Naija

A COMPENDIUM OF SOME UNIQUE NIGERIAN LINGO

Of late, I have become more naijacentric in my thinking. Someone once asked me if I was not guilty of “stinking thinking”—a term (I hate to admit) sometimes associated with Nigerians. I boldly refuse! I am tired of clinging to the apron strings of a deep subservience to mental imperialism, which still lingers even in my generation. This mindset often leaves us unable to be uniquely identified by certain words we have contributed—or could contribute—to international conversations.

The French have jealously guarded their language and successfully imputed some of their words into English conversations. A word like précis is French, yet it is fully acceptable in English writing. The Spanish word loco has also entered common use. Several other languages, including Japanese and Chinese, have contributed words that have been borrowed into global vocabulary. I ask myself: what is Africa’s own contribution to this global conversation? In Nigeria, we have created local words that are uniquely ours. I make it a point to use them, even when speaking with non-Nigerians, to impress upon others that we too have some colour to add to the global palaver.

This note is an attempt to celebrate some of those Nigerian words which enjoy common understanding across our diverse cultures. I believe that if we learn to celebrate our own, then over time—given the vast influence Nigerians have globally—our locally invented lexis will also gain global recognition. This list is by no means exhaustive, but simply outlines those that I can recall. I hope you too will contribute the words you know. So, let’s begin! I trust you’ll find this interesting—and please feel free to correct me wherever I may have gone off point. Ha ha ha.

1. Naija: a local variation for Nigeria
2. Obodo: an local word for village which has become widely used such as Obodo Oyinbo.
3. Oyinbo: A youruba word for Caucasians
4. Kpafuka: to spoil something. I heard a friend of mine coin another word from this – ‘Kpafucate’, used when a person dies. Eg. The old man don kpafucate.
5. Owambe: used to refer to partying.
6. Wahala: used to refer to much troubles.
7. Tufiakwa: used to exclaim a spitting action. Can also mean ‘God forbid’.
8. Isho: a sort of subtle deception.
9. Chilax: a concactenation of ‘Chill’ and ‘Relax’.
10. Bam: used to refer to something in a good state.
11. Kampe: similar to the word above, but usually used when referring to a persons’ wellbeing
12. Gbosa!: an exclamation of some action such as Hurray!
13. Egunje: a bribe.
14. Fisi or Jara: an extra portion added to a purchase.
15. Efizzy: used to refer to some form of special effects.
16. Jand: a local word for England.
17. Konk: used to refer to the hardness of a thing. Also used to refer to a hard knock on the head.
16. Chook: to pierce with a sharp object.
18. Jam: to meet someone.
19. Nack. A local word for knock. Also has a very obscene usage( don’t ask me).
20. Shakara or Yanga: meaning to pose or make a showoff.
21. Lepa: a very slim person. Another word could be ‘Lenge’.
22. Orobo: a fat person. Some even say ‘Orobolicious’.
23. Gorimakpa: a well shaven head, without any hair left.
24. Mess: to release fowl air from the outlet behnd a person.
25. Bomful: a local word for Buffoon.
26. Ogo: the projection back head.
27. Akpola: a heavy shoe with a massive sole.
28. Sisi: a young woman very current in fashion.
29. Timedify: a word widely used among the Efiks referring to scattering something.
30. 404: used in reference to Dog meat.
31. Wack: to eat. ‘Wackis’ also means food.
32. Kabu Kabu: means a Taxi.
33. Danfo: a commercial mini bus.
34. Okada: a commercial motorcycle.
35. Akanawan Baby: An Efik word for an old woman still trying to be sexy.
36. Aje-Butter: a spoilt child or one raised in affluence.
37. Aje-Kpako: one raised in hard circumstances.
38. How far: What’s up.
39. Kolomental: an insane person.
40. Magomago: a form of cheating.
41. Expo: any form of leakage or aid for exam malpractice.
42. Fashi or Bone: to forget about somethng, or treat as insignificant.
43. Orijo: a local term for original.
44. Sawdust: a secondary school term for Garri. Some call it Garrium-Sulphide.
45. Tie-fling: a word used for a wrap of shit in a nylon bag in the absence of toilet facilities. Usually in some remote secondary school.
46. Jabo: to abandon a person.
47. Badoski: a person really skilled at his profession; good or bad.
48. Paddy or Pally: a pal or close friend or associate.
49. Pepper: used in reference to money.
50. Shaks: referring to hard drinks.
51. Lailai: never.
52. yarn: to talk aimlessly.
53. Okpas: a nonsensical talk.

Oya, make una write una own…me I don tire before I yarn okpas… ha ha ha!

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On the orgin of HIV/AIDS

This discourse comes out of a major argument I was engaged in with a couple of my colleagues in school. When I could not provide answers for major questions raised I knew I had to read and research more on the issue of HIV/AIDS and not remain a casual partaker in a global phenomenon. A major concern for me about the penning of this article is for my fellow Africans who are faced with a menace threatening to decimate its flowering populace. As we contend with social forces that have aforetime worked against us. We are beset yet again with another unresolved mystery, bringing a new dimension to our struggle as a continent to end our darkness and the thrust of continental dependency. I have never really believed in statistics imported from across the sea about every facet of the Africa life, rather I have always lived to be objective and make my conclusions from what is relatable. This makes me question the veracity of HIV/AIDS statistics on Africa.

HIV, I have believed is a phenomenon that has been politicized to the suffering of Africa plummeting us within the vicious triangle of economic, political and health dependency. Have you ever wondered why there is much ado about managing a disease that very few have opted to tell us where it came from? The medical field, the media, and government have not enlightened us about its origin, yet much money and efforts have gone into enlightening us about how to prevent or live with it. Sometimes, understanding the source of problem could as well lead you into its solution.

They first incident of AIDS is reported to have been in Los Angeles in 1981. It came to be established as a disease found mostly between homosexual and bisexual. Barely 15 years after Africa has about 80% of the reported HIV/AIDS cases, especially sub-Saharan Africa. Now Africa is heavily dependent on external aid to help it combat a disease we cannot find out its origin. I researched several materials including the Internet and discovered there was a dearth of information on where this plague came from. Almost the entire medical field, if not all, believes that the disease derived from some natural evolutionary event. But Dr. Jonathan Mann who was according to the medical field, WHO/AIDS czar, made a profound statement shortly before his death in an Airline Crash. He stated that more than the medical significant problem AIDS is a “socio-political imposition.” Is AIDS man-made? This is the dreadful question that pervades my mind through out my search for what information had on its origin. While I do not want to draw conclusions but to provoke you to having an inquisitive mind, I cannot but be tempted to conceive AIDS as iatrogenic. This is because of the unique way this virus works.

HIV, which is the cause of AIDS, is a retrovirus that possesses a special enzyme called “Reverse Transcriptase”. This enzyme is able to make a copy DNA of the viral RNA, which enables the virus to reverse the normal flow of genetic information and to incorporate its viral genes into the genetic material of its host. This virus may remain latent for an often lengthy period of time until it is reactivated. A major step in the HIV infection is that it binds itself to a receptor called the CD4, which is found on the surface of the T4 cells (your soldier cells that fight infection in the body). This way, it gains entrance into the nucleus of the T4 cells, grows and reproduces within it, and then destroys the T4 cell. A point to note is that whichever cell in the body carries the CD4 on its surface will get attacked by the HIV. This is almost the same way a computer virus works, by attaching itself to files and then finding its way to the computer system’s hard drive, thereby crashing it. The process looks highly planned and instructed. This raises questions in my mind to the likelihood that AIDS is iatrogenic.

On reading the Leonard Horowitz postulations on the danger of HIV/ AIDS, I began to wonder if Western scientists are not hiding things from the common man on the street. Horowitz believes that HIV/AIDS is the outcome of “specific vaccination experiments”. The WHO specialist, the late Dr Jonathan Mann, buttresses this. According to him, “AIDS is undoubtedly man-made. I can now assert its iatrogenic origin”. He further controversially links those developments to the early or mid-1970s. From some of the materials I came across, I discovered that most of the investigating scientists seem to link the AIDS pandemic to the Hepatitis B vaccine. In 2001, there was the publication of the Royal Society of London. This society published its proceedings on its enquiry into the origin of AIDS, in which they focused on the theory that contaminated Polio vaccines triggered the HIV/ AIDS pandemic, after which consideration was given for the theory of the HB vaccine. The publication stated that clear resolutions were made by the society of which I quote some profound parts: –

“There should be an investigation by an international committee mostly composed of Non-medical people about how a rather obvious and plausible theory (of AIDS’s origin from contaminated vaccines) came to be proved and restricted from publication for so long, especially when important consequences about mankind’s’ worse epidemic and even more important consequences for others, possibly even worse that may be following, hang in the balance”.

Faced with the terrible burden of AIDS, stories that HIV was introduced into Africa from the West by an accident with the OPV (Oral Polio Vaccine) or intentionally by the USA (Central Intelligence Agency), have gained widespread audience. Never the less, because natural and iatrogenic transmissions of retrovirus are not mutually exclusive, these are the very powerful conclusions that cannot be overlooked by African leaders. Our governments through institutions like A.U or ECOWAS should present a common front on constituting an inquiry into this “Afrocidic issue” (if the word permits).

It is now widely accepted that the Cut Hunter Theory of natural transfer holds no substance. This theory alleges that an African native received a bloody wound or infected splash while preparing for food a chimpanzee carrying a similar AIDS virus found in monkeys i.e. the Simian Immuno-Virus (SIV). The Royal Society of London’s delegate had concerned themselves with the OPV contamination, since the vaccine was partially got from growing life polio viruses in the monkey kidney cells. They concluded that HIV origin and AIDS was not likely to have come from polio vaccine transmissions as chimpanzees were not proven to have been used during the manufacture of these vaccines. They however left open the possibility of contamination of the HB vaccines for which Leonard Horowitz stands his ground.

From the book “The Origin of AIDS: Darwinian or Lamarckian” written by T. Burr, J.M Hyman and the famous Dr. Gerard Myers who is the US governments’ Chief DNA Sequence Analyst in New Mexico, they claim that some genetic sequencing studies links to sometimes around the mid 1970s the punctuated origin of AIDS events. They said the most likely cause of this animal to man disease was some man influenced acts involving monkeys. But they were not certain if chimpanzees were used especially for the making of polio vaccines. But Dr. Horowitz (a Harvard degree holder) attempts to answer this in his book “Emerging Viruses, AIDS and Ebola Native, Accident or Intentional?” I believe every African should read this thought provoking book. He in this book with backed documents proved that chimpanzees with contaminated viruses were used in the growing of HB vaccines which was used on homosexual men in the US (New York City) and central African people around the mid 1970s. I was absolutely appalled looking through this book and the evidential instances made. I keep asking, with such research work done by prominent scientists such as this, why is there still little attention given to this threatening issue?

In the second part of this discourse, I will take a very close look on prevailing and modern evidence on the origin of AIDS. I sincerely hope that we will gather enough momentum to prevail on the authorities in Africa to sound a clarion call for a deeper investigation into this menace. As much as we are privileged to enjoy divine intervention, we must secure the faith of the weak. What is African Development when we are on the brink of extinction? How can we fold our hands and watch 30% of a whole continent battle HIV/AIDS and we claim we can only pray. I believe we should allow our prayers bring us into divine inspiration on how to permanently root out this disease from our continent if God’s agenda will materialize in our time.

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