simply oroque's view

i have heard it all. everytime i think i have heard everything, something comes from the blues and shocks me stiff. here are my most recent shockers: yesterday was saturday 26 february 2011. in lagos nigeria, the air was charged with celebration, everyone was talking among each other about this great son of the soil that was returning after being away for two long years, his family and friends had put in newspaper advert days earlier announcing the thanksgiving service that will bring the entire town to a halt. and that thanksgiving was yesterday. it was aired on television and the fanfare was palpable...so was the question: "exactly what are we celebrating?". you see, chief bode george used to be a political force to be reckoned with. he was the south west chairman of the ruling party and as part of his political compensation, was made chairman and chief exploiter of the national ports authority. to cut a sordid story short, he robbed the entire government agency dry, made...

i find that sometimes, the music industry just floods us with amazing incredible original music that just makes you realize that there's always hope for global music (read: "american music"). besides everyone thinks i never have any fun...yes, i love good music and often times most normal people would agree with music that i think is great. so here goes my small review: thanks to mtv, i found out that miss britney spears has a new single out thats called "hold it against me". as with everything that is churned out by the shamelessly commercial britney machine, the hype was crazy. it was everywhere but noone could listen to it. it wasn't being played on tv but we would hear every minute about this great new single thats burning up the charts. as if that was not enough, kanye west had to give her additional airtime by stating on twitter that he knows her song will get to number one (she and rihanna are billboard number 1 perenials) but that she should allow ...

okay, yesterday was sunday and as you all know, church is where its at. it was meant to be like every other sunday, starting at 9 am and ending at 12 noon. for those of you who don't know, i had since resigned from being the vice-president of my youth fellowship during my depression days late last year and that was the only way to remain sane. truth is, its very difficult to criticize something that you are an active part of. its almost as if the more involved you get, the less moral right you have to speak against its shortcomings without sounding downright hypocritical. and that was me in september when it all went crashing down and i left the church for months on end. but after some soul searching, i realized that i cannot change the church and that any adjustments must come from inside out. hence my deciding that my own service will last for exactly 3 hours, come what may, from 9 am to 12 noon. so yesterday, we had just managed to struggle through the most boring sermo...

just today i sat back thinking, and yes i was taking a break from work all you haters, about all the things that have happened to me this year alone and i cant help but feel that the phrase "funny how" is just so apt...okay let me start from the top so its new years day and i had a few guests over. naturally, i couldnt avoid those types of guests who never leave until the johnny walker is through and done. and this one that happened to be the last man standing (barely, in his case) was not the quiet type who would just sit there and just silently drink himself to stupor and go home to sleep and throw up. noooooo, he had to be the talking type. you know, those types who suddenly remember that they pay way too much tax to this god-forsaken country with every gulp of whiskey? yes, exactly. so there i was lying on my sofa in the parlour completely exhausted from a full day of hosting and wondering how to tell dude that i wasn't running a public bar when the power went out. ...

you know, sometimes it beats me silly to think about all the things that i expect will give me happiness and realize very sadly that none of them actually brings the kind of fulfilment that will keep you awake at night just feeling smug at what an achiever you are. its very true when they say "the grass is greener on the other side"...and cliched as this may sound, i am now living through it. to think that there was a time when i thought that getting a job that paid more than my monthly transport fare would be all i needed to be satisfied. then i got that...along with a boss from hell, and then i thought, stuff the money, just give me a boss that will allow me to use my brain and will appreciate my work. and did i get a boss that allowed me to use my brain? well, lets just say he also fried it and served it with french fries by ensuring i worked the longest hours of my entire career. and so i decided i needed/and asked God for, both money and a great boss and then i got thi...

nigerians have a common problem. it is not caused by hunger, and it is not caused by strife, it is simply caused by many years of helplessness. it is called short term memory loss ("STML" for short"). STML affects individuals who were born from around 1979 when things began to go really bad, and strikes the nervous system by triggering a full release of more red blood cells into the part of the brain necessary for storing information and life experiences for long periods of time. so today, i was minding my own business when i stumbled on the following news report: Senators in Nigeria earn 19 million naira per month, while house of rep members earn 10 million per month. now, as always, i can write 50 pages on the flagrant insensitivity of the present day politicians especially in view of the many strikes that we have been plagued with in recent times. in many states of the federation, the civil servants have been asking the governments to give them a minimum wage of 1...

there are a few things in life that i do not take seriously. y'all know a few of them...and i always try to give an air of irreverence to all of the things that human beings hold sacrosanct for no apparent reason, especially when it defies modern logic and common sense. somehow though, from the first time i heard of a certain disease very many years ago, i knew that of the many things that i will take seriously in my life, AIDS and the fight against it would be one of them. i remember the first time i ever heard of the disease was on the oprah winfrey show when they were interviewing a man who was being physically persecuted by members of his small community somewhere in america, because he was gay and had AIDS. at the time, as is still the case in many regions of black africa, the notion was that AIDS was a gay person's disease and an instant verdict from the Almighty against the atrocious acts of homosexuals. that episode of her show was one of the most passionate ever, wi...

okay, to be honest i have no reason to give for the silence on this space. truth is, from as long as i can remember, i always have long spells of time when i switch off from everything and everyone. when i just sit still and take stock of all the commitments i have going, all the stuff i do and all the people i surround myself with, and find a reason for each one. it usually gets most obvious with church and religion, because as anyone who reads my blog often will know, i have something about religion that i cannot put a finger on but i will not give up on either. the sorta "love God but not sure about his kids" feeling. and i know its bad, but thats what i've been doing. i have spent the whole past 2 months on a break from everything and everyone. i have cut off all the hangers on, and stopped going to church altogether (minus once or twice when i would enter during opening prayer and leave during closing prayer) because i feel really monitored and choked and constantl...

I have been on leave for about a week now and had decided that this time, I would not broadcast it on my blog. I was hoping that I will get a complete shut out by just plugging out of everything…and no, everything does not include facebook. And so just this past saturday, I stumbled upon the fact that it was actually the birthday of a wonderful friend of mine - Chinene. She being one of the few people in my life who’s presence is so silent, and yet most powerful towards influencing my actions. I recalled with pride, for the first time to a worldwide audience, how she actually used to be so happy to have me drop by at their family house (unannounced and always hungry) and she and her brothers would welcome me as if they’d known me all their lives. I never for once felt out of place with them. This then brought to my mind the thought of all the people who have actually fed me at one time or the other… especially through my difficult university years (thanks Gabriel and Yinka, you guys...

i remember two years ago, when i had retired into my sleep at about 10pm, and a close family friend came knocking (and ringing my phone off the hook) to tell me that his wife was in labour. this is a couple that had spent 4 years of marriage trying to conceive (i often wonder why legitimate couples struggle to conceive while layabouts get pregnant especially when they don't want it, but hey, another of life's ironies). his wife is so lovely and a really great person who helped my sister and i settle in quite well, when we first moved back home after such a long time in Abuja. so, he was there to seek our financial assistance as it had become an unusually protracted labour and they needed to buy some additional medical supplies and all. fortunately, my sisters boyfriend (now my brother in law) was there that night and had enough money on him to salvage the situation. naturally, we woke up the next morning and flew to the hospital to behold the new bundle of joy. everyone was sm...