Childlessness: The Endless Search

Andrew and Titi Edet have both been married for more than six years without a child .Titi  would cry her heart out each time  she sees her menstrual  period. “I have missed my period again,”  she muttered sorrowfully.

Uche and Biodun sat on the same table with me, and as always the lunch time is a time to discuss and share information about current national issue and matters concerning our general well-being.

On this particular occasion, uche narrated the harrowing experience of a family that has undergone various forms of medical, traditional and herbal experimentation, just for them to try and have a child.

They have travelled to India, United State, South Africa making over sixteen round trips. The cost of the treatment and hospitality in monetary terms when put together on a global scale amounts to several hundred of millions in hard currency which leaves the Nigeria's shore.

Any mistake whereby large amount of monies leaves the shores of the country, calls for public concern because of it coming from our hard earned internal revenue. Given that background, I argued that the Nigeria government should show more concern on causes of infertility amougst young married couples. The frequency of this occurrence calls for the government to look into the causes of this very disturbing health condition.

This can be done by funding the universities to carry out research and make their findings known to the government with the intention of implementing the recommendation of such research findings. Implementation of such research findings will not only save the country high medical cost and bring about a healthy and happy society.

We have come to a point in our national life, where government should become more pragmatic in dealing and handling issues concerning the health, social welfare and economic well being of the generality of the population. The focus always has been on infrastructural development, which despite all is still lacking, to the detriment of our social well-being, health and education.

That is the same way, our citizens languish in jail in various foreign countries for offences that are sometimes cooked up and are suspect, and the federal government does nothing about it, thereby encouraging even more countries to treat our nationals in disrespectful manners.

In Nigeria, the government appears not to be aware that multi-national companies are exploiting our porous labour laws to take advantage of her citizens. Denigrating contract employment with dehumanizing labour condition and enumeration and wages that puts their workers more into poverty rather than elevate them from it.  

The bottom line, is that government should stop being an abstract entity, and begin to see herself and a true father of it's citizens and cater for their needs passionately just as we see in other advanced societies.

A Nation on Aging Limbs

Timinipere Akpo, a mathematics graduate from the Niger Delta university, cloaked in a rented over-size convocation gown, stood still and pondering after she took the last shot of photographs with her family members at the convocation ground. “free at last,” she muttered to herself.  

But truly, is she really free? The truth of the matter is that another young graduate has just been thrown into the over-saturated unemployment market.  She is indeed only free from the confinement known as the four walls of the university for four or fives years and thrown into what Fela tagged the “outside world” where the authorities threat the citizens in manners worse than those in the prisons.

After our independence in the 60s up until the early 70s just after the civil war young graduates across the country find it very easy to get placement into the civil service. The newly emerging private sector at the time also was looking for fresh brains to drive their businesses and was also absorbing a large number of young school leavers and university graduates. At the time, companies pay a visit to the universities to scout for bright young chaps.

It was fun to go to school at the time, because you are sure of employment immediately after graduation. Parent too share in that joy as the are relieved almost instantaneously of further supporting that child, but instead look to their children for support. Both child and parent breath a sigh of relief availed by the favourable employment environment. That was the period we now sometimes refer to as the ‘good old days.’

At the time, the government was rebuilding the country after just coming out of the bloody and devastating civil war. As part of the rebuilding process, government needed young educated men and women to fill up positions in the Federal and States civil service. The economy experienced a boom and a new middle class emerged from senior service and peace was restored to the land, allowing the military government to fasten the reconstruction process which led to the rapid infrastructural development across the country.

The 80s heralded series of draconian military administrations that placed embargo on wholesale employment, thereby ending a period of prosperity for the teaming youth population of university graduates.

Those who took up jobs at that time form a majority of the present senior and top ranking civil servants and politicians ruling the country today. These groups of people are the ones who placed and perpetuate the embargo on employment. An embargo that affects the teaming population but favours only those top government officials who secretly embark on recruitment exercises to employ their siblings and friends. These same people are doing everything to continue to remain in government. They continually extend their retirement, and even when age finally catches up with them and they have tp eventually retire, they quickly come back through the back door to the federal service by hijacking political positions through elections or appointments.

The old unrelenting civil servants and politicians are the reason why the embargo on employment remains un-lifted and our youth population can not find job placements into the federal civil service. There can’t be jobs for the teaming young graduates when the present civil service is occupied by over-aged persons who have remained in service for more than three generations.

These are the people in the federal and state civil service and in elective positions in government which critics often tag as ‘dead woods.’ The government has become a hugh trash can continually recycling  over-aged and ineffective people generation after generation, instead of recruiting energetic young men and women with fresh ideas abound every part of the country.

Have you ever asked yourself what a 65 year old teacher has to offer to a class of hyper-active SSII students who are full of excitement and are loaded with knowledge about new trends in science and technology, and are new media platform freaks. Of course they would be bored and uninterested in whatever “grandma” has to offer, according to Uche, an SSII student of Queens College describes one of her teacher.

The progress of the nation is hinged on these old recycled weaklings. They are the reason why the every pragmatic and revolutionary ideas are frustrated and discredited, never allowing them to sees the light of day. What happened to the reports of all the ‘high powered’ panels and committees set up by the Federal and State governments in the past and present? Why has commercializing the PHCN met stiff opposition from those in the service? What is responsible for the repeated stalling of the PIB bill? Why has the electronic voting system faced stiff opposition? I can to on and on. You and I know the answers to these and other related questions.

It is time this nation considers the younger generation in the scheme of things. We must now start to create a place for our children in the present which they are part of, and not leave them to the faith of a future they may never be part of, just as many in my generation where left out in the present scheme of things.

For the young generation to have a place in the civil service and in government the retirement age must be reduced to 50 years and strict enforcement of the policies on retirement age must be enforced with strictness. Part of the measures to be introduced to ensure strict compliance is to use data from birth registries instead of falsified affidavits from employees. I believe 50 years is ideal because if a young graduate is gainfully employed immediately after leaving the university at age 23, and has their first child at age 25. And in another 25 years, all three of the children from this family would have graduated from the university when their parents would just be clocking 50 years.

That is just the right time for ‘daddy and mommy’ to retire from active service. This is a sacrifice the aging population must be able accept for the good of their own children and the younger population in general.

Changing the Nigerian Spyche

Emeka, a close friend of mine, who once attended a foreign training where participants from different countries also attended. During the cause of the programme, as they were having lunch one particular day, a co-participant from India called Rajev, knowing Emeka is a Nigerian, asked him if he had noticed that the loudest in the class are Nigerians. "They ask more questions, comment the most on issues, but obiously understand very little about the subject under discussion because they spend most of their time talking, and during test, they make the lowest grades," Rajev said. 

Haven't you ever thought of why we are so loud and noisy, and always in a hurry, rushing to nowhere? We are always looking for short cuts and like cutting corners. We always aspire to be the one that gets that job opportunity by all means, even when we are the least qualified for the job, and always wanting to be on top, but never taking the pain to go through  the mills to achieve excellence. We want to win every contest even if we have to cheat to do so. That is the reason why we often field over-aged players in our youths tournaments yet we never perform well. Parents often rush their children through school, skipping classes and changing school just to be ahead and graduate early enough to move on to higher education.

Despite all the rush and hurry, we always find ourselve performing disappointingly in almost every aspect of our lives. Take our traffic situation for instance. You find car driving recklessly and driving on walk ways, taking one way, climbing culvets, break all speed limits just to beat the traffic and at the end, they end up crashing their cars or get arrested by the traffic offices, therefore loosing even more time and encurring cost of repairs both of their own vehicles and the other car, and even paying fines for traffic offences.

We need to stop this mad rush to nowhere. We have to retrace our steps because, we are getting everything wrong. Our educational system is wrong, our health care system is terrible, the security agencies are under-performing and the political structures are in shamble. The trader in the market is not left out of this embarrasing social degeneration. Traders often stock fake and substandard products and sell for the price of geniune ones.

Our artisans and apprenticeship training structure which used to be reliable and strong in the past, has degenerated. Half baked drop-outs are all over the place. From hairstylist, vulcernizers, mechanics to tailors can hardly provide quality services to the public. These quacks are now the ones training our young apprentices, thereby passing half-baked knowledge to these set of young Nigerians. Things are so bad that, many employers of labour look outside Nigeria to recruit technicians and labour workers.

Our own people, apart from lacking the pre-requisite skills, also are not trust-worthy. As they have been found to be involved in un-wholesome practices in the workplace.

I am still wondering why we like to shunt, yet always getting late. There is something fundamentally wrong that we need to address. We are all looking up to the government for this social re-engineering. But the sad thing is that the government too is neck-deep in this quicksand of shame and are themselves also struggling to remain relevant in the national polity. How could a government engrossed with so much problems and confussion have the time to notice these social vices grinding the nation into a halt, while other countries are making rapid growth and are progressing.

The power to change our situation lies in our hands. We most endeavour to always select the right candidates to represent us in political offices, starting from the primaries to the actual elections. We must always vote only tested and trusted contestants because there lies our hope for a better future and a strong and united Nigeria.

The Street Soldiers

After a whole day in the traffic, racing and shunting with a poly bag packed full of assorted soft drinks weighing over 50 litres, Chike reclined at the roadside kerb, one hand over his packed drinks, and his chin resting on the other, exhausted from the heat of the sun and the weight and exertion from chasing moving vehicles in traffic back and forth, trying to sell his products.

"Another bad day", Chike sat there, pondering. Sales had been very poor again today, after a long week. On a Friday and the day, far spent, Chike is worried about how he will provide for his family back home.

This is reminiscent of the life of a hawker on every street all around the country. There are hundreds of thousands of them clustering the corners of our streets and in traffic on highways trying to heck out a living selling items ranging from groundnuts, handkerchief to cheap immitation electronic gadgets.

The very sight of such large numbers of grown adult in traffic hawking just to make a living fills me with fear. I am afraid because I imagine how much profit can come out of selling oranges in a day. Maybe a few hundreds of Naira, for all that work in the hot scourging sun.

We hear stories of car owners being robbed of their valuables in traffic, and the unfortunate onces dispossessed of their cars, beaten up or sometimes murdered. Security reports have often times, warned road users of crimes perpetuated by hawkers in designated black spots around the country.

They are hawkers during the day and at night they turn to street orchins. The verocity and brutal manner they go about dispossessing car owners and pedestrians of their belongings, shows that they are a very big threat to society.

Armed with cutlasses and guns, these hudlums are not afraid of even armed security personnels. In some notorious areas, the Police take extra caution when confronting them. They are more or less street soldiers.

Sometimes, I look at the faces of these hawkers in traffic, and all you see is anger, and they are not hesitant to vent their anger on unsuspecting road users. I wonder how easy it would be for men of the underworld to recruit these guys. Giving the large number of strong young men lurking around the streets ready to do anything to make a living. I am therefore not surprised how criminal gangs are able to assemble large groups of young men of up to fifty or more in number during a single robbery operation.

These elements pose a big threat to lives and property in our towns and cities, and are indeed a serious security risk to the nation. If things are left the way they are presently, the security situation will get worse and there will be more violent crimes carried out in our towns and cities.

Urgent redress is inevitable. The immediate introduction of a systematic method of taking these young men and women off the streets should commence. Firstly, the Labour department should take a censors of unemployed youths to ascertain the number of unemployed persons in the country, before progressing to actual creation of jobs to remove them from the streets.

To make urgent and meaningful impact, a massive recruitment exercise must be carried out by the federal and state governments, in areas such as agriculture, construction and manufacturing. Other employment channels in the ministries and government parastatals should be opened to graduates, particularly from the NYSC scheme.

We are Better of United, Than Break Up

There are very many people who feel strongly that there will not be peace until the country disintegrate. While some are pushing for the creation of more States, believing that it will bring about peace, economic independence and development, other extremists are agitating for secession. On both side of the divide, the considerations are very strong. Some want greater autonomy of the federating States while others want outright self determination.

In theory, it may appear justifiable and possible to implement, but in practice, it will lead to anachy and division. The same imbalance experenced by the different tribes and sections in the society today will continue and will mutate into small cells conflicts amongst disgruntled and dissatisfied communities in these new autonomous nation States.

It is paramount that even if the country is divided into 36 different entities, it will never bring about stability, rather there will be strife and agitations of the minorities ethnic groups within these new independent States.

We do not want to visit the past and start recounting the ugly experiences that occured as a result of some parts of the country attempting to secced. The civil war, of course is still fresh in our minds. The castigation and extermination, by the federal government, of the Ogoni freedom fighters, lead by Ken Saro Wiwa can not be easily forgotten. Why do we have to spill more innocent blood agitating, when self-determination on its own, does not profer a solution.

The solution to Nigeria unity is not in secession, self-determination nor division, rather, all these will only result in the multiplication of the problems currently plaquing the country, and this will lead to a broader regional insecurity. Apparently, the solution lies in good governance, justice, fare and equitable distribution of our national wealth, which will in turn bring about peace, reintegration and development.

Early in the 18th century, the American society experienced many brutal conflicts. First between the American settlers and native Indians. Later came the slave trade, a bitter period of crime against the black race. Even as efforts were made to end this inhuman trade of persons, several groups kicked against ending the lucrative trade at the time, leading to the emergence of white supremacy groups such as the notorious Clu-Clux-Clan that went around executing and burning black families and setting fire on their homes and farm lands.

Today, America is united and stronger because of the introduction of the rule of law, which discouraged racism, sectionalsim and propagated peace, justice and equality of all men before the law.

The solution to Nigeria's unity is therefore by introducing the rule of law and de-emphazing tribalism, sectionalsim and separating religion from the State. Rule of law will foster peace and justice, equality and verile society. The country will be  stronger and united as one indivisible entity.

When I Become the President

 

Man does not live by bread alone



As a child who grew up in the village, I saw chickens cry to their chicks to take cover every time the kite shows up. It is the same way the tug boat is feared by farmers who called out to their farm partners to paddle close to the river bank to avoid sinking by the high waves of the tug boat.

The tug boat is designed specially to move and carry heavy duty oil company equipment and barges around the creeks of Niger Delta. These boats have tremendous engine capacity so powerful that they are used to help turn around large vessels in the harbor. On top speed, the tug boat can create waves of over four feet high and enough to instantly sink any canoe on its path.

Farmers returning from their farms and whose canoes were loaded to the brim with farm produce and firewood, are often the victims. When the time approaches 4:00 O’clock in the evening time, families and especially children, start gathering in the water front, waiting to welcome their parents from the farm and to assist them in off-loading their farm produce.

On one sad and unforgettable day, my mother, like most other women, set off in the morning to the farm to harvest her yam farm in readiness for the feasting and fishing festival just a few days away, and was paddling upstream back home with her boat loaded to the brim with firewood and yam. The practice usually is for farmers to paddle very close to the bank when returning from the farm, so that if the waves become too violent, they can berth and wait until the waves subsides. And they continue this way until they get right opposite their family quarters in the town before making a quick final dash across.

And on this day, as my mother makes this final dash and was approaching the middle to the river, the thunderous zoom of the tug boat covered the air and behold the boat was approaching on high speed, and as was customary with them, they will never slow down. And there was my mother, looking confused and scared. You can see women at the water from in the town raising their hands over their heads, while the young active men jumped into any available canoe, losing and trying to hurry to provide any form of help.

You can see the giant waves as the tug boat approached, and instantaneously without thinking, I dived into the river, as if trying to loose a canoe will be too much waste of time, and started swimming towards her. I have barely made three strokes when the humming boat sped past, and as if the boat swallowed my mother and her canoe, she disappeared with the waves into the river.

Stick in hand, one step to the right and then another frightened step backward; as if the first was a bad move, fumbling and groping with both hands and feet like a blind man without a helper. I woke up from a dream, in the dead of the night, in a room so dark I had to reach out with my hands to find the lantern. The lantern went off as there was no oil in it. I reached out to the window, exactly as it was in the dream. My eyes wide open, and sleep nowhere near my eyes.

So many things ran through my mind, I am really worried, more for my people than for myself. When will this oppression stop?  I stood by the window, looking out to the riverside and beyond the mangrove palms across the Nule River not too far away was the glow from somewhere not too far away.

I kept staring at what appears to be a horizon from flaring gas. I stood there holding back my tears from my eyes. How can I be so richly endowed, yet be so poor? Oil is called the black gold, and eyes shot away from the thatch hut grandfather left behind, which provide shelter for me and members of my family I could see the wicked exploit of our resources.

I will be graduating from the University with a Bachelor of Sciences in Mathematics. I planned to work in the oil sector. It won’t be too difficult to get a job there provided I come out with good grade, I wished.

Its 1:30 a.m., eyes still ajar, I have to read for at least two hours before dawn. Exams are at 9:00 a.m., and I have to try and catch some sleep before dawn as well. Where am I going to get oil to keep my lantern burning? It’s too late in the night to even find a candle to buy. I raised my head and the flame from the flare in the nearby oil field depresses me. I can’t even oil my lantern despite the abundance being flared to waste, not even to talk about providing electric power for the indigent communities.

 History has it that when the slave masters came to our land, our leaders gave out the strongest of our men and the most beautiful of our women in exchange for gun powder and mirror. That was then, but now our leaders trade oil for bride money, fat foreign accounts and visas for their families to sojourn abroad to experience the good life and dine in the same table with the slave masters. There has not been much change since the time of our great grandfather.

I hate travelling by boat. Four hours of rocking and splashing through the waves shivering from the cold breeze from the early morning dew. Sitting five in a row in a tightly packed wooden bench, that hurts your butt as though there is sore from the extreme long hours of sitting still.

I will be lucky to catch the first bus to Lagos. Thank God the buses don’t get filled up early in the Lagos Park. I will be staying with my uncle in Lagos during my service, and I will be hoping to secure a place in one of the oil companies. I heard that oil companies are a very closely nested environment where senior management staff secures every available vacant spaces for their wards and relations.

For five years now uncle Joe has been hoping that he would be converted to a staff having read geology with a 2, 1 from the university of Port Harcourt. The oil companies have their offices in Abuja and Lagos with operational bases in secluded communities and offshore. These companies are dominated by people outside the oil communities. Success comes painstakingly in a hostile environment.

They say indigenes often do not have the pre-requisite qualification and skills, but I know uncle Joe has. I have heard him say that it is difficult for him to be absorbed into full staff because there are very few junior level and a couple mid-level staff from the oil producing states in oil companies, most of which has little on influence and are often intimidated by the share number and more influential superiors who are from non-oil producing regions.

What is happening now is economic slavery. It is a case of government trading our resources in connivance with foreign trading partners, who would only invest in no other sector than the oil industry, and that is because of the substantial returns they make from the sector.

One day when I become the president of this country, all these issues would be addressed. For now, I just want my uncle to be given a respectable job so that he can earn a decent living. As for me, I have nobody to look up to for assistance in securing a place for me in my service year. But I am confident that if I am given a fair chance and allowed to compete with others, I certain that I will come out successful.

If wishes where horses, I would not have been in this abandoned oil producing community thinking about oil for my lantern, while gas is been flared across the river.

Why do I have to grope in the dark when electricity is on 24/7 on right across the river? Why do I have to travel for five hours by boat when oil companies in my community fly workers in by choppers? Why do I have to be unemployed because I do not have my tribe’s men in the oil companies? Why must I suffer from the effects of spill and yet not be considered a place to earn a decent living from oil production? Why are our leaders not recognizing that they are making the same mistake our fore-fathers made during the slave trade era? Why, why and why are the oil companies hostile to the people from whose land they benefit so much?

When I become the president, will seek answers to these and many other questions.

By March Oyinki

The 419 Scourge - Symptoms of a Failed Nation

We live in a society heavily burdened with notoriety -- advance fee fraud (419 – referring to a section of the criminal code relating to advance fee fraud), corruption, bad governance, human right abuse, child trafficking, drug trafficking, money laundering, cannibalism, female genital mutilation, armed robbery, ritual killings, religious riots, the list is endless. These negativities coupled with poor infrastructure, has deprived us of trust and respect from the international community.

The eradication of the enigma known as 419, which has eaten so deeply into the marrows of our society, and has caused us so much damage it requires more than just the efforts of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) to win this battle. The entire society, the lawmakers, the judiciary, the higher institutions, and the church, everyone needs to be involved in this war against advance fee fraud. We are paying too much a price from their criminal activities. It’s time we turn that resources around to fight them.

Every society has its fair share of societal ills. There always bad and good going side by side. Those who are perpetuating evil, afflicting the innocent, the unsuspecting and frail members of society with grief for their parochial and selffish pursuit of power and riches, do live amongst us. Thieves they say, steal from only people they know.

When a person you have never met suddenly sends you a business proposal involving large amount of money, be wary nine out of ten will turn out to be fraud. They come pretending to be a helpers, and in the process, you end up helping them with all you have sadly sometimes, some people pay with their lives.

I have learnt never to trust strangers, and I am careful in my dealings with them. This indeed is my first rule of life – ‘A stranger is not your neighbour to be loved as thy self.’ Perpetrators of this crime, go about collecting information about their potential victims.

My personal experience:


It is said that it is the greedy and careless that often fall victim of 419. That to some extent is true, but, the perpetrators of this crime are highly skilled, and they use modern communication gadgets. It is sometimes so convincing you are forced to believe their lies. In my case, they went as far a re-routing a call through Taiwan, and the number displayed on my phone, showed that the call is actually coming from Taiwan. They even spoke with Taiwanese accent.

Some of those who are involved in advance fee fraud are very rich and highly respected people in society. They are also well connected, and have collaborators even in EFCC. That is why we need to fight this scourge with all we have, so that we can regain the trust of the international community, which will make life easy for everyone once again.

It all started with an email from someone who called himself Matthew Choung Lin, claiming to be a Rotarian from Taiwan. He said he got my name from the Rotary International Directory, and as a “fellow Rotarian” he prefers doing business with me.

He is the President of Export Solutions Inc. and is interested in buying garnet stones from a dealer in Nigeria. He has approached the Nigerian Embassy in Taiwan, and they gave him the contact information of a dealer in Abuja and helped with the initial contact to get him Mr. Lin a quote. But he prefers dealing with a ‘trust-worthy’ person such as myself, especially being that I am a Rotarian.

He then told me what he would want me to assist him with and gave me the contact name of the garnet dealer and his phone number. He wants me to
contact the dealer by the name of Emmanuel Okilo and to ascertain whether the products are available and to confirm the prices, which the Embassy in Taiwan helped to get. He offered paying all the expenses including phone and travel with additional 10% commission as their agent. Indeed, he said the board of his company have decided to appoint me as their representative if I offered to assist them with this purchase.

It looks acceptable to me at this point, so, I called up the Mr. Okilo, confirmed the product availability and actually got a price reduction and quickly pass the information to my ‘Fellow Rotarian’ and future business partner.

His reply was even more exciting, he offered to visit Nigeria in a week and make the purchase through me as their agent in Nigeria and Africa. All the legal papers will be signed when him and his team arrive Nigeria. After the signing, they will then release the money to me with which to purchase the garnet stones. To facilitate their travel, I should get from the dealer, International Exportation Code Number that they need to secure a visa. He requested for my contact information so that he can talk to me on phone, and I obliged.

Quickly again, I contact Mr. Okilo, who agreed to release the IECN, but said that it attracts a registration fee of $650 and my personal appearance in Abuja for sighting. But if business would not permit me to make the trip, I should send two passport photographs of myself through any of the night buses providing courier services. The money he said I can send through money transfer from a local Bank. At this point, he triggered my alertness.

Engineer Choung Lin kept calling to receive updates, and at one point, asked me if I am married and have children. I said yes and told him the number of children I have. He then offered to bring for my family some gifts when he arrives Nigeria. That evening, I sent him an email telling him what Mr. Okilo said, and asked what he would do?

He replied saying I should just get him the IECN if possible by that same evening, and reassured me that the company is willing to off-set all expenses on his arrival. But if I decide not to continue with this purchase, I should let him know so that he can ask his other contacts to assist with the purchase.

Now, I was expected to send the registration fee. Mr. Okilo, the garnet dealer, kept calling. At this point, I knew I had to do something to stop them. And that is exactly what I did. I sent an email to Mr. Matthew Choung Lin requesting that he send me his Rotary ID number, club registration number and meeting venue. I also told him I have commenced a background investigation on Mr. Emmanuel Okilo to ascertain the genuineness of his operations. After that email, as if there was a power cut, they seized communicating with me.