Open letter to Madam House of Reps Speaker

Shame! Shame on you. The suffering of your people do not touch you at all. Shame! The amounts of money that you spend on projects reflect your lack of decency. The amounts are vulgar to hear.

In a country where children go uneducated because their parents can not afford to send them to school.

Where people go hungry because they lack N10 for food.

Where families huddle together under a bridge because they lack shelter.

Where children carry goods on their head and sell from morning till night so that they can eke out some sort of life for themselves.

Where the police shoot people dead over a N20 bribe.

I went to a school that charged N220.00 for a semesters tuition. I found out that some people were so poor they had to pay twice. When the fee was raised to N420.00 there was a riot.

To put it in perspective, my mates in other (not private) universties were paying as much as N10,000. Also, my weekly allowance was more than N420

My friend went to school with a guy who could not afford to have his bath with soap more than 3 times a week. He could only afford a bar of soap per semester.

I could go on and on but find that I do not even need to paint this picture for you. YOU KNOW. You just choose not to see it. I am sick and tired of people stealing money and getting away with it.

I had great hopes when you were made speaker. "A woman would have the sensitivity a man may lack" I said to myself. You proved me wrong.

I have a blogger friend whose morning prayer includes asking the Almighty to kill all the corrupt politicians. I told her she was too harsh, but you give me reason to re-think my stand. I almost wish for the justice of the Japanese. Maybe that will wake people like you up.

I understand that you mother says that this is the work of your political detractors. That does not concern me. Their motive is not important here. It is what you are doing that is.
I am sick and tired of paying tax and having your ilk do with it as they wish. You all are what makes Nigeria bad.

Shame!

This is me being tired of not talking about things that affect me.
Me I go yarn, Me I go speak my mind. Make we yarn, you think say we blind.

Being Broke

I am so broke that today I went to the ATM to cash the last N500 in my account. Yes folks, I am that broke. I have not been this broke in years. And to make matters worse, my car just stopped working.

We'll see how this goes.

BTW, the ATM did not give me any money because I did not have sufficient funds for the transaction. That is, I did not have enough to cover the N100 charged by the bank that owes the ATM.

The last time I was this broke, I did not have a job and that was years ago.

A Wife's Commandments/Guidelines

I was wondering through blogville and hit upon this post from here. I read it and re-read it and re-read it. When I saw the title, I was getting ready to display my women's lib side but found myself agreeing to most of the simply laid out guidelines. (I prefer to call them guidelines, as commandents sound a little too hard).

A lot of marriages would work if both parties took time to be considerate to each other.

I am not in agreement with the latter part of guideline 2, but I have to say that I like this document and count myself lucky to have come across it. It may come accross as old fashioned, even archaic, but our ancestors were doing something right. Divorce rates are way up and we need all the help we can get. Besides, even for the unmarried ones amongst us, if use these guidelines loosely in our dealings with our fellow man, the world would be a better place.

Caveat: This is not to say that I do not think there should never be an OUT if there the ma(rriage is not reedemable.

Enough talk from my end. Read on.

A Wife's 10 Commandments

1. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind; and you shall love your husband as yourself.

2. You shall not make your husband into an idol, but you shall love, honor, respect and submit to him as unto the Lord.

3. You shall not take your husband's name in vain through gossip, slander, criticism, complaint or mockery; but you shall bless him both privately and publicly.

4. You shall work heartily as directed by the Lord and your husband, not by your own ideas of what should be done. You shall not be so busy working that you neglect to get alone with God every day. During this quiet time, you shall pray diligently for your husband. Be willing to put aside work in order to "play" when your husband asks you.

5. You shall honor your mother and father, but you shall not elevate their position or opinions above your husband's.

6. You shall not resent or revile or hate your husband, but you shall grant him grace, forgiveness and mercy and haceed love.

7. You shall not commit adultery, nor shall you think lustfully toward another man; but you shall thank God for your husband and be pleased with him.

8. You shall not steal from your husband. You shall not steal his marriage by threatening divorce. Nor steal his wife by leaving him alone all the time. Nor steal his time by placing unnecessary demands on him. Nor steal his joy by complaining. Nor steal his peace by endless nagging. Nor steal glances from other men by wearing provocative clothes and causing them to stumble. This defrauds your husband of an honorable wife, the other man of pure thoughts, and the other man's wife of her husband's faithfulness

9. You shall not lie to your husband, but you shall speak the truth in love. You shall practice a quiet and gentle spirit.

10. You shall not covet another woman's husband, children, friends, house, looks, wardrobe, possessions, talents and gifts, ministry, or any other thing that is hers; but you shall be content with all God has given to you.

Better late than never.

Imagine, even my linked people that almost never update are asking me to update. E go better. Things are happening o!

So I went for Laspapi's show on Sunday. We laughed a great deal, it was mad fun. Unfortunately, I did not get to meet any bloggers because

1. I was too shy to introduce myself
2. I had a traumatic drive there with my friend who is a learner driver and we had to leave early. Want the full story? Read below.

I tried to talk to Laspapi's so many times. caught his eyes. gave him my special wink. sent him subliminal messages repeating my blog name over and over again. Unfortunately, he is neither clairvoyant nor clairaudient so he just passed me by.

I decided to take a picture of him just to prove that I was really there. He was a great sport and did not even look my way when all that flash came out of nowhere. He was so intent on asking if the seat in front of me was vacant. BTW, the guy with the brown collar "videoed" almost the entire play with his Nokia phone. (So if the play is released in vcd, you'll know where it came from).

The drive to the play

I was supposed to drive to the play, but my friend called me to say ask if she could please drive me to the play since she needed the practice. (She has had the car for more than a year and she still has an Learner sign on it - I have yabbed, abused, cajoled, pleaded- nothing has moved her). Anyway, she got to my place 20 minutes late. We proceeded to go pick up a friend of mine who also live in the area. If I had disembarked and walked beside the car, I would have gotten to the friend's place at the same time, if not earlier.

After we picked her up, we headed out to the Island. I don't want to go into how many times I stepped on my imaginary brake or had to coax the learner to remain on her lane. It was not made easier by the fact that my friend has a mouth like a fisherman's wife. She was veering off her lane and ran into a white bus. Rather than feeling sorry that she had hit someone, she screamed and shouted about how the guy was at fault for being involved in a brush off with someone who was a learner driver. Ol' boy, I just weak. I called my sister (who lives in Ikoyi) and made plans to pick up her car. So we got to Ikoyi and switched cars so that I could maintain my sanity.

We had to leave the play early though so that our Learner Driver would not be stuck driving at night. After another curse-filled ride, I was finally delivered home safely. By this time, I was not really on talking terms with Madam Learner Driver. She had screamed at me for interrupting the "intense mental work" that driving entailed. .

All cars parked at owner's risk

I was talking to my friend about how you just can't fight with some people, especially in public. I can't remember now what lead to that conversation but that's not important. I started telling her about a girl that I knew from University. In the middle of the story, I thought that I should gist you guys too. So here it is.

Let's call her Joan. She is an Igbo girl. Tall, fair in complexion and "pleasantly plump". The first time I noticed her was when she came by my room to see one of my room mates. I joined in their conversation just as she about to leave and after that time, whenever I saw her in school we'd exchange pleasantries.

One day, there was "drama" in school. My room mate told me about it. It turned out that Joan was the center of events. Her ex-boyfriend had come to school with about 3 of his friends to “jack” her for what he claimed was the theft of money from his house. He started shouting in the middle of the faculty quadrangle about how she stole his 25k and he wanted his money back. He was not quiet about it at all. Joan had an answer for him. Here's what I remember of what she allegedly said:

"Everybody come and hear o!"
"I used to date this guy and we broke up. The other day, he saw me walking on the street, gave me a ride and we ended up back at his place. When I was dressing up, I noticed that he had some money in his wardrobe. I counted out and collected N25,000. Why not, when we dated, I got pregnant and since he refused to pay, I had to use my own money for the abortion. I was merely collecting what I was owed."

Then she looked around: "Was I wrong?"

Are you wondering what was happening with the guy and his friends? He turned tail and walked off with his friends. The abortion was probably supposed to be the ace up his sleeve. The next thing he would have said to disgrace her. Well, apparently no-one was disgracing her that day.

Fight 2. There was another fight in front of the faculty and again Joan was in the middle of it. This time, one of her friends had annoyed her badly and she started shouting.

“You stupid girl, I made you what you are. I was the one that picked you up from the gutter, gave you clothes and introduced you to that Alhaji and now you think you can give me mouth? I don't blame you. In fact, that top you are wearing is even my own. I want it back. I want it back now”. Then she attempts to tear the top off this girl. In broad day light, with a crowd of people as audience. The girl in trying to save herself, attempts to tear Joan’s own top off her body. She really should have known that absolutely nobody disgraces Joan. If she's going to go down, she'll take herself down. So what did Joan do? She ripped her own top off and (this one is according to them o!) took off her bra as well and then resumed the fight.

After that last fight, ol' boy I greeted that girl with fear and never prolonged any conversation with her. Who knows what will set her off?

Some people you should never fight with.