simply oroque's view

i am pretty numb at this stage. this is that phase you get you when you speed past shock, anger, frustration and helplessness...you just feel numb. not sure you actually can comprehend what is going on around you, and not sure if your understanding really makes sense. not sure if you should yell and call out the obvious, and not sure if you should be silent like others. so, for days on end throughout december, i couldn't stop trying to get the christmas spirit going. i felt like it was a year that was worth celebrating the christmas holidays not only because we have survived incredible odds but because goodness alone knows if we will ever have the opportunity to celebrate christmas in the years ahead, going by the current economic trends. and i wasn't the only excited one. millions of nigerian children were already dropping hints for their parents and being extra nice in the bid to wrest a few minutes of attention from the ever busy adults towards securing a really festive ...

its world AIDS day today. a day that is set aside to bring to top of mind, the global pandemic known as HIV/AIDS. as with all things that afflict the human race, we have come from blame shifting, to research, to prevention...and we are inching closer to a cure. how am i so confident? well, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, in 2010 there were 1.8 million AIDS related deaths, down from 2.2 million in 2005. In Nigeria, we had roughly two hundred thousand deaths in over two million HIV infections for 2009 and that shows that our HIV counter programs work, or we are not reporting every HIV infection/death case... or we are lying to the united nations. either way, sounds like great news but that number remains a large fraction of the Lagos population for context and there is more to be done. however, my sincere happiness lies in the fact that for once, whether driven or led, nigeria appears to be doing what is right in terms of not bein...

okay so usually, i avoid topics bordering on religion, politics and sexuality...but this one is hard to ignore (and as fearless blogger, i must bite the bullet). i woke up this morning and my timeline was full of comments castigating the bloody waste of time and tax payers money that is the the new anti-same sex marriage law. the nigerian senate passed it into law a few days ago (14 years imprisonment etc). the honest truth is that everyone is cautious about this topic because it is like holding palm oil while wearing white. no matter what side of the fence you're on in terms of your sexual preference, you are bound to get stained if you as much as say the wrong thing on the matter - and anything you say can and will be wrong. if you disagree with the new law, you're clearly an undercover gay person and if you agree with the new law openly, you're a shameless homophobe. i guess this explains why interestingly, all of the people i know who are vocal against the new law - o...

okay, so i've been asked more than once in the past week, what email address my readers can use to reach me. i perfectly appreciate that one or two blog posts may be off the mark and you may not want to say that in the comment section and would rather drop me a silent line on your thoughts. so, being the democratic believer (having seen what happened to mubarak et al), i have decided to create a dedicated email account to this blog: simplyoroquesview@gmail.com and i hope to get an avalanche of mails...but those who know me beyond the blog, drop me lines all the time and ask me weird questions like the one below: "when you write with dripping sarcasm and unpopular opinion, are you inspired by any persons living or dead?" what i'd really like to say in response to that would be: "now look here missy, you really need to get your blood pressure checked or some other random stuff that will keep you the heck busy. i mean like seriously? you actually sat down and...

i just stumbled on Gist Merchants blog post today where he mentioned the many moral failings of nigerian society today. i actually didn't have any comment to make to that post because it was stating an obvious reality but then it triggered the recollection of an incident that occured a few days ago. for context, gist merchant noted that the socially entrenched need to respect older people whether known or unknown had long since gone. some of the comments to that post noted that children now look familiar elders in the eye and walk on by like nothing happened without so much as a good morning. all i could think when i read that comment was, 'you're having it good if all these startlets do wrong is not greet you'. i wouldn't be less bothered if a fly shat on a wall. so there i was after work one day, heading home when i dropped from my car two houses away by a row of shops. i wanted to buy something or the other and hadn't quite stood there for a minute (waiting...

i just heard the second most horrifying story this year. so yesterday, someone i know was on her way to work. now here's the set up...you know how in lagos, a lot of people work on the island and live on the mainland. many people who do not have cars, hitch rides with people they see in their neighbourhood but never really know. like how i may know titi, and we are waiting at the busstop one day when titi see her friends neighbour living near her house and he drops us both at the island and from that day, we become his passengers. so, my friend is me in this scenario and her neighbour is titi, and the man they follow to work is that titi's person that my friend really doesn't know like that. so thats how they were headed to the island from the mainland when they got to oworo and from the left side, a brand new toyota corolla going at top speed just began to edge them to the side of the road, almost as if to avoid a third car that was pushing that toyota from its own lan...

its just weird how everyone i meet or talk to for more than 30 minutes ends up assuming that i am psychologist...you  know, those guys that white people go and pay to allow them vent? whatever they're called, thats what i always end up being. in the past week alone i have been inundated by tales from men and women who i assumed where having a blast in their private lives. its even weirder that the longer and most organic vents come from married people. which often leaves me wondering, "why do people actually get married?". is there some secret money given by the government, is there a financial benefit...is lonesomeness that killing?! the baseline of all the conversations i've had show one common thread...women spend their entire lives trying to wrest control of the man's life. pure and simple. all the married women seem more interested in uprooting anyone who appears closer to their husbands (even biologically related folk who were there before they appeared) and...

i have a lot to write about...but nothing interesting enough to make me actually write. so i went over to my secret guilty pleasure http://www.efemenaoreoluwa.blogspot.com/ (she's so crudely realistic that i blush to even admit to reading her blog) and here's the one thing that inspired me today. of course, i can't guarantee you will like the consequence of following the advice in the picture, but doing it will make you feel really good... up until the black eye. see y'all around!

i haven't been writing as much as i should be, but you know, work has been all sorts of tedious so i'm not really remorseful that i haven't. as y'all know, i'm not religious or fanatical but i try to live right before God...so much as i ridicule the things that we presently do in his honour (wrongly in my opinion), it wouldn't be fair to mislead my readers into thinking i have no regard for true faith or for the Almighty. having said that, i am thus faced with a dillemma. one which i'm not sure has an answer either way. and its seemingly simple but has far reaching implications. infact, it is so deeply significant that it could change the entire course of my life...if i go by what i'm reading on some websites and things. okay, enough of the pretend suspense...i have decided to get a tattoo. yes, you can laugh now. for context you know that tattoos are permanent ink markings that come out perfect on a buff muscular dude who is between 16 and 24, has h...

i've been kinda sad for a few days now...no, not like sad for the sake of it, but deeply inexplicably sad. infact, so sad i've begun to have weird dreams (no dream is really bad or good) which all culminated in a near-migraine yesterday that left me wearing dark shades for most of the morning in the office. so i woke up at 3 am this morning and lay on my bed staring at the ceiling and trying to decide for myself if i should focus and find out exactly what bothers me, or to determine for myself that i will have a good day and live happy just because...if it was that simple. so on my way to work this morning as i sat in the quiet car, my mind went from my family to my job to the cases in court that i wish could all just end to my boss (amazingest boss ever by the way) and eventually perched on the issue of the fuel subsidy removal by the federal government - yeah, of all things for me to think of in trying to make myself happy. you know, i am not very knowledgable in the eco...