared passions.

This new model of
“hedonic marriage” has had an effect on who marries, and when – as
research I have conducted with my better half, the economist Betsey
Stevenson, has documented. In the old days, opposites attracted; an
aspiring executive groom would pair up with a less-educated bride. And
they would wed before the stork visited and before the couple made the
costly investment of putting the husband through business school.

But today, that
same young executive would more likely be half of a power couple,
married to a college-educated woman who shares his taste in books,
hobbies, travel and so on. Indeed, marriage rates for college-educated
women rose sharply through the 1950s and ‘60s, and have remained
remarkably stable since. These women tend to marry after they have
finished college and started their careers.

The decline in
marriage, it turns out, is concentrated entirely among women with less
education – those who likely have the least to gain from modern hedonic
marriage.

This is not to say
that the economic downturn has had no effect at all on domestic life.
Census data show that the number of unwed couples living together rose
sharply last year. With rents high and jobs hard to come by, it’s no
surprise that people are doubling up.

Still, given that
the marriage rate remains on trend, the rise in cohabitation isn’t
coming at the expense of marriage. Instead, many young couples who
might otherwise merely be dating are moving in together. Some of them,
no doubt, will eventually marry. Truly, the recession has not torn
young couples apart; it has pushed them closer together.

© 2010 The New York Times

The first time I
heard of Alkaki was from one of the owners of Abule Café. The café is
part of The Life House on Sinari Daranijo Street in Victoria Island,
Lagos. Abule simply means village, and the owners have a strong
suggestion of an organic approach to their sparse but interesting menu.

I have to admit to
liking the way their minds work. It is refreshing to have a place where
you can go for a snack of a bowl of gari, iced water and groundnuts in
the afternoon comfortably sipped in air conditioning while surfing the
Internet…or their own charming version of Buck’s Fizz, a combination
of champagne and zobo; or their delicious Chapman’s made from freshly
squeezed watermelon and other fruit juices, Angostura bitters and
additional well guarded secret ingredients. Theirs is the very first
Chapman’s that I have drunk with an unsuspecting and tranquil mind.

One of my favourite
Abule Café stories is that of fresh palmwine available there from the
beginning of the week. A nursing mother who wants to bring on the
breast milk can go in at the start of the week and drink this palmwine
and at the weekend when it is fully and irredeemably fermented, those
wishing to mainline alcohol can go in and get unrepentantly drunk.

Abule Café’s Alkaki
comes from a friend of the house who makes them somewhere in the North
and sends them down to Lagos. It is apparent that they are carefully
and lovingly made. They are made up of twists of fried wheat dough
soaked in honey. In texture and taste they remind me of what I consider
the best honey wheat bread available in Nigeria sold by High Quality
Bakery in Calabar. The Alkaki, like the honey wheat is grainy, dense,
sweet (sweeter) crumbly and honey infused. A piece of the pastry broken
off reveals hidden silken tracks of honey. It is best served fresh, or
warmed in the oven, with a cup of coffee or Lipton tea.

Also Alkaki has
pedigree. It was originally the preserve of Northern aristocrats who
had it for tea or as a desert. I like to imagine Fulani ladies draped
in limited edition Hollandaise Ankara sitting under alcoves ordering
one such as myself about with trays of Alkaki, cold Lassis,

Fura and hot
fragrant teas, talking about the year’s yield of tea on plantations in
Taraba State in soft cultured voices. Alkaki has strong strains of
Arabic cuisine where desserts and puddings are prepared with wheat
flour, yoghurt and always always always, drenched in honey.

I asked Ugoma
Ebilah, who owns Abule with her husband, to request the summary of the
recipe for Alkaki from their Northern friend and was by and by snubbed.
I didn’t take it to heart. In a country of over 150 million people, no
Nigerian recipe can be successfully enshrouded. I finally stumbled on a
version in my old tattered Maggi family menu cookbook made from 2 cups
of crushed wheat, 2 teaspoons of yoghurt, 1 bottle of groundnut oil, 2
cups of honey and 2 tablespoons of lime juice. The methodology is also
simple enough.

Instead of crushed
wheat, I bought a N50 peak-milk-tin measurement of whole wheat sold out
of a huge Dangote bag. I ground a few handfuls of the wheat to coarse
flour in my blender’s dry mill, sieved it and added to the sieved
flour, yoghurt and about three spoons of groundnut oil, enough to
loosely hold the dough together. I must admit to substituting the lime
juice for water and also that something about the ground wheat
suggested and even demanded the addition of a handful of coriander
seeds. The dough must be left for a few hours or overnight to ferment.
The remaining oil is heated, the dough fried in it till the Alkaki is
the colour of golden honey. The Alkaki is removed from the heat and
submerged in a jar of honey. From experimenting, I found that they must
be submerged for a period of time to get an impressive infusion.

My Alkaki certainly does not have the well-dressed look of Café
Abule’s. Their friend has so perfected the art of making them, of
twisting the dough together to look like small pretty twisted brioches,
and has probably done this for years that I certainly cannot begin to
compete. But the taste of mine was commensurate if not better for being
freshly made, with a grainier bite from the coarseness of the flour and
coriander seeds, also fragrant from the coriander, honey sweet and
certainly worth the roundabout research and snobbery.

“Let me put it this
way, that the environment at the moment is getting better for business
and the issues of corruption are being addressed on a daily basis. We
have the EFCC there, we have NDLEA and they are all addressing the
issue. And I believe that there is a clean up exercise going on right
now and it should be given a chance so that we will be able to say in
another 2, 3 years what the position really is.”

Well, it took a
little longer than three years to get to the EFCC’s conviction of Mrs.
Cecilia Ibru former managing director and chief executive officer of
Oceanic Bank for three counts of fraud and money laundering. And though
it was a different clean up exercise than the one she was referring to
in that December 2007 interview on the BBC’s Hardtalk the former
doyenne of the banking industry did get swept up in the famous tsunami
that got its impetus not from the EFCC but from the current governor of
the Central Bank, Lamido Sanusi. He it was who set off the earthquake
when he landed on his new seat last year and the banking shake up that
followed will be forever associated with him Mrs. Ibru is to spend five
months in jail with time taken off for the period already spent in EFCC
custody.

She is to forfeit
assets and cash to the value of N190 billion, an astronomical amount
for most people to fathom. But it does seem from the list of her assets
that the EFCC disclosed that it will be doable. And that, indeed, is
the position.

Cecilia Ibru
handled herself well in that interview fending off the rather goading
questions with calm. She was asked about her bank’s support of public
private partnerships and about where she would draw the line in going
into business with corrupt state governments who channeled revenue into
cars and private planes in a country where 70 percent of the populace
lived inpoverty. “ What you have just described there, of course you
know it is something that we should be ashamed of. It is the structure
that was wrong because if you give money to governors and you don’t ask
for accountability you are asking for trouble. And that is what
happened.”

Ibru explained that
those types of governors had been retired or were on their way out
under the new dispensation of President Yar ‘Adua. “The ones that are
there now they have different approach to how money should be
expended,’’ she said. And continued: “We have the seven point agenda by
our president which everyone is working on and I believe…” Well she
believed that with all arms of government working towards the same goal
it would make for a better Nigeria in years to come.

It is all quite
neat really. Mrs. Ibru saved the country the cost of a long messy
trial, and unexplained disappearances, dropped her initial
protestations against the charges and admitted guilt in a plea bargain
that includes the forfeiture of extensive assets with some miniscule
jail time from a cumulative sentence of 18 months.

Take the case of
Olusoji Abiodun Ilori, 48, who has bagged himself a cumulative sentence
of 120 years for 419 fraud. He is to spend three years in prison. He
was arraigned by the EFCC on a 40-count charge after an arrest at Dugbe
Post Office Ibadan in March 2009 where he was trying to mail more than
200 scam letters containing forged documents.

In sentencing
Ilori, Justice M. Abimbola, according to the statement issued by the
EFCC’s media unit on its website “condemned the attitude of Nigerians
who are desperate to make money at all costs and by any means possible,
thereby bastardising the image of Nigeria. He said the misadventure of
Ilori and other scammers was capable of scaring away foreign investors
and businessmen from the country.”

Well Mr. Ilori will
have to pay his debt to the state in time spent in incarceration since
it seems he was apprehended in midscam so to say. admittedly long after
Mrs. Ibru will have returned home, but the EFCC can pencil him off
their register.

Nigerians though will have to keep a keen count on that long list of
assets from Mrs. Ibru that spans a motley list of capitals Alausa,
Abuja, Dubai and London. Property markets are iffy right across the
globe and the devil knows that keeping track of the paperwork is labour
intensive. So the EFCC’s role is far from over, and while this has been
a successful investigation and something to crow about, 70 percent of
Nigerians must still watch and wait.

Francis Daniels

Stephen Davis

I’m
convinced that there’s something about the gutters of Lagos that calls to us.
Some, more than others I hasten to add! It must be the black, murky depths. The
fact is that the water looks (and is!) black and usually caked with oodles of
sand, or what looks like it. Maybe, the constant whiff of the quintessential
gutter odours adds to the mystery.

Some
gutters are narrow, wide, new (state-of-the-art engineering feats), old,
broken, can be easily stepped over; others require the hop, step and jump
technique of the triple jump! They surround us on all sides; in fact in some
areas of the Centre of Excellence, they are
known to run right through some homes!

The
feature that almost all these tributaries have in common (new ones haven’t
acquired it yet) is the odious, choking, pungent, ammonia-like fumes that rise
up to unclog blocked nostrils. This distinct smell doesn’t change, but
undergoes alterations in dilution as you come across various gutters. In some
places, more than others this distinct smell of human waste is the major
ingredient of this watery solution. Of all its characteristics, this is what I
think calls to us the strongest. How else does one explain this activity, that
people (seem) to delight in doing within its vicinity? For those that think
it’s the usual gentlemanly pastime, I’m sorry to disappoint you!

In
journeys about the city and even nearer home, the act of personal oral hygiene
is one that consistently takes place over the humble vestibules that collect
wastewater around the city. The bracing stench that arises from them does
wonders for the teeth and the individuals involved; else why else would many
people choose this as the place to do what the dentist recommends. One would
have thought that the sinks provided in their bathrooms would be more
appropriate. Where their absence is
regrettable, it calls into question the structures that are passed off as
accommodation in the city. The crazy rent demanded for them is topic for
another day!!

Understandably,
if a face-me-I-face-you is the current abode, then the less time spent in the
communal bathroom the better and so brushing before the usual ablution is
called for. So maybe this set of tenants could be excused, but why they’d still
choose the gutter is still highly questionable. The fact that some of these
gutters face the full glare of the public is not a deterrent; again that it
also seems to be the only place this function can be carried out is still
questionable.

Nearer
home, another open air demonstration is worthy of raised brows. For a fact, a
self-contained room is endowed with the modern conveniences and so it is a
mystery why the outdoor option is still preferred! Having more than one person
live there, two, maybe even three is still not a good enough reason.

Could
it be the freedom of splashing froth coloured water unto the ground? Maybe
seeing it dissolve, as it hits the black waters of the gutter is a sport in
itself? The companionship of other fellow open-air enthusiasts may also be
another pull. The hacking noises emanating from throats, as some attempt to
extract their tonsils sans anaesthesia maybe another clue. The very act of
spitting out the contents of the mouth and watching its aerial display could be
an appeal lost on unwilling spectators.

Whatever the explanation,
this early morning, outdoor sport will continue as the adherents heed the call
of the gutters that beckon them to cleanse their dentition. The gutters will
continue to act as the receptacles for the oral gene activities that bedevil
the human populace of our great metrop

It is an
extraordinary development that today, the North, or its so-called
leaders are the ones insisting that it is the turn of the region to
produce the president. The question is, which North? North as a viable,
coherent geo-political entity, or one where a few individuals usurp
power and resources to the exclusion of the majority who wallow in
poverty and illiteracy?

In 1955, the
Western Region introduced free education. Today, the products of that
policy and their offspring dominate education, the civil service,
business, financial services, medicine, law and a host of other
professions in Nigeria and beyond. Today, which of the region’s 19
states has a free education policy?

Today, a single
state in the South has more school enrolments than an entire
geo-political zone in the North. A primary school in Kaduna State
(Rafin-Pa) has 300 pupils who share two classes. A chalk line on the
floor serves as demarcation for the different classes. It has two
teachers, including the headmaster.

There are more
private universities in a state in the South than all federal, state
and private universities in a Northern zone. There is only one state
owned university of science and technology in the entire North. A
single university in the South graduates more students than several in
the North.

These examples from the education sector are symbolic of the problems with the North.

Fifty years ago,
the region was battling to catch up with the rest of the country.
Today, the gap is wider than ever. All economic indicators point to the
North as the poorest region in Nigeria.

Healthcare is not
any better. Most states in the South have more doctors than any zone in
the North. Recently, a volunteer group organised a medical caravan to
assist a small village with basic medical services, only to be
confronted with many patients requiring surgery and other more serious
medical attention from surrounding settlements. Government healthcare
has never reached the majority of people, so they die from preventable,
treatable diseases that should have been long eradicated.

Cholera, dysentery,
meningitis, polio and other preventable diseases are prevalent in the
region, which has stalled the elimination of polio from Africa. Bill
Gates had to spend $750 million to fight diseases in our backyards. Our
zoning champions would rather keep their dollars in Switzerland, Dubai,
Hong Kong and South Africa.

Agriculture, the
region’s great area of comparative advantage and mainstay of its
economy remains subsistence and dependent on the vagaries of weather.
This is in spite of the many dams and huge tracts of fertile land the
region possesses. The Sahara desert is inching downwards every year.
Entire settlements have been engulfed. Water sources are drying up
rapidly; deforestation is exposing millions of people to the elements
and making the region vulnerable to drought, flooding and other
environmental catastrophes.

Similarly, overuse
has reduced the fertility and productivity of many farmlands. Rapid
population expansion further puts pressure on existing resources, while
our armies of unemployed youth troop to towns and cities in search of
non-existing opportunities. Our zoning crusaders would rather compete
about who lives in a more expensive part of London, the French Riviera
or Dubai.

Of course, many
Northerners have worked and succeeded in many fields, but most of those
fighting for zoning are people who have served in one public position
or another and used their positions to divert public funds for personal
use.

Corruption is
central to the region’s poverty and maladministration. The stolen funds
are used to buy homes in Europe, America and the Middle East.

This state of mind
is not a prerogative of the Hausa/ Fulani/ Muslim elite. It cuts across
all ethnic groups and religions in the North. The thought process is
same: grab as much money as possible; open foreign bank accounts; buy
estates in Europe and America, with a stopover in Dubai. And never
forget to visit Mecca or Jerusalem every year to feign religiosity.

Zoning is an issue
the elite use to preserve their interests. Regardless of who is in
power, the majority of Northerners (regardless of ethnicity or
religion) have nothing to show. Our leaders systematically narrow the
economic and political space to the exclusion of the majority, while
illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, insecurity and ethno-religious
crises continue to tear the North apart.

On one hand, I wish the South presented a more inspired choice as
candidate for president. On the other, when the likes of Babangida,
Atiku and Gusau insist that the presidency is zoned to the North, you
wonder, which North? Either way, I do not see the president Nigeria
needs from this motley group.

Several months ago,
as a direct result of the seeming futility of constantly complaining
about the state of affairs in my dear nation, I swore off commenting on
Nigerian political affairs. I also decided that the celebration of
independence was not for me.

I made these
decisions based on my assessment of the Nigerian nation. Having looked
back at my own life and the achievements therein and discovered that
those failures that stared me in the face were not necessarily personal
failures, but the effects of the continuous propagation of governments
that place little faith in the accomplishments of its future leaders.

It would not do to
start recalling the myriad of ways that the leadership of the Nigerian
state has got it wrong over the years, as those instances have already
been documented and commented upon by better-informed people. However,
I think it would serve this commentary some measure of service if I
talk about why I decided to break my silence and again comment on the
Nigerian question.

I broke my silence
because of the audacity for violence, which seems to be the new mantra
of an organisation for which I used to harbour some form of sympathy.

As I write this,
the apology tendered by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger
Delta (MEND) is circulating in the media. I do not much care for the
fact that MEND’S belated apology casts doubt on the efficiency of our
security forces as presently constituted, especially as the
announcement by MEND effectively counters President Goodluck Jonathan’s
assertion that the bomb blast that caused the death of several
Nigerians and cast a dark pall over the independence day celebrations,
was not of MEND’S doing.

I agree with those
who want to give the president the benefit of doubt and read between
the lines of what many called his defence of a violent organisation
that claims to represent his home region.

I base my argument
on common sense, especially since the deaths of fellow Nigerians would
serve the organisation little. A bomb exploding away from their home
region, at a time when they can be said to have control of the Nigerian
state through the office of the president, is nothing short of shooting
themselves in the foot.

As it stands now,
by attacking Abuja and killing innocent Nigerians who have nothing to
do with the situation that the Niger Delta found itself in, MEND has
proven beyond all reasonable doubt that it is nothing more than a
terrorist organisation and should be treated as such.

For an organisation
that effectively gifted its catchment area the much sought after
presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (some might disagree, but
it is my belief that Jonathan became the vice president as a result of
the activities of the militants and the need to calm nerves in the
Niger Delta), MEND acted very much like the clueless winner.

I know the reasons
given for the attack were viable grounds for dissent, but using bombs
to stress a point was taking it too far. MEND should have followed the
examples of those of us who chose to boycott the event or the example
of the majority of Nigerian commoners whose apathy to the whole wastage
made it seem like an elitist Halloween party.

MEND and other
militant groups have cried about neglect loudly for a long time. They
have spread the news of the degradation of the Niger Delta for years;
they have brought the pain of the citizens of the Niger Delta closer to
us, but in doing this they have also got rich and bold, too bold if one
might say so. In their quest to push their agenda, which I used to
subscribe to, MEND has emboldened itself to begin seeing us as
acceptable collateral damage. To this I am forced to say no. No, we
cannot be collateral damage for an issue that we have no hand in.

By making us
collateral damage, MEND is forcing us to take sides, forcing us to
strike out at them as we seek to defend ourselves. MEND, by killing us,
is effectively making itself the enemy of the Nigerian people, not just
the government, especially now that it has all the reasons in the world
to keep the peace.

MEND’s desire to
shift the blame of the deaths to the Nigerian security agencies, which
it claims did not respond to its calls to evacuate the areas around
Eagle Square cuts less cheese than a knife made of air. The fact is,
they set the bombs, primed them to go off at a certain time. Had they
not wanted the bombs to go off and cause casualties they would have
told the authorities the location of the bombs, and kept the goodwill
of Nigerians. MEND messed up big time and deserves little or no
sympathy from Nigerians.

As it stands, my
heart goes out to President Jonathan, for surely the question would be
asked; “how come he can’t keep his boys in check? “

Fred Nwonwu is the online Editor for Business in Africa magazine and culture and travel editor for Side View magazine

I recently called
an older friend who lives in America and he confided in me that he was
having a serious bout of midlife crisis. I was alarmed and caught off
guard. I did not know how to respond to him really, apart from an
“eiya” and, “it is well, my brother, God is in control and all will be
alright.” I almost launched into a serious ministration of, “that is
not your portion in…” before my credit ran out.

I did not feel bad
until later because I was used to the way we Nigerians respond to
crises. Instead of taking a problem very seriously and finding a
lasting practical solution to it, we go: “It is well, God is in
control,” while we completely forget the aspect of the Bible that says
God helps those that help themselves or faith without work is like
policy writing without implementation.

Anyway, I am sure
my friend was as pissed as hell on the other side of the world, because
in America those are not the kind of words you expect to hear when in a
serious crisis. Moreover I had also blown my chances of understanding
the phenomenon known as midlife crisis and how it affects the Nigerian
man. I will tell you why.

Two years ago, I
walked up to a very senior editor in my office who was my senior
special adviser in matters of adulthood and I asked her, “what exactly
is midlife crisis?” I was just curious then, not that I had attained
the midlife age or started losing my hair and having to budget for
Rogaine.

I was just groping
for a topic to write about in my column that day; a topic that would be
useful to my older readers, something like a corporate social
responsibility or community service to the elderly.

Now, you may be
wondering why I picked on this particular senior editor for such a
sensitive topic, when I knew full well that she was not a
psychotherapist or a shrink of any type? Well, I already told you she
was my senior special adviser, which means if I decided to log on to a
MEND email account and check to see if I have an email from Abuja or to
send out a few emails to editors in media houses just to say hello to,
she would be the one to advise me.

And I did not want
to ask a fellow man who would explain it away flippantly by telling me
that midlife crisis is like the phantom Gbomo Jomo, it does not exist.
So that is why I chose the regally beautiful editor who then looked at
me through her rimmed glasses and gave a hoot of excitable laughter. I
waited for her to recover from her laughter, though I did not see what
was funny about my question. When she eventually recovered, all red
faced, she said calmly, which is how she talks, “Victor when you get
there you will know it. Don’t worry.”

Now why I am
regretting not taking my friend seriously enough to ask a few questions
and see if he would explain it better than my editor who wants me to
find out by myself? I have always had the notion that midlife crisis is
a Western disease, that Nigerians do not suffer this crisis but I guess
I was wrong. The symptoms manifest in different ways.

But I should have
taken the time to ask my older friend if he felt like buying a red
convertible Corvette or a shining Harley Davidson motorbike that barks
like a police dog? Or does he feel like just spending his family
savings on a large cake that is bigger than a farm hut in my village on
his 50th birthday, or does he want to change his plastic dustbins to
gold plated buckets? Does he feel like blowing his children’s college
savings or his retirement funds on a hot yellow Mazarati? Does he feel
people around him are lying to him and misdirecting him to make
decisions he would under no circumstances have made? Does he feel
depressed and underachieving? Or does he feel like blowing up things
just to attract attention to himself? I lost that chance of asking him
any of these questions.

So out of curiosity again, I did what I should have done two years
ago, I went online to research midlife crisis. Some of the findings
almost blew me out of my seat. Believe me or not, Nigeria as a nation
is going through a bad case of midlife crisis right now, the symptoms
are just too obvious. A large number of our current leaders are also of
the age bracket that suffers midlife crises. So since there is nothing
I can do about it, I will go the usual route – it is well and God is in
control. Or should I pick up the phone and alert the presidency?