Nigeria Content Online

I regularly get questions from readers who believe I can solve
their marital problems. Below are questions I got from a deeply troubled soul
named Truck Pusher.

“Help! I got married because I thought I would be getting sex
every day! Now I don’t get any! My wife thinks I am an idiot! What should I
do?” Also, my wife loves trying on new dresses and asking me what I think. I am
a fashion illiterate. My wife calls me olodo idiot! What should I do?”

Response: Your wife is right. You are an idiot. Listen, married
men don’t have sex. Once you get married, forget sex. Repeat after me: Your
wife is right. You are an olodo. You are a fashion illiterate and she knows it.
Women are geniuses, men are idiots; they don’t call us cave men simply because
we like to scratch our buttocks and belch. Women understand that men are
biologically incapable of distinguishing between a dress and a table napkin
because all men think about is food and sex. Your wife doesn’t need your stupid
opinion. She was simply testing your IQ and your ability to pay attention to
her. Say your wife puts on a new dress and, as you are doing something serious,
like reading my great columns, she coos: “Enh, honey, what do you think?” A
typical man would say something stupid without looking up to see if she is
naked, like: “Honey, it is very nice! Are you near the fridge? A Heineken
please!” In America, that is spouse abuse and it will earn you a hot slap and
several days in the doghouse.

This is what you do: Once you hear your wife’s voice, look up
from whatever you are doing. This is a trick question. Women do that to men
regularly. I believe they call it “checking in”, because if you fail the “pay
attention” test, you are “checking in” to the doghouse. Women have been known
to stand in front of their spouses gloriously naked, asking the sexy question:
“Honey, do you like my dress?” And of course, the idiots have brayed
absentmindedly: “I like it, honey, I really do! The blue compliments your
shoes!” Please do not try that foolishness at home. You may have just blown
your yearly chance at sex. Yes, in marriage, sex doesn’t come often. Always be
alert for sex and take it whenever it is offered.

So, what you do is look up in case there is some sex in your
future. Well, if indeed she is naked, stop reading right here and enjoy your
marriage, you lucky devil. If however she is in a new dress, then you have a
problem. Stop whatever you are doing and become a fashion critic. Stand up
slowly from my column (it’s okay; really, there are more gullible readers where
you came from. I shall not starve). Purse your lips pensively, put your finger
to your lips while you study the beauty before you and then say, “Nice… let’s
see… em, turn around!” They like that, “very attentive husband!” After one
minute of looking pensive and intelligent, start laying on the charm: “Nice… I
like the way the dress enhances your natural beauty!” Women like that. She will
eat it up. You might even get some (sex!). Follow this up with another volley:
“The blue dots accentuate your sexy eyes and they go nicely with your blue
shoes in an understated way.” Oh man, you are really going to get it (sex!).
Then ask her to turn around again. If you are lucky and she has other clothes
that she wants to try on, she will take off the dress and try on the next one.
You might get some (sex!) before she tries on the other one.

This purchase may have set back your children’s college tuition fund. You
may need to apply for emergency shelter from the government, or your relatives
if you live in a civilized place like Nigeria where the President is busy gleefully
typing “LOL” on women’s Facebook statuses while the country burns. Ask nicely:
“I bet you spent a pretty penny on this gorgeous dress!” She will say: “Honey,
you are really great in bed! [a big lie of course!] You will not believe how
cheap this dress was.” She will get the price tag from her Gucci purse ($1,500
on sale in Dubai; she bought it from Dame Dr. Mrs. Chief Patience Goodluck
Jonathan who had bought it at a bend down boutique in Dubai for $2.00 plus
shipping and handling) Wow! It was originally $1,500. Half off special! Now it
only cost her $750! You weep with relief. You are tempted to give your wife
half of what she just saved. Except that she charged it to the credit card.
Don’t worry; she will take off the dress. What you do next is up to you. Please
note: None of this ever happens in my house. My wife never asks my opinion of
her new dresses. She knows: I am an idiot.

The military and
other emergency workers struggled against time and nature on Sunday to
reach at least 10,000 people trapped by collapsed bridges and flooded
roads and threatened by rising water brought by the worst monsoon rains
in Pakistan’s history.

The army announced
Sunday night that it had reached up to 20,000 people, but the
government’s response to the disaster – which has already claimed
hundreds of lives – has been widely assailed as slow and inadequate.
Criticism was further fed by a decision by President Asif Zardari,
already deeply unpopular, to leave the country this week for political
talks in Europe.

“We’re out of
bridges, so it’s the necessity of time to reach them by air,” said
Adnan Khan, an official at the Provincial Disaster Management Authority
of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, who called the situation “very
urgent.”

The crisis is
especially catastrophic in Swat, once famed as a tourist valley, where
the army defeated militants last year. Local leaders said at least 900
Swatis have died, and nearly all the bridges that the army built after
last year’s war have collapsed.

Officials said at
least 10,000 people were stranded in Upper Swat and Dir Ismail Khan,
which were inaccessible by road because 40 bridges had fallen. Efforts
were under way to erect temporary spans, but officials were skeptical
that they could be built in time.

Estimates of the
total death toll on Sunday ranged up to 1,100, although the national
government put the figure at 730. The nation’s largest and most
respected private rescue service, the Edhi Foundation, predicted the
death toll would reach 3,000.

The great disparity
in numbers reflects the challenge facing the government and other
emergency workers struggling to reach isolated areas and to gain
reliable information.

Officials said the
deluge was the worst since 1929 – 18 years before Pakistan gained
independence – in what is now the country’s northwest, where water
levels at dams continued to rise.

The growing
frustration with the government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is a large blow
to Islamabad, which is often criticised for being disconnected from the
needs of the people in the province, which represents a pivotal
battleground against the Islamic insurgency.

For the past year,
the government and the military have been engaged in a “hearts and
minds” campaign to restore public services after fighting displaced
more than three million people last year. But reconstruction efforts
have been painfully slow, and the public mood has shifted from
frustrated to furious.

The demanding
relief effort in the coming days and weeks will provide yet another
test for the government to nurture the population in the nation’s
northwest. Last summer, during the mass displacement, Pakistani
authorities refused to allow American officials and planes to deliver
aid to the refugee camp. The authorities did not want to be associated
with their unpopular ally.

In the absence of
effective government aid, hard-line Islamist charities pounced, using
aid to sour public opinion against the war and the United States.

Pakistani TV showed
entire villages under water, and dozens of bridges and roadways ravaged
across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, which has been economically decimated by
terrorism in recent years.

In the village of
Torwali Bahrain in Upper Swat, the market was washed away, leaving more
than 1,200 people with minimal food and no government assistance,
according to the Swat Peace Council, an independent advocacy group.

Adnan Khan, the
provincial disaster official, said it might take up to four days to
reach people cut off without food and drinking water.

The Pakistani
military said it had dispatched more than 30,000 troops to rescue
survivors in boats and, using about 35 helicopters, by air. Officials
said helicopters were delivering food to clusters of people and
returning with small groups of survivors.

The United States said it would offer $10 million for relief, and said it provided 50,000 meals on Sunday.

Many survivors
sought refuge in schools. But just 20 miles from the regional capital,
Peshawar, displaced people were lying along the road without tents,
food or assistance, except for boiled rice from nearby villagers.

A U.N. warehouse
storing rations in Nowshera was under four feet of water, but through
other warehouses, the organization managed to feed about 21,000 people
on Sunday.

Fazl Maula Zahid, a
regional manager at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Swat, said
100,000 acres of soil along the Swat River had been washed out. He said
it would take up to 10 years to restore the fertility of this critical
area that feeds 50,000 people.

“These lands will be changed into desert,” Zahid said. “And you know what kind of plant can be planted in a desert? Nothing!”

“It was a big disaster,” Khan said. “Our infrastructure over the last 50 years has been washed away.”

It is the first
week in August, and I have a newfound passion for scent leaf, wild
basil, ocimum gratissimum, clove basil, efirin; whatever you like to
call it. In Calabar, it is raining almost every day, and the pineapples
are bursting with tangy sweet juice, they arrive in the house on stems
as thick as a man’s arm; the corn is absurdly fresh, giving way under
your fingers and the plantains are yellow and fragrant when ripe.

Even when it isn’t
raining, the flame of the forest is swaying its own rain of pollen. It
might be why they say Calabar people can’t get their minds off matters
pertaining to the appetites. At every turn, I want to put something in
my mouth.

Scent leaf can be
grown by a toddler in this environment. It is as aggressive, as
prolific as a weed. A thick bush of it costs nothing more than fifty
naira, and the taste of it is complex, bitter, sweet, minty, earthy,
like basil, like cloves, like soil and rain mixed together. Its
complexity confuses even scientific categorisation. There is a tonic
made out of it that is said to alleviate if not cure absolutely
everything that goes wrong with the human body.

On the Internet it is linked to erectile dysfunction, malaria, diabetes, sickle cell anaemia, salmonella poisoning etc.

Plantain porridge
is a delicacy for the Ikom people. Their own version is cooked with
grass cutter (bush meat) and green unripe plantains. My first plate of
plantain porridge was given to me after a long period of anticipation
in which I imagined that the porridge was made from ripe plantains. I
have never successfully overcome that first disappointment.

Green plantains are
a chore for me to eat. They don’t taste of anything, and if the
plantains are not very good ones, then they taste like cardboard. It is
so much a bone of contention that I have had many back and forth
arguments on the matter with people who I suppose have acquired a taste
for it over lifetimes where there was no contention that plantain
porridge is made from unripe plantains.

I begged Theresa,
the lady who came to teach me to cook this dish, to include ripe as
well as unripe plantains. Grass cutter is of course one of the reasons
why this dish is a delicacy. It isn’t meat that one can just go to the
market and buy, so our version had to be made with goat meat.

It didn’t take long
for Theresa to become exasperated with me; first I wanted ripe
plantains, then I said she couldn’t cook with Maggi, and then we
discovered that I didn’t have any crayfish in the house. She put the
washed goat meat at the bottom of a large pot with a chopped large
onion; garlic, ginger and plenty of hot peppers blended with water, and
salt.

The meat was left
to boil until very soft. Half a bunch of green plantains were peeled,
cut into small pieces and put aside, as well as my requested ripe
plantains. A large bunch of scent leaf was washed rolled up and
shredded into strips with a knife; prepared towards the very end of
cooking.

The body of a
rolled-up smoked fish, head removed, washed with salt and hot water,
bones removed, was added to the pot of goat meat with the plantains,
plenty of water and what seemed like a whole container of red palm oil.
(More exasperation and rolling of eyeballs at my request that the oil
be used in moderation).

More salt was added
as seasoning, the porridge was left to thicken, plantains softening and
adding fragrance and body. At the very end of cooking, the scent leaf
was stirred in, the heat turned off so the leaf wouldn’t cook but keep
its texture and freshness.

I must tell what it
is like to eat this porridge…I have met a few people who claim that
they don’t get full when they eat pasta or ogi or potatoes, I didn’t
believe them until I ate my plantain porridge…What it did in terms of
expanding my stomach was nothing less than astonishing, and I have
never been one to eat large portions of food.

The more porridge I ate, the hungrier I became. My ripe plantains
gave the porridge that beautiful balance of sweet and savoury that I
like in my food. It also gave my palate the playful quest of finding
that odd sweet mouthful among many savoury mouthfuls. The hot
stodginess of the mashed plantains and fish and oil made me find a
comfortable chair in the house where I tucked my legs under my body and
just ate for what seemed like hours. The smell of the palm oil, the
flesh of the he-goat, the minty basil smell of scent leaf completely
intoxicated me. This is not food that I can eat regularly. I would
become that quintessential fat Efik female that Yorubas affectionately
call Iya Calabar.

The South African
newspaper The Star went one step ahead in its reporting of the 15 year
sentence for Jackie Selebi a former head of police, president of
Interpol and struggle veteran, as activists in the fight against
apartheid are called.

Reporter Shaun
Smilie tracked down ex convict and gangster Allen Heyl and asked him
what the former top cop should expect in prison.

Heyl who has spent
a total of 27 years behind bars told Smilie that Selebi must, “speak no
evil, see no evil, hear no evil. Don’t trust anyone, don’t stick your
nose in anyone’s business and hope to find a friend soon.” Heyl added
that if he was well behaved Selebi could expect to get privileges such
as a radio and iron in time, but on the whole former president of
Interpol could count on getting ‘the best of what hell can offer.”

Judge Meyer Joffe
who announced his retirement from the bench minutes after he handed
down the sentence for corruption covered all the bases in the statement
he delivered. It was a measured preamble that traced the arguments for
and against incarceration as a form of deterrence, cited previous cases
and laid down precedent, examined the religious, philosophical
foundations of the concept of mercy and its place in the implementation
of justice.

Meyer went back to
Selebi’s acceptance speech when he was appointed Commissioner of Police
by his friend and protector former president Thabo Mbeki and
recalledthat the man did understand the importance of his role as the
country’s chief law officer and the weight of the position he was sworn
to uphold.

Selebi he said had
insulted the court with his mendacity and rubbished the honour of the
lowly men who put their lives on the line for a salary that was a
fraction of the sums he was receiving monthly in bribes from his
convicted drug smuggling friend Glen Agliotti. Meyer excoriated Selebi
for his lack of respect for the court’s processes and reserved his most
biting criticism for Selebi’s arrogance and lack of remorse for what he
had done.

The conclusion was unavoidable: no one is above the law, not even a hero of the struggle for freedom and human rights.

In fact especially
not a hero of the struggle for freedom: Selebi has gone from prisoner
of conscience to one imprisoned for graft. The system of justice and
accountability is still working.

South Africa can in
spite of the battle now being waged for the moral centre of the
political imperative, still draw these parallels: such a one would be
the timeline of events running from a now more beatified than ever
Nelson Mandela to a Jacob Zuma, a tale of two opposites if there ever
was one. Is it not remarkable that the more time passes the more heroic
Mandela seems?

No one coming
behind matches him and the high energy invested in finding more ways to
sanctify him simply throws into even starker relief the emptiness
around.

There is a strong
feeling that the ANC has lost, or is in the process of losing its moral
and ethical compass, just as much as there is the sense that the blame
for this can be shared all round to the pro-Mbeki and pro-Zuma factions
and all others in between currently jostling and kicking under that
great umbrella.

But foundations
laid can be refurbished; aspiring new generation leaders have a
precedent to follow, and a history of sacrifice and service to call
upon for inspiration and rebirth.

When will such
simple lessons penetrate the consciousnesses of Nigeria’s current crop
of government officials: good and bad, right and wrong, crime and
punishment?

Corruption in high
office for our Inspector Generals is treated, with retirement and a
lump sum of benefits, if at all. Once you have guzzled your fill you
are politely asked to move aside for someone else to get a turn.
Ill-gotten gains are not questioned. Declarations of assets remain
secret. Governor and legislators fight like urchins to claim
responsibility for a tiny bridge that someone else initiated as if
there are not enough projects crying out to be done!

And the irony is
lost on them in the money grubbing haze that overtakes their senses. In
October the bunch that cannot provide pipe-borne water and electricity,
will cut the biggest 50th anniversary cake in the world.

A cake to beat all cakes from those who specialise in devouring, not baking, the national cake.

Amidst much protest and occasional violence, the
second phase of the presidential amnesty programme enters the second
stage this week with the intake of 670 ex-militants drawn from three
states of Ondo, Edo and Delta.

The first batch of training sessions, housed at a
former camp for the National Youth Service Corps members in Obubra,
Cross Rivers State, was not quite the smooth operation its promoters
wanted it to be. The distrustful men always found one reason or the
other to vent their displeasure. They protested over the state of the
camp, which in truth was not quite ready for them; the lateness in the
payment of their allowances; the lack of empathy from officials; their
unhappiness with the leadership of the programme and the fact they were
put in a camp at all.

The Federal Amnesty Team headed by Timi Alaibe,
special adviser to the president on Niger Delta must surely have heaved
a sigh of relief when the trainees graduated. The training is for the
20,192 militants who benefitted from the October 2009 amnesty granted
by the federal government. The entire process is expected to last six
months, with each batch expected to involve 2, 000 ex-militants.
However, the number in each group was reduced, after the first set, to
600.

One of the officials said the last group was
indeed a test for how the rehabilitation and skills exercise would be
carried out. If that is so, then many improvements need to be made in
the handling of the exercise. One issue that has stuck out like a sore
thumb in this process is the lack of trust between the trainees and
their trainers.

Mr. Alaibe obviously needs to do more to reassure
the people under his charge that he respects the terms of his
assignment and to convince the ex militants that their wellbeing is
important to him.

At the heart of the unhappiness of the players is
money. The men complain that their allowances, at N60,000 a month, are
either paid late or not paid in full.

The delay is blamed on government officials, the
banks or the leaders of the ex-militants – who are also accused of
deducting some part of the money. Since the process has been on for up
to ten months now, it is strange that there still remain some hiccups
in the mode of payment of the allowances.

Then there is matter of those left out of the
process. Due to poor communication or misplaced skepticism about the
process, a couple of thousands of ex-militants turned in their weapons
only after the deadline stipulated by the amnesty committee. So,
although these men were demobilised, their names are not on the
official list of those to benefit from the allowances. This appears
unjust and unnecessary. It is also unlikely to fade away. Unless the
amnesty team finds a way to accommodate this group of men, there will
always be a cloud over the whole process and it portends difficulties
for peace in the Niger Delta.

Part of the final stages of the process is skills
acquisition and provision of scholarships to those who want to go
further in their education. Some of the ex-militants say they are
unsure how this will work. They have a point. Going by the experience
of the last batch of trainees, this will not be a smooth exercise
either. Close to half of the last batch of trainees are deemed to have
‘failed’ the exercise and will be sent back to camp. This might clog up
and distend the system – making it impossible to conclude the programme
on time and heightening the anxiety and distrust already nursed by the
ex-militants.

Above all this is the reality that a scheme that
targets, at best, only 30,000 youths in the Niger Delta solely because
of their propensity to foment trouble is hardly sustainable. The
reality is that there are millions of youth in the same pool from which
these young men are drawn and unless the general state of neglect in
the Delta is addressed in a holistic, grand plan that takes care of the
needs of all the peoples of the area, it will only be too easy for
another set of youngsters to equally demand special treatment from the
federal government.

The whole amnesty project is like treating the symptom. Government would do well to tackle the disease itself.

At the end of last month World University Ranking
placed the University of Ilorin 5484th in the world and 55th in Africa
out of a total of 20,000 institutions of higher learning worldwide. The
study was conducted by Webometrics, an initiative of the public
research body called Cybermetrics Lab and based in Spain. In its
previous reports, no Nigerian university has ever been rated among the
first five thousand best in the world.

So, it is a marginal improvement that the
University of Ilorin has shown up on the radar this year. Obafemi
Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, comes second in Nigeria and placed 5756th
in the world and 61st in Africa. It is followed by University of Jos,
University of Lagos, University of Benin, University of Ibadan, and
University of Nigeria Nsukka. They are in the following order 66th,
68th, 77th, 79th, 99th positions in Africa and 5882nd, 5936th, 6324th,
6425th and 7170th in the world.

This system of ranking began in 2004 and results are published twice a year in January and July.

This new ranking may be looked at as positive because in its February rankings we are at 6340th position globally.

The University of Lagos, which ranked 6340th in
February moved up to the 5936th but slipped to the fourth position
among Nigerian universities.

According to the rankings, Africa has only one
university among the first 500 and only five among the first one
thousand in the world. The University of Cape Town, South Africa, which
leads the pack in Africa is ranked 340th in the world! The three other
leaders on the continent are also in South Africa. They are
Stellenbosch University, University of Pretoria, and University of the
Witwatersrand. The three best in the world are Harvard University,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford University,
respectively.

The criteria used by Webometrics to arrive at its
rankings may not have been very scientific. However, we agree in
principle with some of its results and rankings. It is nothing too
surprising that a country like Nigeria with over 100 private and public
universities was not able to make the first 500 leading universities in
the world, even though we pride ourselves as the ‘giant of Africa’.

What this report has done is to allow us do a
critical examination of our standards and our mode of training of
students in our higher institutions. The question the Ministry of
Education and the officials of the National Universities Commission
should ask themselves is: what sort of education are we giving our
youth and what future are we preparing them for? As this newspaper has
always emphasised there is a critical need to look inwards and to cast
sober reflection the role our universities are supposed to play in
national development and how much of that they are actually doing.

In the eighties Professor Wole Soyinka and a few
others had suggested the closure of our universities for a period of
one year to allow for a sort of cleansing that would refocus them. This
might have been too harsh, rather like cutting off the head to cure a
headache, but the situation does call for some extreme measures to
address the glaring weaknesses in our education system.

How do we prepare our graduates so that they can
fit seamlessly into a world that has become globalised, and transcends
land and physical borders? There is an urgent need to reshape and
rethink university administration in the country. Increase in quantity
over the years has not brought satisfaction or quality. There are not
enough university places to accommodate the need, and the quality can
be judged by the rankings shown.

What we have at present may call for a concerted approach and active
steps to set off a tsunami in the education sector that will sweep away
the debris and tailor it to our goals for the future.

At the beginning of
his much, much, much discussed visit to ‘The View,’ Barack Obama
squished himself into a long, low banquette where the five women who
converse on the program were seated.

“These couches were made for these little people,” he complained mildly.

I cannot tell you
how happy this moment made me. During the presidential campaign,
whenever Obama was sharing a stage with Hillary Clinton,the seating
arrangement always seemed to involve high stools. He draped his tall,
lanky frame over his stool gracefully. Clinton, who would have looked
like a middle-aged schoolgirl doing detention if she perched up there,
opted to stand and be uncomfortable.

On behalf of all
the short women of America I say – go for it, women of ‘The View.’ I’m
sure you did not want to cause the president of the United States any
distress, but he was so totally due.

“For the first time
in American history, a sitting president is visiting a daytime talk
show – us,” Whoopi Goldberg said proudly. The only real innovation was
the hour of the day. ‘The View’ isn’t any less serious than ‘The David
Letterman Show,’ where the president has guested. It’s not as if he
volunteered to have himself shut up in the ‘Big Brother’ house, or sent
Joe Biden to play wooden spoons on ‘America’s Got Talent.’

The dissolution of
the boundary between entertainment and politics is old news. Now we’re
dissolving the boundary between reality and entertainment. Or perhaps
reality and reality. I was reminded of this when Obama was gently
grilled by the lone Republican on ‘The View,’ Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who
came to the show after a stint on ‘Survivor,’ where she lasted 39 days
in the Australian Outback despite a crippling inability to catch fish.

‘Survivor’ is a
first-generation reality show, in which everything is actually supposed
to be real, except for the unseen production crew and copious editing.
Now, some of the most talked-about shows on television are programs
like ‘Real Housewives’ and ‘Jersey Shore,’ that capture real people
going about their real lives – except the producers arrange things so
that the real lives are much more interesting than they are in reality.

‘Jersey Shore’ is
basically Mario Cuomo’s nightmare. It stars a bunch of young people who
call themselves “guidos” and “guidettes” and live out every dreadful
Italian-American stereotype in beach houses provided by the producers.
On ‘The View,’ Obama claimed he had never heard of the show’s breakout
star, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi. But it turned out that he once made a
joke about Snooki, listing her and House Minority Leader John Boehner
as the top victims of the administration’s plan to help pay for the
health bill with a tanning salon tax.

Snooki, whose hard
partying got her hauled off to the pokey Friday, has added the
president’s line to her own repertoire. “I don’t go tanning-tanning
anymore because Obama put a 10 percent tax on tanning,” she said in
this week’s episode. “McCain would never put a 10 percent tax on
tanning. Because he’s pale and would probably want to be tan.”

She was interviewed
recently on the website The Daily Beast by Meghan McCain, daughter of
John, who asked her how she felt when she received a Twitter message
from the Arizona senator, confirming his strong opposition to taxing
tanning beds.

“So that was pretty awesome and I’m really happy that he actually knows who I am,” Snooki said.

We may be moving
beyond actors running for office, into a new era with candidates who
became TV stars by playing artificially enhanced versions of
themselves. In Wisconsin, the seat of retiring House Appropriations
Chairman David Obey could be taken by a local Republican district
attorney named Sean Duffy. His prior claims to fame include a stint on
the reality show ‘Real World Boston.’ His wife, Rachel, was a star of
‘Real World San Francisco.’ They found love in the spinoff.

Now, Rachel
sometimes sits in for Elisabeth Hasselbeck on ‘The View.’ In his
pre-presidency, Obama made a guest appearance on the wrestling show
“Raw” during the 2008 primaries and mimicked one of the stars, Dwayne
“The Rock” Johnson. Like everybody in the pseudosport, Johnson was part
of a scripted soap opera in which he played a wrestler named Dwayne
“The Rock” Johnson. Among the other characters were the philandering
league owner, Vince McMahon, played by owner Vince McMahon, and his
long-suffering wife, Linda.

Linda McMahon is now running for the U.S. Senate. Dwayne Johnson is an actor who recently starred as the tooth fairy. Really.

And, of course,
Barack Obama became president and appeared this week on ‘The View.’
There, he denied knowing the identity of Snooki, who plays a woman
named Snooki on ‘Jersey Shore,’ where she recently criticized his
revenue sources for health care reform.

Compared to this, ‘Inception’ is a simple tale of people who enjoy napping.

© 2010 New York Times News Service

Between playing
‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ as a Stingerweb Internet Development
software installed on my laptop and as a game show presented by Frank
Edoho on Nigeria’s NTA (Nigerian Television Authority) one learns to
differentiate between illusion and reality in using what one knows to
get what one wants.

In a country where
there is an increasing tendency for citizens to plug for easy ways of
becoming wealthy, ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ could be viewed as a
performance on the “minding” of money, where what separates one from
wealth and poverty is implicitly theorized as developing a more
accommodating attitude to risk-taking.

The name of the game with its interrogative sentence, implicitly suggests that becoming a millionaire is a personal choice.

Like the
irredeemable weekly pools players on Nigeria’s Poverty Street, someone
playing ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ as a computer game is already
in another world where it remains “just a little extra effort” for them
to strike it big. Theorized implicitly as a gamble, becoming a
millionaire engages a different kind of thinking for those who believe
that there is always an element of chance or luck in escaping from
poverty in this world.

Presenter Frank
Edoho’s show on NTA exposes the player who makes desperate efforts to
surmount the obstacle of questions and the questioner’s tactics to get
to the reward. It is not easy to be on Edoho’s “hot seat” defending
one’s integrity as a “knower”.

The “hot seat”
perhaps reflects the mental state of the guest on trial before a
television studio audience and the millions of viewers that include
professional colleagues, relatives, friends, and even enemies. By
extension, this “hot seat” is shared by those whom the guest elects to
phone for assistance in providing the required answer. To furnish the
wrong answer is not just to reduce the chances of winning but also to
ruin one’s reputation as an informed “helper.” The contestants and
their friends thus share the experience of hypertension on the “hot
seat”.

Frank Edoho,
frankly speaking, is not always “Mr. Hypertension,” not when he is
acting as a sympathetic host, sometimes calling for cold water for the
guest, or granting the guest a lifeline. Commercial breaks are
inevitable in this kind of TV game show, forthe sponsors, MTN, must
sell. But the timing of the breaks very clearly signifies that they are
also the means through which Frank plays his part of the game of
“helping” his guests and his audience on behalf of the sponsors.

When anticipation
is very high for the gatekeeper to reveal or confirm the answer,
especially when the guest’s answer is correct, he helps us to enjoy it,
creating and heightening the suspense by deferring the announcement of
the answer till after the commercial break. Frank is frankly a player
who knows on which side to play, how to play, and when to play.

When Frank comes
suddenly to confirm the answer as correct, does he not sometimes
mischievously announce the wrong answer as correct and then quickly
corrects himself? Frank’s tactical error and tactical self-repair is
someone’s terror and great despair! Some players sometimes do confess
that they are petrified. Yet, the presenter’s friendliness and
remarkable sense of humour also help in trying to repair his guests’
nerves in this quest for mega bucks.

Frank indeed plays
two roles at the same time: he is the sympathetic reward giver and the
reluctant gatekeeper who has to hold on tight to the reward and do
everything possible to dribble the guest. Part of the test for the
guest is the demonstration of an ability to avoid deception and
maintain confidence. The game is not just about money but about
confidence building and psychological maturity in the pursuit of one’s
material needs.

Isn’t it telling
that, in the set in the studio, the “hot seat” is built in such a way
that the legs of the guests (as well as those of the host) do not touch
the ground, conveying the precariousness of the situation? One that
sits with legs not touching the ground while looking for big money
needs to be on guard, symbolically.

At a time when the
assumption that one does not need brains to become a millionaire has
almost ruined the attention to education and the pursuit of the culture
of industry. ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ ought to be viewed as a
symbolic statement about getting rich through acquisition of knowledge
and psychological stability.

Playing ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ from a Stingerweb software
on a computer and living the illusion of winning in US dollars are
obviously not as attractive as being Frank Edoho’s petrified guest. The
truth is that some thousands of naira in hand are worth millions of US
dollars in the imaginary computer bush. Even if the naira has become
local wallpaper that lacks power compared to the US dollar, its real
game value rises for Nigerian players looking out for the secret to
survival.

Odds are that you
probably missed it. With all the noise being made about the president’s
faulty plane, the rise of the falconets and the welcomed restoration of
DSTV’s football rights, it’s easy to understand why the story would be
ignored. And yet it was there. Sandwiched between the larger tales of
significant occurrences was this tiny news insert. Half way across the
world, the presidential aspiration of a person was about to be
announced and his name was Wyclef Jean. Yes, “The” Wyclef Jean The idea
of a musician running for president does tend to give reason for a
silent chuckle. Of all the possible professions on which an aspiration
for a nation’s presidency can be mounted, music seems to be the least
likely of candidates. It takes a lot to run a nation. People would no
more expect a musician as a likely presidential candidate than they
would the pastor of a church. And yet, as insane as the proposition
might seem there is certain merit behind the possibility.

Wyclef’s loyalty
to his country is not disputed. He has already served as an ambassador
for his nation and donates thousands of dollars by way of scholarships
and foundation grants to people who require these. Even though, Wyclef
Jean is undoubtedly a multimillionaire superstar, he has rarely failed
to identify with his nation. He has instead constantly sought to find
the different ways through which he can contribute to its development —
something that very few of our media stars can boast of.

I am not much of a
fan of Nollywood. The only time I pause to watch a movie from its
stables is when I decide that I am sorely in need of a good dose of
depression. As this urge rarely surfaces, my periods in front of a
Nollywood movie are blessedly rare and short. However, despite my
unpatriotic dislike for the products of our national cinema, even I
cannot fail to acknowledge the influence that Nigerian media stars have
had on our country.

I find it hard to
single out a singular musician or movie star who would make a possible
candidate for a political position. D’banj never did let us in on what
the “koko” meant, but I somehow doubt that his revelation would involve
a concrete plan for improving the nation. MI would find it difficult
meeting the heights of the political system and Tuface would probably
get shot again by unknown gunmen after his first five hours in office.
The efforts of individuals, such as the musical legend who also goes by
the name of Pastor Chris, have only managed to further enhance the
growing inefficiencies of media icons in today’s politics. When Fela
died many years ago, it is likely he took with him the status of the
last Nigerian media icon who sought to improve the country’s image
through his celebrity status.

Amongst the young
members of the Nigerian media circle, it’s almost impossible to find an
individual who has offered as much contribution to the country as
Wyclef has for his nation. If I was to pick a cabinet, I would probably
pick Lagbaja as possible president because I want to believe that
beneath that impenetrable mask is a billionaire with a Harvard business
degree. It is undoubtedly a far stretch but that is where we currently
are. For good measure, Julius Agwu would probably be a fitting choice
for the minister of power and steel. If Nigeria is going to continue to
make a mockery of those establishments as she has for the last three
decades, then she might as well secure the assistance of a comedian.
They’re better at making jokes and have the uncanny ability to draw out
attention to the lighter side of darker topics.

In the weeks to
come, a lot more attention will be paid to Wyclef Jean’s bid for the
position of president. Many are already leaning towards this
possibility. He is well loved by the people of his country and he
certainly has the ear of world organisations. With the right cabinet
supporting him, he just might be able to lead the damaged nation into
newer lights. He might, however, need to make a few changes or two in
order to improve his chances.