The World As I See It
Prologue: The following is a redacted chat between some members of a certain WhatsApp group. The banter is around President Buhari’s candidacy in the 2019 election. I decided to turn the transcript into a blog post. Only members of that group can identify the participants. If the “S” in “Sarcasm” has not already informed you, please be aware the following conversation is intended for humour.
“The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armour. He’s dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he’s a hero the whole time”
— Frank Miller
This morning I woke up seeing the day like any other day. On my way to church, I felt the morning was a bit chilly, so I checked the weather on my phone. Surprisingly, a weather report declared today as “Fathers’ Day”. Seriously? It seems unlike its vastly less popular sister, Fathers’ Day manages to creep on us unnoticed. Continue reading “Effort Sans Celebration”
Last week, news filtered into social media networks about the arrests of some alleged “Yahoo Boys”—the Naija euphemism for a set of persons known to outsiders as internet fraudsters. I observed the hubbub and could not come to terms with a society where some citizens see Yahoo Boys as the 21st reincarnation of the English Robin Hood. Anyway, I tried to mind my business. Continue reading “In Defence of Crooks”
As I decided to write this piece, I went in search of a quote I could use as an opener. This quote literally jumped at me and I think it captures the essence of what I am about to address.
“Having anxiety and depression is like being scared and tired at the same time. It’s the fear of failure, but no urge to be productive. It’s wanting friends but hate socializing. It’s wanting to be alone, but not wanting to be lonely. It’s feeling everything at once then feeling paralyzingly numb.”
—Culled from healthyplace.com
My undergraduate class has a WhatsApp group where we do everything from bonding to fighting to serious debating. Yesterday, someone brought up an issue about euthanasia, which then morphed into a discourse on depression and possible reasons for a person to want to end his/her life. This discourse unlocked Pandora’s box. Continue reading “When Emotions Spill”
“We do foreign assistance for altruistic reasons, certainly for humanitarian reasons, of course. But the main reason we do foreign assistance is we do it in the American national interest”.
—Roger Wicker, American Politician
The quote above, whilst very American, could be attributed to a long array of countries across the globe. Replacing “American” with “British”, “Russian”, “Chinese”, “Iranian”, or “South African” would still maintain the spirit of the quote. I chose this quote to highlight that a country’s actions or inactions with respect to events in another country are usually powered by national interests and not some idealistic morals. Continue reading “Ruminations: A United Kingdom”
Let me begin with a quote attributed to Howard Dean: “I’m just disappointed that once again, we may have to settle for the lesser of two evils.” This quote was issued with respect to the 2004 US Elections. Applying this quote to Nigeria, especially in light of the fast-approaching general elections, a reader would be forgiven for quickly linking it to the presidential election. However, that is not my intention here. The presidential election, unlike some would argue, is not a choice between two evils. Continue reading “None of Two Evils”
In Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Dispossessed”, a discussion between Shevek and Bedap provides a backdrop to today’s article.
“Who do you think is lying to us?” Shevek demanded.
Placid, Bedap met his gaze. “Who, brother? Who but ourselves?”
A look at Bedap’s response betrays a truism about human behaviour. More times than not, we lie to ourselves, deceiving ourselves or gleefully accepting the lies others tell us. In a case of blissful self-delusion, we seem to find it easier to face false constructs instead of reality. Continue reading “Ultra-Modern Deceptions”
For almost a month, I have stayed away from writing any articles, trying so hard to stay in the shadows. If you read my somewhat philosophical New Year’s Day article, you may have looked into the mind of a person considering the possibility of a new operating principle. However, some things have the zest to fall even the best-arranged stack of cards.
2017 just gave way to 2018 in a cacophony of jubilation, prayers, orgies, screams, joy and sorrow, depending on where one is in the globe and one’s proclivities. For me, for something like the first time in my young adult life, I neither got into the Christmas overdrive nor the new year’s festivities. I cannot really place why, but it seems somewhere in my mind, there’s something saying “2017? 2018? Kini big deal?” Maybe I would need Christopher Nolan to investigate the inception of this notion. Continue reading “2018: Another Year Begins”
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
There is this crude joke by some Nigerians that should they find themselves being sentenced to hell, they would argue that God should not cause double jeopardy since their lifetime in Nigeria was spent in hell. While this joke may seem out of place, it highlights what some (maybe many) Nigerians think about living in a country where illegality is legal. Continue reading “SARS: When Lawlessness is the Law”
Jilomes 