simply oroque's view

well, its really simple, a 23 year old guy who rapped like DMX and had one of the most culturally artistic videos in the nigerian music industry, passed on yesterday. He had a car accident, broke several critical bones (reportedly including his jaw), and slipped into a coma for days. i know for a fact that he was just getting famous and had a few really good gigs lined up before this happened. so, just to say my own farewell to the man, who just began his climb and became another reason for those of us alive to value the moment. a grim reminder that somehow, no matter how smooth things get, it could all end just like that. goodnight Mr. Da Grin, there's certainly no grin on our faces right now.

let me start straightout by saying two things: i have nothing against Mr. Babangida, and I have everything against Mr. Alao Akala. For the one thing, it takes guts to remain relevant in the world after over 17 years and if any celebrity can do that, (keep trying Whitney) then i must commend them. So every respect to the evil genius, and to be honest, i don't really know why they all call you that. As you must expect, i read with the same amount of angst and irritation, the comments ascribed to Mr. Babangida (i shall call him IBB like everyone else, going forward) and the first thing that came to my mind was the classic "off with his head!!" sentiment. IBB is credited with saying that Nigerian Youths are 'useless' and cannot govern hence the need for him to return to power. Now, two things. I read the interview as reported on SaharaReporters website and for the love of me didn't quite see where he said that in those exact words. secondly, the interview was cond...

okay, i'm listening to a lot of music right now as i write this so if some of it doesn't make sense...well, thank you lala.com for the sake of y'all who live outside nigeria, or under a rock in mars, the president went to the USA for the nuclear summit. it was his most high profile and globally publicized visit outside nigeria, and like everyone else, i sorta slightly hoped he would "represent" us correctly. well, the truth is that when two president's meet, its really hard to know if they are both happy to see each other as the smiles are plastic and stuck on firmly throughout the day, so watching him and obama act all friendly wasn't an indication. so it was with every joy that i caught glimpses of an interview that he gave Christianne Amanpour. as you can tell by now, i am in love with miss amanpour, and were it not for the great gap in personal and career achievements, i would have proposed to her to marry me. but i deviate... as usual, she kept the re...

sometimes, its really difficult to understand how deep certain prejudices run. a lot of people, myself inclusive, consider themselves above and beyond any form of tribalised sentiments and feel that with education comes the enlightenment to live beyond stereotyping. however, i found out while catching up on the news today that the late governor of kano state, alhaji abubakar rimi, was the first governor to introduce the May 1 holiday as workers day to commemorate the contributions of the worker to state building. somehow, i live with the impression that because the north is so low on the western education scale, that it translates to a leadership class that is bereft of ideas. i am always intrgued to find out that almost every government parastatal has a hausa fulani man at the helm of affairs who can hardly read a document correctly...sometimes, one may put it down to the ability of the northerner to be his brothers keeper and ensure that another norther replaces him in office (or so ...

i follow a blogger called http://fabulosityunwritten.blogspot.com/ , and read the following on her blog that hit a deep cord somewhere: "I'm bored out of my mind,I decided to kill some time by evaluating the last year: Faith Like many people, this wasn't a strong year for me in that department.I recently came to the realization that the only reason I'm aChristian is because that was the religion I was born into. The funny thing is I didn't even grow up in a church-every-Sunday kind of home, and truth be told, I dreaded the daily 6 – 7 pm praise and worship sessions that spanned at least 5 years of my childhood (my auntintroduced it to our house and it only lasted until she moved out). But one way or the other, early on in my life, I was introduced to theBible and to the concepts of God and Jesus and grace and salvation and they have stuck with me since then. I still believe in those things because somehow my conscience won't let go of them, but this year, I fou...

let me tell you straight out...i don't believe in superstitions. i don't believe in black cats or voodoo dolls (isn't that an alanis morrisent song?). but some mornings, everything just decides to go the same route...and its normally not quite good. from about midnight yesterday, i found sleeping increasingly uncomfortable. the heat was becoming unbearable with each passing minute and wasn't letting up! and as usual, there was power outtage for all of the night so it was double jeopardy. then when i managed to fall asleep, i realized that i was in a pool of wet bedsheet! apparently, i had sweat all around the bed and moved about in all the dry sections that there was no more dry part to continue sleeping...you don't wanna know how irritating that is. somehow, i found myself praying for morning to come real quick instead of the opposite. well, lets just say some prayers aren't answered as quickly as you'd hope. it finally gets time to prepare for work and bec...

between my last blog post and now, quite a few sundays have gone by. a few very eventful sundays that leaves me wondering if i really should start conforming to reality or keep holding out in my lonesome beliefs. let me start from the weirdest... usually, i get to church late (intentionally) to avoid the sunday school part of it which i have always found to be needless and downright boring. i honestly havent seen the need to cut my short weekend even shorter by having to wake up that early on a sunday just to hear someone reading a manual out loud and merely repeating what he has said by way of explanation. everyone else in church pays such rapt attention during this said sunday school that i sometimes wonder if they actually understand a single thing or are just hoping the teacher won't point them and ask them a question. so anyways, now you know how i feel about church. honestly, i'm not one to fake love. i either love something or i don't bother with it no matter what an...