Tag Archives: Nigeria

issues

FIVE THINGS TO DO TO THIS BEAUTIFUL WOMAN

Girl-Nigeria-FlagAfter accepting the romantic advances of this beautiful bride for the past thirty years of my life, and accepting the privileges she has granted me, I have found that my responses to her must of necessity follow certain steps. These steps are not sacrosanct, but are merely the products of the winding maze she has carved out of her history, and the unexplainable circumstances she currently exists in. While I cannot doubt her beauty and the alluring embellishments with which she remains seductive daily , I have come to see her inner filth and the unsacred ugliness of her inner influences and motivators. For these reasons, I have chosen certain parameters through which I will now relate with her, and I encourage you to do the same as well every time you think of her.

ONE: ESCAPE HER. Do everything possible within your power to slide away from her powerful grip. She has a deadly hold on anyone who courts her and her words are like the piercing darts of a Yagua’s   blowgun. Do not let her beauty deceive you, for it will only sap your energy and leave you useless to even your very dreams and aspirations. This is the first law, the law of escaping the corruption that lies within her grip. For every time she lays hold on you she demands that your continence be slaughtered on the altar of impudence and imprudence. So my friend continually laying with her keeps you in a perpetual trance, and all desire and predisposition to commonsense is in sudden flight from your windows of wisdom.
Continue reading →

Standard
issues

STEREOTYPING NIGERIANS

scams2

September 2008, I was sitting in class when I had to introduce myself to a number of colleagues who were taking the same course. When I mentioned that I was African, they pressed further to enquire where I was from Africa. I mentioned that I was from Nigeria, and one of the Black American who sat by me asked how I coped with the stereotype of ‘Internet Fraudsterdom’ that has being appended generally on Nigerians here in the US. I feigned ignorance just to give the impression that there were still people who still could not relate to the phenomenon. The next question was on how long I had lived in Nigeria, and when I replied “all my life”, I was bombarded with a series of inquiries that sounded like “so how many people do internet fraud back in Nigeria?” “It’s not written on anyone’s face and besides as a computer programmer myself I had to enlighten them that most of the software used to generate credit card numbers by the Nigerians are Russian creations. So there is international cooperation when it comes to this act of cyber larceny. However, I could not shove off the disgust that welled up within me. This is what we have done to ourselves and it is fair game when Nigeria is singled out as a country that harbours such people.

What is not acceptable however is when people use the term “Nigerians” to associate with Internet scams. Of recent we have been subjected to humiliating depictions on movies and commercials to the point that it’s getting very touchy. While District 9 increased the intensity of the slap, the recent PS3 advert was just off point completely. Of what use was the line in the script? They could have accomplished their goal without imputing that scathing line. I didn’t see the advert until my South American friend pointed it out to me on Facebook. So it seems now what we are getting most popular for is scams, militancy, religious conflicts, and noisemaking.
Continue reading →

Standard
issues

WHEN DID NIGERIA BECOME A SLUM IN DISTRICT 9 AT JOHANNESBURG?

district9posterI am a diehard fan of Peter Jackson, especially after watching the Lord of the Ring series rack up the Oscars with excellent display of modern film artistry. I went as far as purchasing the Editors Cut of the movie containing twelve DVDs with extended edition. Watching his remake of King Kong was also breathtaking, especially how he succeeded in recreating the lost island in order to give more life to the reality of finding prehistoric creatures there. Jackson is a master at imaginative delivery of stories, and he has succeeded in doing all this outside Hollywood. Lord of the Rings was entirely done outside of the Hollywood apparatus, proving that creativity knows no bound and the much money spent in paying so called stars only goes to increasing the cost of movie making. His new movie, ‘District 9’ was also produced without any big stars and shot entirely in South Africa. It is a recreation of a short movie by Neill Blomkamp called ‘Alive in Joburg’ Kudos to him!

I stepped into the Cinema over the weekend, hand on my imaginary hat, getting ready to tip it for another amazing production, but walked out of that cinema with mixed feelings.  As usual, the movie was brilliantly executed, the story was a departure from the normal alien attacks, and the effects were superb. However something in the movie sparked up a negative emotion within me as others chose to laugh off as truth what was a negative characterization of the Nigerian people as a whole. You see in the movie, the aliens were confined to a place called District 9 where they lived continuously for about twenty years and expanded the area in to a huge slum with normal social interactions, including buying and selling. But, as crazily plotted by the writers, a Nigerian gang also situated themselves within District 9, and became a dangerous armed group doing scams, especially with cat food, which was an alien delicacy. Get it right, the Nigerians being referred to here were not aliens, but real humans. I then wondered what the sense was in creating such a plot, where humans choose to go live with very ugly and disgusting crustacean-like creatures, and mainly Nigerians for that matter.
Continue reading →

Standard