Things That Make You Go Hmmm…

1. You receive emails telling you about opportunities to work from home and earn £5K a week, so why hasn’t the writer taken them?

2. Humans plod along exactly like penguins when there’s ice on the pavement. Will penguins walk like humans on dry land?

3. Ever been to a Nigerian party and, all of a sudden, the DJ starts playing Midnight Crew’s Igwe, Shackles by Mary Mary, or any music by Yinka Aiyefele or Kirk Franklin? Look around at those women who topple the tables and chairs over in a rush to get to the dance area; they probably spent the previous day at the babalowo’s.

4. Or been to a Nigerian church where a simple prayer is turned into a fervent arm-thrusting-attack-the-ceiling event by three or four people? Watch them; they likely spent the previous day with those referred to in item 3. above, or they are the same people.

5. Women who spray perfume up their dresses as they leave for dinner dates. Its not as if their date suddenly is going to duck under the table during dinner and start biting off tufts from their delicate parts, I know I wouldn’t, so what’s going on?

6. Men who spray cologne unto their palms; make the mistake of shaking their hand and they transmit these cheap, cloying, synthetic smells to you like some infectious decease. For some reason, these men favour polyester shirts, therefore they constitute a mortal danger to anyone wearing a pace maker as they routinely discharge static electricity when shaking hands.

7. How would you recognise a group of Nigerian men at a bar? Bottles of Courvessier, Martell and Hennessy fill the table at a ratio of one bottle to two people, tight TM shirts strapping overindulged torsos, some with dark glasses in a darkened venue.

The Vacuum of Leadership

This is what happens when there is a leadership vacuum, the consequences of a failed state.

Warning! Do not open the link if you're of a queasy disposition.


In whose name?

Definitely not God's.

The Making of a Failed State

Somalia, despite all that is said and written about it, has a banking system which is probably not as corrupt as the Nigerian one (how else do they convert the millions they make from their illicit activities?)

The Somalis have and make use of mobile phones, networks of which most likely are not as congested and over subscribed as the Nigerian ones, almost all gun-totting pirates shown carry mobile phones on their other hands, some even have sophisticated satellite phones which start at £40,000 to procure.

Active trading goes on in Somalia. They acquire shiny new weapons (reminds you of the weapons the Nigerian Police used to slaughter the Boko Haram members in cold blood); buy new four wheel drive vehicles (it must be the Toyota Land Cruiser capital of the world, no different from the streets of Lagos, Abuja or Kano); they sell hostages (read, the Niger Delta region and now the South East of Nigeria where we call criminals, militants).

Yet there is no known leader but so-called ‘warlords’ (does that not remind you of Nigeria? Our warlords are James Ibori, Taminu Kurfi, Michael Aoondaaka, Ibrahim Babangida, Theophilus Danjuma, David Mark, Dimeji Bankole, Bukola Saraki and Isa Yaguda).

What is the difference between Nigeria and Somalia, a country widely acknowledged to be a failed state?

Oil.