This Past Week

According to the Merriem-Webster dictionary, rape is unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent.

There are two crimes which I think deserve capital punishment: Rape and Premeditated Murder. Unfortunately, in our world, rape isn't even considered a crime in many places. I read an article in an old newspaper about a man who, after being detained because he raped a woman, was released on bail and went straight back to rape the same woman. He got out of prison three months later, and you don't need to be a genius to know what will send him back to prison in another few months. We read these things on the pages of newspapers and they feel so distant; but they actually happen close to us  and the frequency with which they do are a major cause for concern.

Here's a scary statistic:

"A United Nations statistical report compiled from government sources showed that more than 250,000 cases of rape or attempted rape were recorded by police annually. The reported data covered 65 countries. 
The attitude of the police in many countries often discourages victims from reporting rape: one study in Turkey (1999) found that 33% of police officers agreed with the assertion that "some women deserve rape" and 66% agreed that "the physical appearance and behaviors of women tempt men to rape."

This past week on Twitter NG, a story surfaced about a rape case where the victim alleged that the accused took advantage of her love for him and didn't just rape her, but also got his friends and family to do same. It was a very detailed account and very many times it was gory and unimaginable. Of course, as expected, the accused has come out to deny it and has said he is not and was never a rapist and whatnot. 
I'm interested more today in talking about reactions than in trying to figure out who is a rapist or who is not. I read some tweets and my heart broke. Even though it is difficult to imagine a human being do those things to another (underaged) human being, we need to understand that some human beings are not human beings, some human beings are monsters.
The thing most people seem to be forgetting is the fact that the victim at the time was just a little child: gullible and stupid and impressionable like all children are. How a man, an adult man has sex, consensual or otherwise, with a seventeen year old is beyond me. I don't intend to go into the illegality of having sex with a girl who cannot give consent because she simply does not have a consent to give. It really does not matter if she agrees or not, you are raping her because she is seventeen years old. But I digress, let's look away from that. 
There were a series of particularly disturbing tweets from an individual who claimed to be the wife of the accused, these tweets were disturbing because it was difficult to come to terms with a woman wishing that another woman would get gang raped. There is something very sad about it. There's a lot of talk in this century about making conscious efforts to attempt to subvert the patriarchal paradigm, but with thoughts and then tweets like that from a woman, I fear for our generation.
There's also been a lot of talk that the victim is concocting this rape story, that it all happened inside her head. Because of the antecedents of this victim, this is quite a powerful argument. However, tweeting about a JAMB score or jewelry is one thing, writing a detailed account of serial rape is quite something else. It shouldn't matter just yet whether she's fabricating her stories, that is not for any of us to decide as none of us were actually there when it happened. Or when it did not happen.

This past week, the drama in Kogi state happened. There was a lot politics involved, and that meant a lot of people didn't really grasp the whole idea. It was mostly sentiments flying about. And a little stupidity as well: like saying the best option for replacement is the son of the candidate who died; to borrow the language of a friend, that's quite daft. If we decide not to be sentimental about it, we would find that the situation is really not that complicated. The Supreme Court, which is the highest court in the country, already decided in 2007 during the Amaechi case that electorates vote for parties and not individuals, and we know that in order for the constitution to be adhered to, every governor of every state has to first contest in a primary election within his or her party and win. It is not hard. The problem Kogi has is perennial. And it stems from the fact that we are extraordinarily one-dimensional. Our thinking is conveniently contained in 'the box' and it doesn't bother us. 
I can't see any serious change happening in Kogi state unless we make conscious efforts to change ourselves and our thinking first.

There Are Levels To This

Prince Abubakar Audu died on Sunday. He was on the cusp of becoming the fourth (technically third) governor of the state. Okay, so in case you are not Nigerian, here is what happened. Kogi State, where I come from, had a governorship election on Saturday. It was basically a contest between Prince Audu (who is now dead) and Captain Wada, See my dry story. INEC, which is the electoral body, Sunday afternoon had announced that the elections were inconclusive. Make no mistake though, Audu defeated Wada, the supplementary polls which INEC announced would take place was merely going to be a formality. Until an even more breaking news came in: Abubakar Audu, who had more or less won the election and was going to be sworn in next year after the shenanigan of supplementary polls were over, was dead.
There are levels to this.
For a long time, I imagined fetishism as something that would not bother you if you did not bother it, if you did not think about it. During my undergraduate years, I had a neighbour who saw ghosts or, well, creatures (fictionally or otherwise) on a relatively frequent basis and every morning he would tell me stories of what he saw the previous night while he was heading back home from night class, I would nod and say wow! But inside my head I would say 'if truly you see these frightening things every night, man, you need some serious deliverance.' I think I still feel the same way now. Fetishism is a thing, there's no doubt about that, however, how much power do our minds have? I read Louise Gluck's poem, Saints, for the first time one Saturday afternoon in my tiny room in Abuja during my service year. I did not appreciate it much at that time. I just felt it was a good poem and that was that. I thought about it today when it was confirmed that Abubakar Audu had died in the most mysterious circumstance.
There are levels to this.
Normally, I would consider this superficially and come up with theories like 'he suffered from exhaustion. Because he was 68 years old and those campaigns were draining.' or 'he was poisoned by one of his political opponents.' But there are levels to this.
There is the superficial level which I would be content with sticking to but there is also the arcane level.
As governor, from 1999 to 2003, Audu was unapologetic in his mysteriousness. Calabashes with salt and red things were not difficult to stumble upon within the State which he governed. There were rumour about all sorts of human sacrifices, there were testimonies from people who refused to go to shrines with him.  There was everything in those four years.
There are levels to this.
In Saints, Louise Gluck talks about an aunt and a grandmother who were both Saints but found their ways out very differently. Below is an excerpt:

My grandmother's was tranquil, even at the end.

She was like a person walking in calm water;
for some reason
the sea couldn't bring itself to hurt her.

When my aunt took the same path,
the waves broke over her, they attacked her,
which is how the Fates respond
to a true spiritual nature.


My grandmother was cautious, conservative:
that's why she escaped suffering.

My aunt's escaped nothing;
each time the sea retreats, someone she loves is taken away.

Many times, these things are inexplicable. And so I am not trying to explain anything. This isn't even a theory. It is merely a thought. I do not know anything other than the fact that there are levels to this. May the soul of the dead rest in peace. May we never see the likes of it again.

The Evil of Terrorism

Yesterday was Friday the 13th. Yesterday was maybe the worst Friday the 13th in history. I was asleep when the evil that happened in Paris, France took place which is weird because I hardly sleep early these days. I woke up to a vlog post by Hank Green, it was called Feeling About Paris. First thing I noticed was Hank who was not his normal fun, bubbly self in the video. He looked forlorn. And then I started listening to what he was saying and he was saying, "Good morning, John. As I make this video there are lots of people killing lots of people in Paris, France." And I was still smiling and thinking what the hell is Hank going on about? And I was thinking soon he would become the normal bubbly Hank and laugh sarcastically and say "it's a joke, John." That did not happen. It was a sad video blog and I guess it prepared my mind for what I saw next. Hank went on to say things like, "if only we had been the way we had been, the way I wish the world was, this shouldn't have happened..." "If your response is to disengage, that's appropriate, if your response is to stare at live feeds on Twitter and Reddit, that's appropriate..." "Hatred is not the correct response to hatred..." "The world is broken but hope is not crazy..."
Anyway, next I went on Twitter and it was a tweet from the BBC that read "At least 120 people killed in terrorist attacks in Paris." I saw first. Then I went on to see more and more and more.
I don't really know the correct way to respond to something like this whether they happen in my country, Nigeria, or in France or in the USA or in Syria or in Iraq or anywhere else in the world, so like Hank said, most of the time I disengage and try to imagine what rationale drives human beings to be so cruel and so utterly unforgiving to their own kind. Most times I come up blank and I conclude that it is just not the rational thing to do, laying waste to humans like you. It is barbaric, it is animalistic, it is senseless. It is evil in its most unadulterated form. Have you ever thought of it? Thought of the driving force of a terrorist? I wrote a short story about it once and, writers are supposed to put themselves in the shoes of their characters, I tried so hard to imagine myself as a terrorist but things do not work like that? It is one of those things that are impossible to know unless you are.

When Boko Haram terrorists laid siege on a boys school in Buni Yadi, Adamawa State, Nigeria; and shot boys who were sleeping peacefully in the middle of the night and killed them oh so cruelly, the same thoughts came: what on earth or in heaven or anywhere else drives people to do these things? These are questions that cannot be answered here by me. And experts may do their analysis and state their inferences but no matter what reasons are stated and how cogent these reasons are, evil is evil. I have learned that evil is a denomination that is irresponsive to country or race or religion or region. It is the same evil that makes Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria kill school boys in Buni Yadi and abduct school girls in Chibok, that makes Islamic State terrorists lay waste to innocent French people relaxing from a hard week on a Friday night in Paris. It is that same evil that makes a young seventeen year old white American pick up a gun and walk into a church where black people worship and shoot at sight.

I should address also some misled and utterly naive and unintelligent people who are saying that this is God's punishment to Europe for being western and being an advanced country. And the people who are saying that the attack happened because Europeans are being leaders of the world and are absorbing immigrants who have been displaced in the Middle East and in Somalia. And then the idiotic Nigerians who are saying Nigerian people who are concerned about Paris are hypocrites because terrorism happens also in Nigeria?
On second thought, I shouldn't address anything. There's no point.

I have nothing else to say. May God grant the bereaved the fortitude they need.

Aunty Meimu

When Aunty Meimu told you that she was getting married, you were happy for her because it is normal to be happy when your older sister is getting married; even though Aunty Meimu happened to be 12 years old. That day she told you, you had just returned from the football field and you had still been wearing your tattered Arsenal jersey, and your small toe had been hurting because a boy who was wearing boots had stepped on your shoeless feet. She was standing by the door and wearing her purple hijab. You asked her when and she said in two weeks and then you asked her who she was marrying and she said she did not know and even though you thought that this was very strange, you did not ask her any other thing.
On the day she got married, you did not go to the field even though your friends came to beg you to go. You wanted to see Aunty Meimu get married so you told them to go without you. Aunty Meimu did not have a wedding, she just got married. One man, whose face, like a child’s drawing book, was full of lines, came and took her in his car after he had given mother a bag of rice, some tubers of yam and a basket of tomatoes. You waved at Aunty Meimu as she left. She waved back and smiled. She was forcing herself to smile because aunty Meimu’s normal smile was full and showed all of her black gums, but that day, her smile did not even show her teeth.
It was exactly the way Aunty Meimu told you she was getting married that she also told you that she was pregnant. She was standing by the door and and wearing her purple hijab and was not really looking at you. You had returned from the field where you went to play football with your friends wearing your tattered Arsenal jersey. You did not hear her the first time so you said ‘ehn,’ and she said, ‘Hamid, I said I am pregnant.’ You did not know what to say so you did not say anything. You went inside and fetched some water from the pot and then went into the bathroom made of roofing sheets at the backyard to take a bath. Before you finished bathing, Aunty Meimu had left and gone back to her husband’s house. You decided you would go and visit her tomorrow.
The man with the face full of lines’ house was very big but also very crowded. He had four other wives and they all had many children and so the big house was, in a sense, very small. Aunty Meimu’s room was a small detached one behind the main house. It was a single room with a small bathroom. You sat on a chair and watched her. ‘How is the pregnancy?’
She smiled. ‘It’s just two months old.’
You nodded.
‘I think I will name him Hamid.’ She said.
You smiled at the prospect of having Aunty Meimu’s son named after you. ‘What if she is a girl?’
‘He will be a boy.’ She assured. ‘But if she is a girl, she will be called Hamidat.’
‘Aunty Meimu, how are you, really?’ You did not know what else to say and you had wanted to ask her that yesterday before she left.
She smiled that smile that did not show her teeth, the smile that she smiled when the man with the face full of lines was taking her away months ago; the smile that was not a smile. ‘I am fine, Hamid.’ Then she began to cry. You did not know what to say. You went to the bed where she was laying and tapped her shoulder. ‘Sorry, Aunty Meimu,’ Tears had gathered in your eyes, too.
The man with the face full of lines came into the room and asked Aunty Meimu what she was doing and Aunty Meimu quickly cleaned her tears with her wrapper so that the man would not notice that she had been crying. ‘Nothing,’ she said to him.
He told her to go to the kitchen that he was expecting his friends, so aunty Meimu got up and went to the kitchen in the main house and cooked. When the friends of the man with the face full of lines arrived, aunty Meimu served them. But the man complained and said the food was too salty and screamed at aunty Meimu in front of all those people and said aunty Meimu lacked home training and could not cook a simple dish for him and his friends. You tasted the food; there was nothing wrong with it. Aunty Meimu went to her room and cried some more.
*
It was mother that told you. You had returned from the field where you went to play football with your friend wearing your tattered Arsenal jersey. She said Aunty Meimu’s husband came while you were away and you asked if aunty Meimu had delivered little Hamid yet. But mother only shook her head the same way she shook it the day she told you and Aunty Meimu that your father had died. And you asked mother what happened and mother began to cry and again you asked mother what happened and mother said through her tears that the man with the face full of lines had said that aunty Meimu had died from childbirth. You did not know what else to say.

On The Varying Shades of Introversion

After years of pondering and wondering and thinking about this thing, I have come to a reasonable conclusion and that conclusion is that I am not an introvert because to be an introvert, one needs to like one’s own company more than one dislikes the company of others. I have found that I dislike company a little bit more than I love the company of myself. I just feel that people want one to be like them too much and if one is unlike them the judgement is that one is weird or strange or wicked. Lol!
I am the type of person that can stay in my room for weeks, as long as I have everything I need in that room. During my Service Year, my neighbour and fellow corps member concluded that I was strange because if one is not strange, how does he stay in a room in the company of things like a TV, a DVD, a laptop, a few CDs and immense heat for one whole weekend, without coming out for as little as a good morning to his outgoing, extremely extrovert neighbour? The problem I have, actually, is what is the point of saying good morning to a person when the very next thing you will say to that person is another good morning some twenty four hours later?

Of course the word ‘recluse’ is always there for me to describe myself as but I am not a recluse either – I am not withdrawn from society, no. I relate with society even though I do this more for the purpose of finding new holes through which to mock it than because I actually want to associate and stuff. I think I found myself more during my Service Year than any other period of time in my life (thanks, NYSC!) Again during that year, I discovered how easily I could make friends but how much I resented doing that. I really do not think it is wrong to be my extrovphobic self, I just think people are different and we as society have a responsibility to respect these differences.

Also, I think modernisation is making society as introverted as it has ever been. In a social gathering, you find people fingering key pads and if you are like me and you were forced, in the first place, to go for that event, you start wondering ‘what the actual *&%’ we could have all just sat in our houses and had a group chat instead, right? I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and I was asking why he did not have his birth date on Facebook and he said he disliked the one day-ness of it all. You are the only person in the world for just one day and after that day, it is over, no one remembers you. And it was such a deep thing to say that I was thinking about it for weeks. How is that friendship? How are you, the extrovert different from me, the extrovphobe when the only time you speak to me, the only time you remember I exist is on my birthday and it’s not even like you remember me in the real sense of the word, it is Facebook that reminds you and even at that all you do is type some abbreviated shit like HBD and GGB and MHR and WULLNP and MMTYC and all those other variants of crappy abbreviations that I am in no mood to remember? Do you see?

You grow into these things, I guess. The other night, I ran into a friend’s mother and after pleasantries, she told me that my friend is back from school and I said ‘ok ma, I will see him tomorrow.’ And at that instant I felt displeased because I knew that tomorrow I was going to be on my writing chair throughout. We had been good friends, her son and I, and I guess we still are, the thing is it is difficult for me to just go. These days, honestly, I would rather you come. The same way, my cousin came to visit a few days ago and it was great. I want people around but not in a way that is clingy like button to shirt. I want you to invite me but I want you to be fine with it if I say no, I cannot come because I have something (nothing) to do somewhere (nowhere). I am not an introvert, really, because though, my company is interesting to an extent, there are companies that are way better than mine but I just would rather not have.

*Extrovphobe and Extrovphobic are not real words. *

The Curious Case of An Unfortunate State

Once upon a time, in an unfortunate State, there lived a bleaching ex Governor with a round head. Nobody had seen a single strand of his hair before, however suspicions were rife that he was balding. So he was a balding and bleaching ex Governor with a round head. He was a funny looking man, this ex Governor. He was short and round and overweight, so that he looked like a balloon with legs.
He was desperate, this man, to be Governor again, rumours had it: he had forgotten something important to him in the government house. The last time he was Governor, he was not an ordinary Governor, he was more or less a 'god-governor', god-governor like he needed not just respect from his citizens but worship also. He needed these citizens to sit on the ground if they could not kneel. They (citizens) immensely resented this fact and therefore voted him out the very first chance they got, and in his stead, they voted for a carpenter who had lingual challenges. This carpenter turned state Governor was at the helm for 8 years during which time, he executed a grand total of three (III) capital projects. i.e., in 2922 days, he successfully started and completed 3 'things'. But even at this immensely unattractive, undesirous and underachieving statistic of this carpenter Governor, he was still very much adored and praised and revered by the people of this unfortunate State as the most hardworking civilian Governor in history.

***

Once upon a time, in the same unfortunate State, there lived a short pilot who had white hair in his nostrils and white hair in his chin, too. He became Governor after the carpenter and, along with his utterly hairless deputy, did absolutely nothing for the State throughout his first four year tenure.

It turned out, as things always do, that the short pilot full of hair wanted to be Governor the very same time the balloon with legs ex god Governor also wanted to be.

People got confused because they were stuck with a choice between a pilot full hair who did, to put it mildly, nothing in four years and an ex god Governor who would probably sack everyone who refused to bow down and praise him and bloat his overinflated ego. An ego which, strictly speaking, had no right to be overinflated in the first place.

Some people wanted the god Governor because 'at least the infrastructures in our beloved state would improve', while others wanted the short pilot full of hair because 'why should we go back to the past where we would have to worship our Governor as if he is God?', and so they insulted each other  and called each other names like 'wailers' and 'chainji', whatever the hell those meant.

The most curious thing about this curious State was hardly the fact that they alternated between mediocre, underachieving, sometimes outright failed, leaders, but that even at this glaring fact, they refused to demand for more than they already had, they refused to elope from their immense, epic docile and compliant nature. It was therefore all too obvious that the real failures in this unfortunate State of theirs were not their leaders but the citizens themselves.

N.B. This story has absolutely nothing to do with Kogi State.