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I was away for too long, cocooned in a country where football is
aberrantly called soccer. I got sucked in to one of the local games they refer
to as World Tournaments. How can Boston Celtics or LA Lakers be described as
World Champions when they never stepped out of the United States of America (not
even to Puerto Rico) to play another country? Same with the Indianapolis Colts
or the New Orleans Saint’s who were dubbed, world champions after winning the
Super Bowl in 2007 and 2009 respectively.

With balls freezing under my thermo-pants (trousers please)
every Super Bowl Sunday, I would go to Uncle Sunny Oboh’s house, a fellow
immigrant and lifelong supporter of the Washington Redskins and men who wear
women’s terelin, throw oblong cocoa pod-like leather with fat hands and call it
football. And none of us would have the balls to call a spade a spade, and
declare what Americans call football is known to the rest of the world as
handball. But that is America for you, they are the world and the rest of us
are the children.

Instead of screaming foul play, we’d fake excitement because how
else could we defrost the snow that had formed icicles in our homeland
memories?

When I first came back to Nigeria, I mistakenly called real
football soccer and a co-worker gave me an evil eye full of, “this is not
America, stupid”. I had forgotten that football was sacrosanct in Nigeria, like
religion, like opium; the people get so high on it and many get killed because
of a game of kicking a spherical piece of leather around for ninety minutes.
Before America’s myopia got me killed, I learned to correct my tongue,
repeating to myself many times, it’s not soccer, it’s football, sucker! And now
the World Cup fever has seized me like a New England winter, I wonder how I
could have forgotten football, something that had been woven so tightly into my
cultural upbringing?

To forget football is to forget my late father who would find
time despite his hectic schedule to watch me and friends play football with
oranges under my grandfather’s huge pear tree, and mediate when fights broke
out because football, whether by kids or adults, is a highly competitive game.
Or to forget my mother who was my doctor and physical therapist who nursed me
back to the next bruising game.

To forget football is to forget my senior brother, Osajele, who
bought me my first Felele out of his very first salary in life. I don’t
remember telling him thank you because I bolted out the door as soon as he
handed me the light weight ball and started screaming down the street like a
Holy Ghost possessed Pentecostal. I soon became the Pele and the king of boys
in my quarter and every one of them wanted to be my friend.

To forget football is to forget my PT teacher in primary school,
who gave me a long look on the field one day and said “Oyinbo you are too thin,
go and blacken the board for the next lesson”. Till today I still hate him more
than BODMAS. That Odemwingie guy could have been me, though my senior brother
would probably kill me first before allowing me to plait my hair. He would say,
“best footballer my foot – are you a woman? ” To forget football is to forget
my good friend, Okwy Okeke, who is so passionate about the game that he talks
about it like a first kiss, good wine or that very first love making that
lingers in one’s memory like a lick of honey in a bee-less country.

To forget football is to forget the one unifying universal
language, the hope that holds the world together as one. The single pot from
which we all drink without locking horns, where you do not hear expressions
like “geopolitical zone”, where Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Esan etc, has one heart
beating inside their Nigerian body.

To forget football is to forget our dictator, late Sani Abacha
and the days he had us on his killing noose. For a brief moment, the country
breathed peace during the 1994 World Cup until the Italians sent us packing, a
situation that was more painful than the hell Abacha was meting on Nigerians.
And hell broke loose again; such was the dictator’s negative vibe.

To forget football is to forget the recent history of our dear
beloved late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s ‘cabal-liers’, who found football
important enough to include in their scripted speech from the spirit world:
“I’d also like to use this opportunity to wish our national team the Super
Eagles success in our Nation’s Cup matches in Angola…blah blah”. And the Eagles
did not come home with the cup, because lies bring bad luck.

To forget football is to forget that we now have a president
whose name is Goodluck, a man who ascended the throne despite the evil machinations
of political Maradonas. And this is why I am wishing our national team, the
Super Eagles, good luck (not through BBC). May they bring us the ultimate cup,
the true mark of world champion, no matter the tricks and maneuvering of the
other teams’ cabalists.

What
is wrong with the shape of my cap, and does it determine why any streak
of good is a freak, and any strand of evil civil? Why am damned for
being from the land of Wrong Caps, unable to stand up among the best?
Show a converse competence or do something bad, nobody shows any
surprise, since, again, I am from that part of the realm that wears the
wrong kind of cap.

When my black ink
pours on people who just happen to come from the part of the country
where they wear, by right, the right kind of cap, I am attacked,
vilified and thrown into the dungeons of other useless cretins who just
happen to be wearing the wrong kinds of caps.

What is so wrong
with my cap that when I try to live by the norms, I am labeled
conformist, or try something else and earn the tag radical? When I try
to be both, I am called unstable. What is wrong with my cap that when I
try to articulate my thoughts, I am slammed as misleading, and when I
insist on explaining, stamped controversial?

Is the shape of my
cap so bereft of beauty that for opting to do what I believe in, I am
branded fundamentalist, and because I get somewhat confused, branded
intolerant? For slowing down to figure the conundrum I am declared
un-ambitious. When I try to catch up, it is with a determination that
is too aggressive. Fighting the injustice of blanket stereotypes, I am
an insurgent. But from the prism of so many prisons, I dismiss all as
unacceptable.

To condemn me, they
say there is something wrong with the shape of my cap. So I ask: Did
the bunker-busters bury the bonds of brotherhood, interring all in
hellholes of hatred? Is the quest for liberty blinded and chained to
the anchors of a brooding bay? So why can my views not be mine, and my
voice not heard?

What is so badly
wrong with the shape of my cap that I cannot not simply be me, without
the tags of labels, or does my complexion cloud the color of my
character? Does my location limit the length of my liberty? Does the
spirit of my conviction shackle my soul? Does my maleness maim the mine
of my mind? Then why bury me for the shape of my cap?

What has the shape
of my cap got to do with the fact that today the honest are wretched
and thieving knaves knighted? Why is it that eyes are not for seeing
and ears not for hearing? Does that explain why water is everywhere yet
people thirst, or when it comes to leadership, it is ‘me’ first?

How is my cap to
blame that we live in an age where misery is carried in sacks; that our
democracy is stunted like snails on speed tracks; that worries burrow
foreheads into cracks; that tongues wag without talking; that eyes are
bright, yet unseeing, ears sharp, but unhearing or that everything is
abundant, yet life’s hardly worth living?

What has my cap got
to do with the fact that the thin wish to be obese and the obese aspire
to be thin as reeds; or that enlightenment is at a peak but ignorance
makes the horizon bleak? Is it my fault that truth flees in the face of
lies and facts are fanned by farce? Or why we live in today and yet run
from it, or hope for tomorrow and yet fear it?

All I want is a bit
of sun, and a bit of life’s sum. It is not my fault that I come from
the land of Wrong Caps. It is not my burden when brothers from grey
lands – child, woman and man and become victims in a wave of mindless,
violent death. That wave kills and crushes all within its breath –
nature’s own death. It does not speak the language of children, nor
does it understand the words of men. It only reverberates with the
tongue of death, echoing from a deep depth; yet again nature’s moment
of madness.

When blind hatred
reigns, lives, homes, all become fodder for nature’s own mass murder.
And there will be no convict because nature’s crime has no precinct. So
force a spot of humanity from within to humble the haughty and the
naughty. Even knotty, toughened hearts can be melted by malleable
murmur.

And really, there is nothing wrong with the shape of my cap.

It is wrong for a man to beat his wife. In fact, it is wrong for a man to beat any woman. You would think this was obvious enough, but you wouldn’t know it from watching Nigerian movies.

The stories from Nollywood do more than their fair share to deepen the stereotype that women are fair game to be beaten when they ‘go astray’. When a woman is quarrelsome, troublesome or ‘loud’, it somehow becomes permissible, despite constitutionally guaranteed rights, including equality, for the man to step in and ‘discipline’ her. It is taken for granted that the man assumes a position of authority over the woman, in whatever relationship. You see drivers in Nollywood movies promising to beat up their female bosses, just like their wives at home.

We can chalk all this up to executive producers looking at the world from their small windows, but then one has to wonder about the approving public, and the very many across the country who connect with these kinds of themes. Or, one can wonder about the Deji of Akure land, Oluwadare Adepoju Adesina, who, one fine Sunday evening, beat one of his wives silly in a free for all in Akure, the Ondo State capital.

As this paper reported, the king, accompanied by his latest wife, Remi Adesina – and backed up by “stern looking people suspected to be thugs” descended on Olori Bolanle Adesina and inflicted injuries on her. Mrs. Adesina is presently receiving medical attention at the Federal Medical Centre in Owo for chemical burns and other injuries she sustained during the attack on her following the initial first aid treatment she got at the Ondo State Specialist Hospital, Akure.

In her court petition immediately following the incident (and we salute her for this quick response), her lawyers submitted, “in strong and clear terms, that the paramount ruler’s act is contrary to royal native norms, values, and traditional dictates. The king’s action is criminal in nature, which attracts sanction under the criminal code.”

We cannot agree more.

It is bad enough that a man can decide to settle a domestic quarrel by hiring thugs to beat a defenseless woman. It is worse that he did this with the full approval of another woman, and even more disturbing, that the two principal characters in this drama are supposed to be respected members of Nigerian society and the so called representatives of our tradition and culture.

But the real tragedy is the belief system that seems to prescribe that men are entitled, by right of birth, to discipline a woman where she is ‘errant’ – and that when they decide not to, it is only out of
personal grace.

Thankfully, it is a sign of the times and our progress as a people that there has been universal condemnation of the act, and not just from organisations like the National Council of Women Societies and the National Association of Women Journalists.

On Thursday last week, the Ondo State Council of Obas announced the suspension of the Oba Adepoju for the act of violence he committed. The council’s chairman, the Olowo of Owo, Oba Folagbade Olateru-Olagbegi, said this in a statement issued to reporters after the meeting of the chieftaincy committee of the council- sending a clear message to any who would turn to the ambiguous idea of ‘tradition’ to justify the action.

This is coming as police authorities in Ondo State also said a full scale investigation into the incident has begun. The command went even one step further, with the state commissioner of police giving an order that the matter be investigated as a purely criminal case and not as a domestic affair. The case has consequently been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation office.

To add to all of that, the Oba’s palace has been under siege as security reports indicate that many of the youth in Akure are intent on giving him a taste of his own medicine, a situation where two wrongs will certainly not make anything right.

But the wife-beater has been defiant, calling the decision of his fellow monarchs harsh and boasting that no one can dethrone him.

We might need to remind the Deji of Akure of one small, under-reported incident: in an attempt to escape being dealt with by the people of the area after his action, he fell into a gutter along the road and his cap, it is reported, fell off his head. It then took the quick intervention of the police from the state command to save him from being lynched by the irate mob.

One can only hope that, eventually, if a ray of reason shines its light through the windows of his palace, the King who beat his wife – and all men who consider violence against women par for the course – will see his fall into the gutter as the fitting metaphor that it truly is.

I
love making Asian curries because I literally start to eat from when I
start to cook! The very first thing that I do is dry-fry my cumin,
coriander, cardamom, cinnamon bark, cloves and fennel seeds in a hot
pan without any oil. This process releases the most exquisite blended
aroma like what Turari is to a religious experience. If you are
standing over the pan, the smell hits the nose cavity, the back of the
throat, the head and also fills up the house.

It smells different
in the kitchen and in the upstairs rooms. It smells different when the
spices are blended; when they are all cooked up in coconut milk and
placed on the tongue…mellowing, bursting, deepening, merging… I
predict that the curry will endure till the end of time.

Eating by the way is not only about putting food in the mouth.

When I cook
couscous, I toast the grains in a hot pan first. I know many people who
are content to simply pour hot water on the grains and this is the
beginning and end of their cooking. What a wasted opportunity. After
the grains take on the colour of beach sand in a hot pan, then there is
justification for pouring over the hot water and leaving the couscous
to absorb and soften. This method produces something a lot more complex
for the palate than just bland fair-faced grains.

I toast even quinoa
grains. The results are a beautiful bronzing of the grains and a deeper
complexity to the flavours; the slight bitterness is mellowed, it is
nuttier with a lot more aroma.

Which brings me to
the unassuming yet elegant Anioma Soup called Oseani. It was Michael
Mukolu who introduced me to this soup. It was also he who nicknamed it
the 3-minute soup.

The starting point
is the toasting of egusi seeds in a hot pan. Before I go further, I
must tell the reader about the long tangential discourse which ensued
over whether the egusi is the egusi we are all familiar with, or
whether it is another genus of egusi. The conclusion was inconclusive
after many minutes of: “…no it is bigger…”; “…yes its edges are not
as hard as the common egusi…”; “…no, it is not as flat…” Of
necessity, we had to move on and back to the point of egusi in a hot
pan without any oil, until the popping begins and the nutty aroma
starts to assault the senses. After dry frying, they are transferred
into a flat faced wooden hand mortar called an Nkirite.

The seeds are
ground in the mortar until they become a smooth paste, smoother than
any blender can achieve. White crayfish is added and ground in, then
what Michael calls dawadawa or ogiri, and finally, dried pepper.
Everything is processed until completely blended and smooth. In the
background, pounded yam or gari is being prepared. All the elements of
the meal must be ready at the same time, and I will tell why in a
little while.

Hot water is also
kept boiling on the fire for finishing up the soup. Once the pestle and
mortar work is finished, the paste is put in a dish and the boiling
water is poured over it and stirred in. The consistency of the soup is
a personal matter, and the water added will determine whether it is
thick or thin soup. Once the water hits the paste, the soup is ready.
The seasoning is adjusted and it is eaten immediately accompanied with
the gari or pounded yam.

The soup must not
be left sitting around, and it tastes significantly different if it is
reheated. So, like the sacrament, every drop of it is best eaten right
away.

The word ogiri was
another bone of contention. Technically, ogiri and dawadawa or dadawa
are two different fermented seasonings. Michael was referring to them
as one and the same, but ogiri is fermented sesame or egusi seeds and
dawadawa is fermented locust beans, also called iru. We finally agreed
that traditionally it would be ogiri (fermented egusi) used in the
Oseani and not iru.

Another version of
Oseani is made from Nsala (peppersoup) spices where the spices are
ground up with the crayfish, ogiri and dried pepper. This version needs
some of the pounded yam added to the hot water to give the soup the
body lacking from the absence of ground egusi. The result looks a
little like the Efik Afia Efere (white soup).

My excitement over
this soup and its variation has to do with more than the enhancement of
flavours with the simple dry frying at the beginning or with that
skilful releasing of oils and flavour essences achieved with pestle and
mortar. Here is a soup without oil or meat, with big satisfying notes
from the egusi and crayfish, pungency from the ogiri. Nutritious, not
only because of its ingredients, but because it has only been exposed
to heat for the shortest time and it is consumed literally on the hoof.
How incredibly progressive! Last note to urban dwellers: An authentic
Nkirite emphatically will not be found in Lagos, best to send to Ubulu
uku, Asaba or Ogwashiuku.

Sometime
ago, I wrote of a woman who openly expressed unhappiness over her
husband’s ova kwayet (reticent) attitude. Specifically, she complained
that he was used to haus to wok, wok to haus and an extremely shy
person. She added that only recently, she had to persuade him to join
her in paying a very important visit to a family friend of theirs whose
child just graduated from university. But on the day in question, the
husband hardly participated in the lively discussion that ensued
concerning the ill health of our dear late President Umaru Musa
Yar’Adua. When he eventually did, he admitted he was unaware that
Goodluck Jonathan was the then acting Vice President of Nigeria, to the
chagrin and shame of his highly articulate and lively wife.

The experience prompted this statement from her:
na wie de “pain” pesin dem de put nie faya and she decided to seek
advice from neighbours and friends on how to address her “problem” as
it were. She was advised to speak with her husband one to one, and
persuade him to hang out with colleagues and friends as well as network
with people to keep him up to date with current events. Importantly,
she was urged to encourage her husband to watch the NTA news at nine o
clock every day before going to bed. When her plan paid off, she dubbed
it her miracle of the century.

What is a miracle?

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (6th
Edition) states that “an act or event that does not follow the laws of
nature and is believed to be caused by God” is a miracle. Also, it says
that; a lucky thing that happens that you did not expect or think was
possible, is a miracle. Therefore, the woman who said her husband’s
change of lifestyle from that of a recluse to an upwardly mobile and
lively person is a miracle is absolutely correct. She had given up hope
of getting the husband she had always prayed for, and laik jok, laik
jok, tins jos chenj fo beta.

With the fast pace of life in this computer age
that we are in, there’s this desire to accomplish things in a hurry.
The “yahu yahu” boys and girls who indulge in various fraudulent
activities on the Internet expect nothing but miracles as they interact
and transact different kinds of business with their “clients”. Like
these boys and girls, their “clients” also expect their own miracles.
You find one who is expecting a contract award and goes about
consulting prayer warriors and imams hoping for miracles and “pleasant”
surprises. And of course once this proves to be so the “successful” one
would conclude by saying, na Baba God du am fo mi (the Almighty God
made it possible).

The idea of making it shap shap (quickly) is doing
more harm than good to our teeming youths and elders too. Today, there
seems to be a growing number of lazy people compared to those who are
ready to painstakingly go through the rigours to achieve.

While politicians are pursuing miracles from all
the nooks and crannies of Nigeria, the number of students caught
cheating at examination halls across the country is on the increase.
There is evidence in the high incidence of failure among candidates
that sat for the last O/L WASC/GCE examinations.

In addition to the popular miracle centres,
churches and crusade grounds we have new miracle centres in secondary
schools whose principals and teachers collude with their students to
cheat during examinations for unearned “good results”. At the end of
the day, “olodos” and “blok heds” easily make credits in all subjects
they entered for in the examination.

Such places are called mirakul sentas where the impossible occurs for a fee. The more you pay the more miracles you get.

Like a cankerworm, the activities of mirakul
sentas keep dealing dirty blows to our body politic. From the local
government councils up to the federal level, mirakul sentas are
everywhere and the unexpected happens at the pleasure of the owners of
these centres and of course their cronies. Unless these centres are
wiped out, Nigeria will continue to be a country of great potential
without attaining true greatness.

Johannesburg.
June 9. On this day of glorious sunshine and sparkling blue skies with
the sound of possibly 40 million vuvuzelas smashing through the
marvellous clarity of a South African winter afternoon, there probably
can be no better time to reflect on why a seemingly happy marriage of
40 years should end in separation. To explain: today was vuvuzela day,
to celebrate the South African national football team Bafana Bafana and
send them off with a show of support, all work stopped at 12 p. m.
today for the blowing of vuvuzelas nonstop for 5 minutes. Workers in
soccer jerseys and fan regalia in front of their workplaces, along with
children dismissed today for the start of the soccer holiday, were out
on the streets. As the vuvuzelas blared, car horns tooted and people
cheered one another. It was impossible not to join in the fun and feel
the spirit of exhilaration, anticipation and yes nationalism with
everyone united under one aspiration.

Its five hours
gone, dusk is descending and still even in the suburbs the quiet is
broken by the distant sound of a vuvuzela blaring and car horns tooting
in response. How to put a curb on African passion, confine it to
mundane parameters such as time and space, rsvping and keeping to
schedules, not to mention buying tickets early? Never been done, but
FIFA is about to try it.

For a moment all
seems well with the surrounding world and why should it not be so also
after 40 years of a marriage? Former US vice president under Bill
Clinton, Al Gore and his wife Tipper Gore last week announced they were
separating. No reasons were given and the shock that seemed to
characterise the general response to the news was because the couple
seemed so perfect together exhibiting an unrelenting passion for each
other. That famous kiss looked as if they drank it to the last drop,
making you want to whoop and cheer with a way to go guys! Especially
too because in many cultures there seems to be some musty unwritten
rule that middle age in marriage means middle ground in everything.
Children, those of whom it is rightly said youth is wasted on the young
find the idea of passion between their parents ridiculous and slightly
embarrassing.

No doubt news of
the Obamas splitting would elicit the same response as they are another
couple who seem to have the correct dosage of all the requirements:
love passion, respect, balance with no apparent sign that age is gong
to knock it off.

But stop a minute
and think about it: Forty years of a successful Gore union. Count the
benchmarks, successful careers, children they can be proud of with
grandchildren to boot, recognition for both of them for championing
causes they believe, even more a new career with substantial financial
rewards after the devastating loss of the 2000 presidential campaign.
When you tote up the wins and losses it has been a great innings.

Think about it: no
one really has a concept of what forever means. Even when you say the
words till death do us part, or make your commitment to care for as
spouse, there is really no clear picture of what that means. Most of us
can’t see beyond the fresh face of the loved one whose eyes you are
staring into, and when that fresh face is the latest of three, who
really knows?

There is allegedly,
a scandal currently swirling around one of the South African president
Jacob Zuma’s wives. But really, he does, she does, what’s the big deal?
Can that really be an issue in a marriage of multiple spouses? Surely
the success of the union is predicated on some higher value?

But back to the
Gores; what really strikes one here is the admirable flexibility of the
American way of life; I do not want to call it a system. They have a
marvelous capacity for change, which creates the space for invention
and encourages self-fulfillment in the individual.

Change is good.
There is nothing wrong with calling it quits, taking a break to pursue
new goals or even explore old abandoned ones. The wording of the Gore
announcement stressed separation not divorce. Maybe it is marriage on a
different level, not tethered by physical boundaries, but based on a
level of understanding and respect for each other’s needs that only
forty years of knowing can teach; not cribbed by the rules of habit,
custom, or of what people will say, that sometimes dictate why many
persist in lifeless unions.

Maybe forever is just forty years and no more, or then again maybe its just 10.

By
the time the Federal Executive Council came around, yesterday, to
discussing the collapsed state of security in southeastern states, many
Nigerians – especially those living in the region – had long lost faith
in the ability of their officials to protect them.

Every day, as new reports of yet more brigandage
being visited on the hapless people of the area trickle out, we are
amazed anew at the audacity of these criminals and the acquiescence of
our security forces in the face of it.

Life has become one long nightmare of living in
fear and coping with tragedy in some states and Abia appears to have
been hit particularly hard by this epidemic of kidnapping.

Recently, the account of a young medical doctor
who was able to negotiate his freedom from his captors was published on
several online platforms. His agonizing story of the cruelty of his
kidnappers and helplessness of the victims and their families brought
up the spectre of a failed society at the mercy of marauders.

Kidnapping, which started as a weapon of protest
by some activists in the Niger Delta to bring attention to the plight
of their people struggling in despoiled environment, has become a
veritable criminal enterprise in the southeast. Various gangs have
established holding pens where their captives are kept in dehumanising
conditions to get them and their relatives to agree to a quick and
costly release.

These gangs also roam across the state’s various
roads picking off people going about their business- often without
regard to their social status or ability to pay large amounts of money.
That this grim harvest of Nigerians has gone on for so long is an
indictment of our security agencies and political leaders.

The kidnappers appear able to navigate police
checkpoints – in fact, actually mount their own checkpoints according
to reports – and their various camps are sometimes located in places
known to villagers and community officials. Recently, the governor of
Abia State, Theodore Orji told a stunned crowd in Lagos that the state
government was in the know about the identities of the major kidnapping
kingpins in the state. He also said that one of the local government
areas in the state, Obinwa, is a haven of gunrunners and kidnappers.

This is a grave situation indeed, coming from the
mouth of a state chief executive. To whom are the citizens expected to
turn for help? How much further do these criminals have to go before
the government wakes up to its responsibility to protect the people?

What is the state governor and his administration
doing about the information they have on the criminals while the
scourge of kidnapping continues to expand across the state he governs?
How indeed can our security and political leaders look us in the face
if they cannot control a bunch of criminals trading in human flesh and
misery?

The rich pickings from kidnapping – have made the
perpetrators powerful and bold. It would be tragic if they were beyond
the scope of federal crime fighters.

Ultimately, the buck stops at the table of
President Goodluck Jonathan and Nigerians would hold him to account for
the continued misery of the lives of people in that unhappy axis of the
country. There is perhaps no greater danger to the security of the
country right now than this unbridled abduction of man, woman and child.

It is a good thing that the federal executive
council decided to discuss the issue. But that is hardly comforting for
talk is cheap. The president must convoke a meeting of the nation’s
security leaders and governors of states at the mercy of kidnappers –
ranging from Edo State in the west to Akwa Ibom in the east and the
states in between – to marshal a national response to this criminal
activity. Too many families are currently in sorrow because their
relatives are at the mercy of the kidnappers. We cannot allow this to
fester for even another week.

Just as some Nigerians were breathing easy that the avalanche of
sexual abuse that has rocked the Catholic world in the west will bypass us, the
case of Richard Burke surfaced this week. An Irish Bishop, Burke served as an
Archbishop in the Diocese of Benin City in Edo State and during his stint as a priest
in Warri, had a sexual relationship with a Dolores Atwood.

So far the priest has not denied the act, except to say that the
girl was twenty-one when they, “had a caring relationship that began in the
latter part of 1989, when she was 21 and I was 40. I was posted back to Ireland
in March 1990, and returned to Nigeria in April 199.” Atwood says she was 14
when the priest had sex with her, which would make it a case of sexual abuse.
In his letter of resignation Richard Burke apologized for failing to honour his
vow of celibacy.

That this singular case of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest has
surfaced in Nigeria shouldn’t be surprising at all, what is somewhat puzzling
is that many more have not. Research shows that membership of the Catholic
Church in Africa skyrocketed from 1.9 million in 1900 to 130 million in 2000
and Nigeria boasts of about 25million out of that, yet only one case of sexual
abuse has come to light. Considering the fact that we live in a country where
talk about sexual abuse is almost non-existent we may never get to the bottom
of the issue. Even as we speak, many are more likely to berate Ms. Atwood
instead of questioning the priest’s wrong doing.

Revelations in the United States and Europe have also shown that
many of the sexually abused are young boys. In a society like ours, will any
Nigerian boy or man be able to come out and say, “I was sexually abused by my
priest”? Or if there are abused boys, would they understand what happened to
them as abuse? Many would rather die with the hurt and pain or simply dismiss
the encounter, while the priest walks free to prey on; such is the respect we
sometimes have for men of the cloth.

It is instructive that the St Patrick’s Missionary society ‘
found no evidence to corroborate the allegation of child sexual abuse.” But the
Vatican is investigating further.

We live in a society where many laws are often disregarded and
often rarely enforced, a double tragedy because any errant priests would know
this and their abused victims would too. What will come of it if he or she were
to confess, apart from the priest resigning? Will our government seek redress
for its citizens? Do we have a solid judiciary system that will address the
issues?

It will be interesting to see how the Pope and the Vatican
respond to Ms. Atwood’s case in Nigeria. We have seen how the other nations
like America and Britain have shaken an apology out of the hesitant Holy Papal.

We never ask for apologies and very soon we start to hear “let’s
forgive and forget, nobody is perfect, everything is in God’s hands”; then
follows the usual – let us pray about it. But while we are praying about
priests sexually abusing our young ones, we should also start talking about it
and loudly too.

Till recently the
president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has been my good friend:
someone I look up to and respect immensely; a ruler I believed to be a
true leader; the still water that runs deep in our national polity; a
man that survived the Alcatraz of treacherously lecherous cabalists in
the Villa. I mean, this dude is the first president we can proudly say
has a PhD that is not honorary since Nigerian shook off the shackles of
colonialism fifty years ago.

Yes, fifty years
ago and we are celebrating our golden jubilee come this October in a
very big way – and guess what our President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan did? The prudent president is seeking approval for a meagre
N9billion from the Senate to celebrate, when we are not in a recession!
This is Nigeria we are talking about here; the world’s HQ of big
ostentatious partying. Yet, our president is asking for ordinary N9
billion.

I know our number
one citizen has his hands full and his brain is overflowing with
solving the seven-point agenda Medusa, so no time to check the pulse of
the economic boom outside Aso Rock. But I think every now and then, he
should take some time off and talk to his staff, if he had been doing
this regularly, he would have realised that N9billion cannot buy five
fishes and two loaves of bread.

Ghana will soon be
laughing at us. Why? Because Ghana’s golden jubilee that shook the
entire world had a budget of $20 million and we are only surpassing
their budget with a pittance of about $ 40 million!

The question I want
to ask the president is, what are we going to do with all the money we
make from crude oil? Are we going to start burning the surplus in
cemeteries and taking baths with the ash? Our roads are better
designed, better tarred and better maintained than anywhere else in
this God created earth. Even if they weren’t, will N9 billion buy one
truckload of gravel to pave a kilometre? Of course not! N9 billion is
what we Nigerians throw to a tollbooth attendant on our roads paved
with gold.

Let’s assume that
we did not have constant power supply (God forbid bad thing) since we
gained independence, does the president think N9 billion will leave a
dent in making sure such a nightmare is rectified? I am not an engineer
but I know definitely that the money the president is requesting to
throw a Golden Jubilee party is too small to even buy a transformer for
my village in Esan.

The more I look at
this matter the more I wonder if my able President understands what
this independence means to our people? We are talking about celebrating
fifty years of good governance and undiluted democracy, coup and war
free, free scholarships, vibrant civil services, an eclectic middle
class, jobs for every graduate, no militancy and no foreign debt. I am
talking about half a century of being the GIANT OF AFRICA, which means
we have fared better post-colonially than any other African country. I
can already hear the guffaws from other African nations, berating us
for spending such a small amount to celebrate our independence.

And I can tell you
what Kenya is going to say: “I don’t think these Nigerians value their
independence at all, maybe because they did not experience the Mau Mau
Uprising.” And Angola would chuckle and say, “I doubt if those people
actually have oil money”.

Let’s even look at
the N9b breakdown – N2 billion for Ministries of Foreign Affairs,
Information and Communication and Women Affairs. And my question to Mr.
President – is this just “spraying” money? Does the president know how
much it will cost to rebrand a Golden Jubilee, or is Dora sleeping? And
he better be ready for the First Lady when she complains that the money
will not be enough to buy asoebi and gele for the guests of the
Ministry of Women Affairs.

Guess who will get
the beggarly amount of N1billion if the budget is approved? Our Uniform
Services – we are talking about our first class-trained police, army,
airforce and navy and let’s not leave out LASTMA. I think they should
protest and tell the president, enough is enough, we cannot even pay
our dry cleaners with that amount, so increase it sir.

And the budget
request further says that the Office of the Secretary to the Federation
will spend N6 billion. If I were the secretary, I would raise hell
because these days N6 billion is not enough to plan one’s daughter’s
first birthday party, not to talk of a Golden Jubilee.

Honestly, I think
the President should ask for more, we are not a poor nation and we love
to gbadum. We should show the world that all is well with us, we are an
oil-producing nation and we’ve had a stellar performance since we
decided to rule ourselves. We should let naira rain and spend it like
there is no tomorrow.

So Presido, please, before the Senate approves that ordinary N9
billion, raise the budget so we can raise the roof, come October 1st.