Izuu's Turn

By Pius Adesanmi Three years ago or so, one theme ran through my public lectures. From one podium to another in Canada, in the USA, in Nigeria, I screamed about "the struggle for meaning". I was transferring that concept from the terrain of abstract critical thought and high-tension theory in my graduate seminar rooms in North America to the trenches of our collective struggle to take Nigeria back from our establishment enemies in Abuja. I said that nationhood is first and foremost a struggle for meaning. How that struggle plays out and who wins it come loaded with concrete and material consequences for you, yes, I mean you, my friend over there, yes, ehen, you - roaming the streets of Abuja or Lagos with your CV in a manilla file, still seeking employment ten years after graduation. If, as a people, your enemies win the struggle for meaning, they get to define the shape, character, purpose, essence, and mission of the political state which determines every...

This couple always quarrel. I haven't seen such a dysfunctional marriage a this close range. At one time, they fought (verbally, I think) around 3.00 am. The wife left the house, returned after about a minute or two, put their less than one-year old baby on her back and left, on foot. At 3.00 am! The man came down moments later, entered his car and drove off too. Of course, he didn't go after her because he was away for a couple of days and I saw his car (or one that looked like it) parked every morning at a hotel beside my son's school. The woman came back at dawn because there were three other children to take care of. The most recent development: with a child that turned a year-old in December, this woman, at 38, was delivered of her fifth baby in mid January. She spent the rest of that month and a better part of February in the hospital because the baby came at a little less than 7 month through CS. On her return, she dutifully announced her innocence ...

You may be the president of the greatest country on earth or the most vicious rebel leader championing the cause of all deities there are put together. You may be the most beautiful/handsome persona alive or the ugliest being ever beheld by the sun or moon (depending on when you prefer to make your appearance). You can be the most humanitarian philanthropist or the most misanthropic task master that ever lived. You may live in the most serene and prosperous land on earth or be a squatter in the myriad slums that shame the opulence of those who steal more than their fair share from national coffers. Your abode may be the most palatial of homes, rigged with gold and diamond or it could be the most "squalocious" rigged with mines by people who you know nothing about. You may be the custodian of the most exotic and exquisite throng of males or females or both, or you could be the one hermit who nobody knows; the type that even John the baptist will have pity...

I laugh in Greek, yet again! Not at my beloved Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (God forbid!) But at the most wonderful and unbelievably improbable specie of humans on planet earth; Nigerians. Another big iroko has fallen and as usual, a section of the traumatised Nigerians are applauding and the other are cursing and abusing! And me, am laughing again especially at a stupid post I saw this evening which claims to have itemised Sanusi's hidden crimes. All in the usual Nigerian way of "let's make the fallen former big man chop sand." And as I looked at the list of the purported hidden agenda, I am surprised at how overtly parochial we as a people are. For instance, the author claims that Sanusi has a ethno-religious agenda. In running CBN? Most of the accusations levelled by this young man reek of his own lack of objectivity - Mallam Sanusi is not from my tribe and not from my faith, as such, he is working against me. And then, that congregation of strange bed fe...

I woke up this morning to see two friend requests on Facebook. I tried to look at the faces of the prospective friends. The first has settings that stopped me from seeing anything that will help me know if I know her from anywhere. Though I do not really remember who the second is, but I was able to see from the Information page that we are in the same profession and we could have gone to the same postgraduate school. So I confirmed her request and not the other. This is what I hate about Facebook: strangers posing as friends, kids addressing adults like their equals, everybody acting out the "perfect life" that they may never have in this life, not-so-beautiful and not-so-young ladies flaunting beauty and youthfulness that that they have lost a long time ago. Even married folks act single and criminals, predators like rapists, paedophiles, ritualists, kidnappers, militants and even "Boko" ply their trade on social media, not only on Facebook. It ...