simply oroque's view

i will never understand... there are no words we can say...no way this explain this away. the world has gone mad, and now you'll be in heaven's sway...as the angels you truly are. unbelievable.

@orokzee for daily doses of witty one-liners...

today i have decided to come face to face with the truth that has haunted me for a year now. and it is that i have changed. you know, overall. i don't feel the need to be brash and say things in the most uncomfortable way possible, i now very easily let go of things (and people) that add zero value and with the unwavering love of someone dear (whom you shall call "Miss.J"), i find no more need to prove a point. i guess many of my readers have seen this lately, you know, my hesitation to write about controversial topics, and my refrain from dropping my two cents into the hot topic of the day (re: pastors with jets, corruption figures during jonathan's government etc). but its not a bad thing, as they say, change - and wrinkles - is the only constant thing in life. but i think the biggest change has to be this past weekend. as many of you already know, i have a cavalier attitude to child care. no, not that i think its unimportant but i often go in hard on women who o...

you know, i have no idea why after many generations it has not become clear to women that the phrase "ever after" means 'ever after with you making an effort to keep yourself as close as practicable to the person i married'. i was at my friend's wedding ceremony last week saturday, he is not only a great friend but also an avid reader of my blog. its exciting to see how fit he was looking for his big day and the resplendence of his bride, who i also consider a very good friend. its was glorious. however, (as with most writers sitting in church during a wedding sermon), the continued emphasis on the words 'ever after' and 'forever' and the obligatory "never put assunder" and the 'church does not approve of divorce' anthem very nearly got my goat. not only do i plan to specialize in family law, i plan to practice it. of course my target market will be the countless nigerian women in loveless marriages sticking it through because i...

whenever I meet new friends for the first time, one of the few things they learn about me is that I'm stoical by nature. I express almost no emotion and nothing they say or do shocks me in the slightest. This works both ways, on the positive I have friends from every sphere of life. I have really good friends who are area boys and touts, and I have banker and lawyer friends, all just as close to me as the other. True that I may exhibit different levels of caution when dealing with street folk but other than ensuring that nothing of value is within sight when they are around, you can't tell one friend from the other.  The downside of my stoical nature is that I come across as fake and impersonal. Colleagues often come to me with what is supposed to be a life threatening national emergency and meet the same blank face with which I address complete strangers telling me about their pet animals. Yeah, it's called the "I couldnt give a rats ass" look. Those who are a...

i swear i try very hard to cut the president some slack but he just wont let me be. okay, so we have all  grown weary of complaining about his lack of vision, and his inexperience but he has to remind us constantly that not only does he not know a thing about governance, he has refused to surround himself with those that indeed know something about it. if you read my blog post from two years back, i mentioned that i no longer wake early to catch the independence day speech by the president since president obasanjo left office because it lacked any substance thereafter. during obasanjo's time, he was always trying to start something. if he wasn't trying to get himself a third term, he was riling up the senate on something or the other and if it wasn't that he would be exchanging words with orji kalu and bola tunubu. o the days. of course, he kept the nation on edge the entire eight years and you couldn't blink or miss a speech because it could just mean the end of an e...

apparently, nigeria has some die hard fans out there...like my office. so this year, same as the last year, we get a 'happy independence' cake from my office. i was going to say 'with love' but i'm not sure that will be overly accurate. its funny how certain organizations show these acts of patriotism especially when noone is watching, and when they are not mandated by law. i really wanted to come on up here and make sarcastic remarks about the state of the country and what the heck we are so uppity doo about, but i really can't bring myself to do it. i dont know what it is, but something tells me that my employers are right. you cannot buy freedom, and you cannot trade it in for the best economy, or the utmost stability or peace to all mankind. the personal freedoms we enjoy as citizens of a sovereign nation, imperfectly enforced as they are, remain better than what other full blooded human beings are subjected to in north korea and most of the arab worl...

hello 'guy that pisses on the toilet seat', i have decided that i am sick of your slovenly ways. after four years in this office, i have finally had it with the amount of gruesome lack of etiquette that you exude on a daily basis and your gross disregard for the comfort of other people who have to share common facilities in the office with you. i know you read my blog cos you've actually told me a couple of times, so here is hoping you see this. its the least embarassing way to say this to you wihout resorting to fisticuffs. there are a few things that you must change if you intend to get any respect from other colleagues as you are now famous for being a dirty, semi-literate duffus who breaks up group conversations by your mere presence: 1. the toilet seat can and should indeed be lifted if you want to pee: this advice is given first because it is what you are solely remembered by. everytime people cannot quickly recall your name, they say "the guy that pees on th...

i love the phrase "in those days". for a long time in my life, i never felt qualified to use it though, but everyone older than me seemed to use with such pride that it made the phrase itself assume greater meaning than the sum of its words. it was not only used to reminisce, but also used condescendingly. whenever you said something factual yet unpalatable to someone who was older than you, and they lacked the authority to slap you across the face, they would resort to trying to sting you by starting the next sentence with "i don't blame you, in those days...". unlike many people around me, i had the good fortune of starting school early and never failing a single class. which meant that compared to many of my peers, i was often quite young for my class later in life. by the time i finished law school i was 24 and my dad could not stop oggling at all the other classmates during my call to bar ceremony. i vaguely remember him telling my mum and i on the drive ho...

so today i sat at the airport in ghana and i recalled my very first trip outside the country four years ago to this same place. having been properly educated in private schools all my life, i constantly had people express shock and surprise to realize i schooled all my life right here in lagos...as people expect that the manner with which i speak english is evident of foreign education. if only they knew that i did not have any such luxury and my parents barely could afford to give me private education with great sacrifice. if only i knew that if would take 5 years of working hard, 4 different jobs and 29 years of living to finally step out of nigeria. i remember being ashamed to tell people i had never been out of the country. it almost began to seem that there was someting wrong with me for not having the good fortune to have gone on holidays to america and the uk and around the world. especially surrounded by friends whose parents were doing much better. the uk seeme...

this morning i'm heading out of my house at 6am when i see a fully dressed woman, suit and all, pressing the bell of the creche a few houses away with her really small baby (i hazard say 3 months old) on her shoulder. for some unknown reason my heart went out to her...i've clearly been having some inexplicable emotions lately from the randomest ish...i hope its not all that weed i've been smoking. (thats to stop chinene from saying its mid life crisis). i have suddenly realized after struggling so hard to attain the peaceful life i now live, that i am friendless! i can't remember the last time i saw any of my friends, i have missed all namings, birthdays, weddings and funerals for the last 5 or so years. i have stopped being invited to random things like house-warmings or welcome-home parties, and i frankly don't know much about anyone else. yet, i dont feel anti-social or detached in any way. i feel like i know exactly where my sister is and what she's up to,...

okay, so today the target is to eke out the fastest blogpost i have ever written. i started at 7.48am. theres a saying in africa (nigeria at least) that seeks to explain how the lizard came about the constant nodding of its head in self-affirmation. its often said that long ago the lizard climbed a very tall palm  tree as they as wont to do, either chasing a meal or for other reasons that lizards climb trees for. so anyways, as it climbed higher and higher, it knew that the risk of falling grew even greater with each step but you know, its a lizard and so it could not resist the temptation to keep climbing. and as it was bound to happen, upon nearing the top of this incredibly tall tree, it missed a step and came crashing down. as palm trees only have a straight long tree trunk with no lower branches to break a fall, the dear lizard fell and fell and fell until it gave up the hope of surviving when it finally hits the ground. of course as it fell, a crowd had gathered to wi...

as i've explained somewhere before now, the older you grow, the more unwilling you are to share the events of your life with the world. not only because you are wiser and less likely to hurt the feelings of others, but that everyone who knows you personally, seem to know someone else who you know personally...and can identify people you write about even where you hide the identity. if that just made sense to you, then you're either a blogger or should be one. so, for the first time in a long time, i have no apologies for not writing my blog for a while. i really cannot be sorry because the same reasoning that has created this delay is ongoing. my life is going great, i'm at peace all around and there is really no source of emotional upswing from which to write. i've grown bored with politics, i'm sick of watching all the things i thought impossible actually happen (think syria and libya) and frankly, everything just seems to have come full circle. okay, they...

So today was environmental sanitation day. In the two years since I have lived here, I have never once gone outside my house to clean the surroundings and haven't seen anyone else do so. The entire neighbourhood treats it like just another holiday with everyone acting too big to come out and sweep the environment. When I was younger, it was an amazing time. It was a time that the entire neighbourhood used to look forward to, a time when the fat and thin fathers would come out to supervise the kids and wards as they swept, packed the rubbish, set fire to something (waste or not), and then pretend to be busy until the parents left. As soon as the compound was cleaned for another month, the parents would head inside to have the tenants association meeting where they will argue and fight all morning over some dues or some remnants of dues or some use of the past dues...it always has to do with dues. Money does that to grown people.  So anyways, as soon as they left, the kids will the...

Usually I would start a post by explaining certain concepts. Not today. I'm not even in the mood to pretend that I can keep ignoring the news of the terrifying things happening around me. For many months now, we have been watching with growing unease, the steady, calculated spread of violence permeating across northern Nigeria. As I have written elsewhere, the religious bullying by radical Muslims has not reared it's ugly head for the first time. Over the years, the government has consistently shown immense hesitation to take the side of civil freedoms and send a clear signal to one religion that Nigeria is not a one-religion state and that they are not above the law. At the time when I wrote about that, part of me died. It died because by nature I am the least tribalized person you would ever meet. I am the least religious as well and have many non-Christian friends who I love dearly. And by professional training, I also am the least biased especially when I am not armed wit...

i have travelled a lot in my short lifetime. i mean, upwards of fifty flights would qualify as a lot of flying. i am fortunate to have enjoyed amazing flights like arik air, emirates and british airways and i have had my fair share of turbulence on the flight to warri airstrip (yes, the noisy propeller one) and other local flights. i have flown everything from Dana, ADC, bellview, chanchangi, IRS, aero to virgin nigeria. the only one i have not entered is "first nation". the honest truth is that within the local airline industry, the mark of a healthy airline is not so much the maintenance culture, but the price and the timing. for most airline travellers, one flight is the same as the next. every plane seems to make the same gruelling noise during take off and must bounce twice during landing. every pilot speaks in tongues (you can barely hear under the heavy mumbled accent) and all the air hostesses must wear the tightest possible skirts in the market. same old same old...

i'm quite sober today. yes, drama, i know. so yesterday i was having a friendly conversation with my friend at home, when the topic of the new ipad came up. you know, its been a few weeks since the new ipad was launched and he was quite puzzled that he hadn't seen it in my hands yet. i simply told him that i didn't see any drastic feature changes between the new ipad and ipad 2 which i currently use, to warrant a change...with the point being that i am selective when it comes to technology and that i don't buy for buying sake. next thing he's laughing too hard for my liking and i find myself defending my technology acquisition over the years...he calls me "his royal techness" and says i'm a tech freak. frankly i took exception to those choice of words and if i was kim kardashian, i'd maybe have stormed off in fury at that point. anyways, throughout the night i kept wondering if i was really a technology addict (call me a freak and count your te...

Two traveling angels stopped to spend the night in the home of a wealthy family. The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the mansion's guest room. Instead the angels were given a space in the cold basement. As they made their bed on the hard floor, the older angel saw a hole in the wall and repaired it. When the younger angel asked why, the older angel replied... "Things aren't always what they seem." The next night the pair came to rest at the house of a very poor, but very hospitable farmer and his wife. After sharing what little food they had the couple let the angels sleep in their bed where they could have a good night's rest. When the sun came up the next morning the angels found the farmer and his wife in tears. Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field. The younger angel was infuriated and asked the older angel "How could you have let this happen? The first man had everything, yet you helped him...

i'm on my twelfth listen as i type this...music is infinite! i'm a staunch maroon 5 fan!

i try to avoid issues i know little about, you already know that. so i'm going to keep this short and say it as it comes to me whether or not it makes sense. from thursday last week, there have been very high level bombings across the northern part of the country. thursday was thisday newspapers abuja, sunday was christian students at the university in kano, monday was ministry of finance in Taraba. as a result of the increased levels of frustrations within the country, it has become a jungle out there. the DPO of a police division in Enugu State was gunned down by four armed men and now its a matter of where will it hit next all over northern nigeria. So here is how it plays out in my head. you wake up in the morning, toss around for ten minutes after the alarm goes off, remember your 9 am meeting, race to shower and prepare, get in just before 9 and you head in to the board room. you tremble through your slides and then the bilding shakes and theres a loud noise...::silence::...

so i was coming on here to talk about something deep...about self-disappointment and how life is not black and white but rather grey. so much has happened to me in the past month, and all of it too personal to share, that it leaves me wondering why i write this blog anyways. the whole idea is to live my life out there, but then halfway through it i realize that my life doesn't belong to me anymore. more of my stories now have my girlfriend, my sister, my handsome new nephew (he looks just like me by the way, hence the "handsome") and other people that i'm not so sure would like their business out in the public domain. so its hard to really write from the heart anymore. but, that does not mean my life has been dull. no it hasn't and here's the summary: after 4 whole months, i finally mustered the courage to go to church last sunday. the pastor came to my house on saturday evening to say hello and ask me back. i obliged. its sadly the same old "flee for...

you know, i find it impossible to read the absolute rubbish that we all so treat so laissez faire. i mean seriously, i'm trying hard not to burst a nerve. i'm usually one to give some benefit of the doubt to anyone up until they are caught with their hands in the cookie jar. i am full of respect for constituted authority and always expect the best from government even when i am proved wrong over and over again. but this has to be it. so just last week i got a text message from my pensions administrator telling i've got some six digit sum sitting in my pension account for when i grow old and retired. as you know, since 2004 the government set up a new pension scheme where you pay 7.5% of your salary and your employer pays 7.5% every month end unfailingly. actually, its not like you have a choice as it is deducted at source. to make sure this works, or so we were told, the money is kept separate from the place where your contribution is recorded and monitored. so, we end ...

this was a very long weekend. one of many weekends that elongate because of certain lifestyle choices and that test the limits of my resolve. i have a confession (yes, again). i hate generators. and its for all the reasons that you can imagine. i hate the contraption in and of itself, i hate the noise, i hate the fumes and i hate the fuel consumption. i hate the fact that i can literally see each puff of black smoke ascend into the upper atmosphere to devour an oxygen particle that was this close to repairing the ozone layer :)...and i happen to honestly believe that at the current rates of pollution, we will have no earth to call home in the next 20 years. however, i am unfortunate to come from, and live in, a country that cannot generate anything in sufficient quantity to ensure that its citizens do not have to fend for themselves with regards basic amenities. there are public systems for water, electricity and telephones but nobody has any ac...

i honestly hate to sound like a dumb blonde, but i can't ignore the matter on ground...actually, take that literally because that is the only thing i have been baraged with all day. unfortunately, people expect lawyers to have an idea about everything and would stop me on my way to raid the office snack bar   er...the gym, and ask me random questions about things they hear in the news which i am clueless about. so today the whole office is agog about the week long south africa/nigeria match. for those of you living under a rock/in other countries with your own problems/dont care, heres what happened (the nigerian version of the story clearly). here we were, sitting down minding our own business and dodging bullets from boko haram when we heard on the radio that over 125 nigerians had "AGAIN" been deported from south africa for the flimsiest of excuses. the word 'again' is used not because the same 125 had been deported before, but because nigerians have long bee...