Time Murder!!

Some men do go about killing. No life form is spared their malicious aforethought as they strike with palms and tongue from sun up to sun down. The courts frown on murder with good reason. It is a crime which robs humanity of the talents that a single soul brings into the world.  But yet there be many getting away with murder under narrow night torchlights and sometimes in the day. These are the Time Murders who going about ‘peacefully’ killing time.

There is no great out cry when time gets killed. Time cries with a weak voice while its closest relatives Destiny and Achievement possess feeble vocal cords. For it is in the judicious use of time that Destiny and Achievement finds their voices. They can only proclaim one thing and that is a life well spent.

Some men go about making excuses. Imagine this scenario in the courts.

‘I did not mean to kill time. It was in self -defence for I got attacked with boredom and every human being has the right to defend his cerebral offices from boredom’. Well the prosecutor does not agree.

‘It was premeditated cold blood butchering of time, for reliable witnesses heard you say, ‘Thank God it’s Friday’. You indeed planned to drink it up and throw it up before boredom ever showed up. Diminished responsibility is unacceptable here. Your finger prints are all over the murder weapon and have been there for the three preceding days leading up to the crime. Behold exhibit A, the murder weapon, an empty bottle of whisky’.

The defence attorney and his client discuss in hushed tones and soon announce, ‘Your honour we wish to change our plea from not guilty to guilty, but please reduce the charge to Time Slaughter. I pray that the jury takes into consideration that my client has had no previous offences’.

History is full of murder. Where would the arts and story telling be without it. I once watched a film where over twenty people were shot dead before a single word was spoken. It appears that killing is entwined with entertainment but we don’t call them Murder movies do we? They are Action Movies.

Cain killed Abel, Brutus stabbed Caesar, Curiosity killed the Cat and we all kill time. We do this with purposeless activities that aid the passing away of time. But surely, anyone who aids the passing away of such an important entity deserves punishment. No one really gets away with murder after all. Prison beckons for the lovers of crime.  Take the young lads who don’t read as they should in school but rather take death to time with truancy and drinking. They live out their life sentences in the jails of ignorance and lost opportunities. 

Modus operandi of time murderers

Anything light and easy goes. Drugs, drink, lounging, excessive sleeping and the creation of purposeless activities. When the best use of time and resources for the moment is either unknown or appears to be too arduous and daunting, when the courage to do the needful is lacking, then the moment’s conflict could be neutralised with novel acts to fill up the time. These acts swell to feel up the time available. An example of such creativity is the phenomenon of ‘created disease; for what better way to explain to friends why you have not done anything meaningful in the last two years?

Take Fin the man. He couldn’t be bothered to find a job so he developed a fascination for shoes which lead to an obsession with crocodile skin shoes. Unfortunately he couldn’t afford a pair and began to feel worthless when he wore his leather shoes. A relative bought a pair of crocodile shoes for Christmas and the envy drove him to sadness. However light shone brightly at the end of his tunnel when an uncle died leaving him some money and he was straight to the designer shoe shop. For the first three months he never wore his shoes. He just took selfies with them for his twitter followers.  He finally took them to a party in a bag and on arrival went into the loo and change out of his trainers into his beloved footwear. Unfortunately no one complemented him. Later that night he saw people complimenting a guy in a cheap pair of red trainers that matched the  red T shirt he wore. He felt betrayed and was felt ill. He couldn’t sleep that night. His illness was –Crocodile shoes compliments deficiency syndrome. He spent a lot of months being ill. (Serves him right for aiding and abetting the killing of poor crocodiles for footwear some might say). Illness can be used to explain the passage of time so Fin the man had manufactured one. In return he felt sorry for himself which is a full time job on its own.

The entertainment question

Just how much entertainment does the human brain need each day?  Depending on who you ask, you get answers ranging for thirty minutes to twenty four hours. However entertainment, relaxation and sleep should be rewards for hours of hard work. Resting and merriment not preceded by hard work is merely inflicting death by misadventure on time.

Solutions for the serial time slaughter

The Bible says-Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Learning to value time requires education from a very good teacher. Find yourself one. Putting a high value on time makes one wise.

Invest time, don’t spend it and never kill it or you will end up with tic toc on your hands while the slim US rapper serenades you out of court with- murder was the case.

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

31-7-2014

Cooking without Ingredients

Cooking without ingredients

‘Food wey sweet na moni kill am’ in order words Gourmet meals cost money. A good meal is the union of quality ingredients orchestrated by the experience of a chef who knows that unlike in board meetings one does not allow every participant into the pot at the same time. The sequential introduction of key players into the heated conference arena is key to success. Like a musical conductor in his element, armed with a long spoon, instruments are co-ordinated intricately to produce a miracle with usually cannot be attained by an individual virtuoso acting alone. (If in doubt eat 25 Maggi cubes).

One stationed at the banquet table could be thrown into fits of ecstasy when he ask the Nigerian question to the pounded yam and he gets the reply, ‘Egusi, Ogbono and Bush meat are on the way’. That most famous of all questions, the Nigerian question, is ‘na only you waka come?’ (Did you come alone?) It is a question that might have saved Julius Caesar had he uttered those words as he walked over to open the palace door when Brutus knocked.  Unfortunately he got stuck with the Roman question, ‘Et tu Brute?’  I digress.

Delicacies at the table tell you money has changed hands and that difficult to acquire skills have been brought to bear. When a pauper serves up a 14 course feast everyone is thrown into two minds. To sit eat and be merry or to ring the police. That same meal in the mansion of the wealthy would sit better in our minds for we all have expectations of what our fellow men are capable of producing based on their reputations.

This human trait of expecting things of people can be very good for you if everyone expects great things and they give you a big reputation to rise to. You simply put in more effort as your thermostat is set at the greatness level. Low Expectations however is lethal. Is it any wonder Charles Dickens opted for Great Expectations as the title for his 1861 Novel? Would you want to read a book or watch a film entitled Low Expectations?

Unfortunately while no one wants to be associated with LE, we all walk around with a mental check list which is subconsciously ticked off within a nanosecond of meeting people who we then write off if the ingredients for success are missing. That is way fraudsters will always have prey for they are all chief psychologists who know your mental check list and dress and speak the part.

Looking down on an individual is a process of doubting his ability to perform meaningful tasks. We judge them impotent to excel when we cannot see the factors we have taught ourselves should be present before great performance can occur. For some you need to live in a certain part of town to have a brain. For others it is skin colour or accent. For others it is beauty. We secretly set examinations in our minds and dare Joe Public to pass them. I for one still cannot fathom how the late Ray Charles stayed motivated. He played the piano better than many sighted people.  That is cooking without ingredients. The same applies to Obama getting into the White House and Stevie Wonder winning Grammy awards for music when there are many sighted people unemployed. In the song Lately, Stevie sings-Lately I have been staring at the mirror, very slowly picking me apart. I always pause at this point in the song and say, ‘Wonder by name and Wonder by nature’.  The wonderful people surprise us and then inspire us that we too can cook up something out of nothing. We learn the courage to wash the pots and put on the fire when an empty fridge is the only company we have at home. That is the audacity to hope against hope.

Not having all you need to thrive can be shameful especially to someone lacking in confidence and wrongly thinking the whole world is laughing at them. I remember my time in university when all our meals had to have fish, beef or chicken. (I don’t recall knowing or seeing any vegetarians). When times were hard for some students they went into the restaurants and ordered cheaper meals devoid of meat such as plain rice and stew. We stood in queues so it was easy to hear the order of those ahead of you and I suppose it was a hard thing to say out loud that one lacked the means to pay for a full plate of food. The phrase ‘without’ was coined. A playful and alternative way of saying ‘I am too broke for meat’ was ‘madam give me rice and stew without’. ‘Without’ was less painful than saying ‘without meat’.  The embarrassment of not having all that is required cripples people for a life time. The confident however start businesses with little capital and are not ashamed. They approach angel investors with their ideas and they tend to succeed despite their deep lack. Microsoft and Facebook did not start with much money.  Both companies had young university drop outs full of ideas and devoid of cash doing the rounds, cap in hand to raise money for their ventures.

Now imagine yourself being introduced to Mark Zuckerberg in his early years and he starts his presentation about a website where young people can hang out and share information. Would he have ticked all your boxes? Would you have felt sorry for his parents seeing that their son had dropped out of Harvard to ‘play on his computer’? Imaging him talking up a big feast while all he had was an empty pot of boiling water and no salt. Would you have invested in buying his ingredients for a percentage of his proposed worldwide feast?

The truth is that those who don’t bet on themselves can never bet on others. When we look down on others we are really looking down on ourselves. Those who predict future greatness for themselves are unlikely to see mediocrity in every other person’s future. They don’t suspect all dreamers of being frauds rather they get inspired for they are reminded of themselves in the dreams of other. Would not the world be a better place if from time to time we all manage to salivate when the chef without ingredients starts to wash his cooking pot?      

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

27-7-2014

No 6 Memory Lane

You have heard them say it is the food, the clothes and the friends that sum you up. You are what you eat says the Gastronomist . The clothes maketh the man bellows the designers. Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are for birds of a feather cruise in private planes together said the parent worried about the company being kept by their kids shouts out. Well as if that was not enough, here I come with a new one. You are what you remember for memory is king. I reached this conclusion (rightly or wrongly) after reviewing my conversations I had last week.

Mr Eclipse of the Sun

 In a bid to tell me how bad his life was he reeled out about fourteen adverse events that had happened to him in the last four years with such clarity you just knew he had rehearsed these incidents in his mind a thousand times. If being sorry for yourself was an examination, he would have scored a first class. As he spoke, he face was a picture of misery proving he relived each painful minute from his past as he spoke. He was like a giant African snail; slow to positive judgements and quick to withdraw into his shell of misfortune from where no positive ideas could reach him. He had a counter argument for every suggestion I gave about ways he could turn things around. He was like a top lawyer who knew the previous cases very well. He had well informed proof that life (or at least his life) was down and sinking lower without any hope for improvement. He was articulate which meant he had clarity in his mind that life sucks and he was keeping it real and living the nightmare.

Pretty Miss Sunshine

She smiled and it seems that a cool breeze emanated from both ears. Life was grand and everything was nice. She told of her gratitude for this, her luck with that and of being blessed with this. She recalled how it had been nice for many years. It was like hearing Julie Andrews sing Favourite things in the Sound of Music only that everything was Miss Sunshine’s favourite thing. I began to consider nominating her for an Oscar (Best Actress in a Lying role) for life could not really be this sweet. Looking into her eyes I saw traces of sincerity but I was not fully convinced hence I decided to advocate for the devil temporarily thus, ‘You have never been bereaved I suppose’.

‘No, my aunty actually died last year. It was the most beautiful of services. Just as she would have liked it’ came her reply.

I thought of these two people and how easy it was for one to recall the gloom and doom while the other had the merry and jolly words rolling off the tongue with effortless ease and I said to myself, what a wonderful world!

We all travel down that memory in our brains but like streets in the UK that bear the same name, memory lanes in the head abound at different post codes.

Memory lanes

The grateful drive on memory lane always thankful for what they learnt from all the experiences that stand like houses on their lanes.

The paranoid drive a bitter wagon down the lane and shake their head in bitter disappointment as they recall all the back stabbers that have left holes in their back. They are permanently gazing at the rear view mirror as ‘one cannot be too careful’ on this wicked road called life. The have very little need for the accelerator. They are either parked or reversing to see the back view better.

The Super stars drive down memory lane in a limousine and recall all the awards and good breaks they have had.

The business man goes down the lane of successful deals and his passion for more business is ignited.

The gloomy go down gloomy lane and even call the day of their birth gloomy.

The fun lover recalls stories that generate an atmosphere of fun. Even stories of losing valued possessions are told in a way that makes the hearers laugh. Comedians all tell you about how things can go wrong. They are not in denial with positive over-thinking but they explore the funny side to all those same topics that make the gloomy who they are.  That proves that even on the same memory lane in the same post code of the brain, the spectacles of attitude have affect how the same thing is seen.

How to travel better down memory lane

If you find yourself always getting lost without a Satnav in the wrong side of your brain, there are a few things you can do.

The best way to have good memories is to invest in good actions today. Only those who good swimming, cycling and running today will experience the euphoria of crossing the finishing line at a triathlon next year and thus have something to look back at with fondness in five years.

The next thing to do is to use the technique we all use already and that is the strategic placement pictures of the good events you want to remember right under your nose.  When you visit a home and you are given a sit in the living room, you never notice framed pictures of the packets of medication your host takes daily hanging on the walls or mounted X-ray films of broken or diseased parts. It is usually graduations, weddings or cute baby pictures. Some put up framed Diplomas but never letters of dismissal or newspaper cut outs of when they were sentenced to prison  (Prisoner 46664 might be excused here).

 If the above fails, just look for someone worse than you and be grateful you are not as bad as them.

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

21-7-2014

Creative Procrastination

Creative procrastination

Creative people procrastinate with stylish aplomb. They omit to do the needful yet receive a pat on the back from on lookers who marvel at the diversionary activities opted for. Only their hearts hold the secrets of what they really should be doing. They go out bungee jumping instead of staying in to work on the CV. They research business models for fifteen years, bag MBAs and PhDs when all they really needed to do was open a chain of fish and chips stores. The list goes on. Creative people shackled by fear of the unknown can coast through life winning awards and gaining admiration without even scratching the surface of their life’s true work. The world of on lookers is formidable for their cheers travel to distant ears and their applause cannot be ignored. There is however a different kind of audience, one consisting of one person; namely you. You might fool the world into thinking you are doing your best but when the lights are out and you lay on your bed at night, only you knows if you are doing the needful as defined by you.

So what is procrastination anyway? It is the postponement of an action that needs to be taken in the present knowing fully well that doing it later will incur some form of discomfort or loss. This is not laziness, general apathy or being prudent. The lazy man has no ambition and has no actions lined up which means he has nothing to postpone while the guy who has given up on life and marinates in apathy does not procrastinate on life for life procrastinates on him. As for the prudent, they know the actions to be taken and intentionally re schedule some actions as they are fully aware that a ‘wait and see approach’ is the diligent course of action in some situations.   

True procrastination is self -diagnosed for only the individual can decide if an action needs to be done and that he is refusing to do it. Here the latin phrase nemo iudex in sua causa (no-one should be a judge in his own cause) does not ring true for in this case the individual is the accused judge and jury of his case.

There are a few reasons why actions are postponed-

Fear- Boy sees girl, boy likes girl, but then gets scared she may reject his advances so he refuses to walk up to her and say, ‘show me particulars baby ko pull over’

Distraction- There are tax returns to do but the world cup is on.

Hard work- Running is good but it is too hard

Self-consciousness- ‘I am too fat to run on the streets. Everyone will look at me’

Lack of courage- ‘What if my new business fails? I better research the sector for 15 more years’

Adrenaline junkie – These are people who need an adrenaline rush before they complete any tasks. The do all their best work just before dead line. They work under pressure. You see them in the world cup football matches playing the games of their lives in the last five minutes. In colleges they read the most the night before the examination.

Absolute hatred for the activity- These include doing Tax returns, Ironing, Reading books without pictures, going for medical examinations, going on courses, learning to speak in public, reading personal development books, completing assignments at work, and weight training.

Activities/Actions

The good Lord knows humans will procrastinate so He made all activities essential for life automatic- breathing, heart beats, functioning of internal organs, intense thirst and drinking, sleeping and waking up, and the desire to reproduce.

Easy activities

Some activities are easily attainable such as reading a book. Everybody needs to be reading something but most people don’t. Books might get bought but never opened. Distractions like Facebook and music videos eat into the time that should be allocated for reading. Watching films that go on forever or soaps is another distraction. Obesity is linked to Television viewing for no one watching TV without eating and drinking while fewer will exercise while watching their favourite soap. The mobile phone is another big distraction. These toys offer immediate gratification so the harder tasks like reading which develops the mind are relegated to the bottom of the immediate to do list.

Hard activities

Some dreams in life sound impossible both to the dreamer and his family and friends. Everybody has one or two of such dreams. Starting on the impossible can be daunting as there is usually no encouragement to do so from external quarters. An unemployed individual starting on the long road to achieving his dream of becoming a Billionaire business man will probably have no rich business men to mentor him. If he decides to watch all the world cup games with his fellow unemployed friends none of them will accuse him of failing to start preparing himself to open his business. By watching every single game of the tournament, he has something to tell people about how he spent his time. He might get creative, go on the Fifa website and learn a lot of football trivia which might impress a few people but deep down he knows he should have gone out to register his company and get some momentum started.

The opposite

Some times to understand an activity that is delayed one could study the activities that are done at the drop of a hat.

Why are the things that you don’t need a second invitation to indulge in? How did you get to that point where you act at the ‘drop of a hat’?

Can your ‘drop of a hat’ rapid response in those areas be transferred to areas where you procrastinate? 

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

Babawilly

6-7-2014

My Pidgin English Version of Psalm 23

                                           SAM TWENTI TIRI

1.     The Lord is mai shepherd

I dey kampke

2.     He make mi sidon for where betta dey flow

Come put me next to stream wey make mai bodi

Thermacool

3.     He panel beat mai soul come spray am white,

Come dey lead me dey go ni, through express road of righteousness for His name’s sake

4.     Walahi!, if I waka pass where arm robber, 419

And juju pipo borku come even join okada reach valley of the shadow of death sef, mai bodi dey inside cloth.  Your rod and staff nko?

Na so-so comfort dem dey comfort me for belle

5.     You don prepare Banga and starch make I chop

All mai enemies dey look anyaya

You anoint me for head wit oil

       Mai cup na Ogunpa wey burst im banks

6.     True true, betta life and mercy go gum mai back

Till I quench.  And man go tanda for God house sotey sotey; from Lai lai to lai lai.

       GOD ALMIGHTI, NA YOU BICO.

2000 – Babawilly.

(Dr Wilson Orhiunu)

Naija Bucket Mentality

Bucket Mentality?

If all the buckets in Nigeria should get raptured into Pail Heaven tonight, the country would be thrown into utter confusion. Life without buckets in Nigeria would mean no life at all. (The Rapture, to the uninitiated is when all Christians will suddenly varnish from the face of the earth when the last trumpet sounds). If such a fate befalls the ubiquitous buckets of Naija there will be cases  of confused church ushers scratching their heads when their Pastor shouts out ’pass the bucket round for offering time is blessing time!’  Instances of naked men running out of the bathroom with soap in their eyes will be common place. Paranoid minds will be flung into panic when a sudden puddle of water caresses their feet as buckets exit Nigeria’s territorial space to the after -life.  It will be a sad night as mama bom-boi walks into her kitchen to find three small hills of garri, rice and beans in the place of her three virgin buckets. These were her vessels of honour complete with tight lids that had never once seen the soapy face of a human in the bathroom.  Buckets destined for great things on their day of purchase. Washed and dried and then comissioned to that high office of being the custodians of food stuffs. Alas the buckets are gone with the wind and the house wives cry.  Tales will be told of maidens walking back from the stream with buckets of water balanced on their heads all experiencing a sudden baptism they had not signed up for. Strong men pulling buckets out of wells will find themselves on the floor as the resistance against which they pull varnishes. Drivers will have to skip washing the cars as the weak tap pressures of Naija prevents washing cars with a hose pipe. Woe to those burdened with gastroenteritis on such a night. Having spent all night committing their vomitus and diarrhoea into the bucket, they will be saddled with guilt when their carers tell of how the bucket’s contents splashed onto the new carpets en-route to the toilet. There will is cries of horror as buckets of paint splash around in the boots of jeeps and ice-cream finds its freedom in freezers everywhere. Those with no washing machines who had ‘soaked’ clothes in a bucket with soap as part of their pre –wash ritual, would all awake to a soapy mess of water and wet clothes all over the house. Surviving the thunderstorm and leaky roof would be in vain in the wet parts of the country as the buckets of salvation get translated leaving behind their contents on the carpet.

The good news is that the great icon that is the Naija bucket is going nowhere. I just spoke about the rapture to pail heaven to flog the dead horse of a point that buckets are more important to Nigerian life than the Kola nut (No mind those jerry cans wey dey form levels). However even if the buckets sprout wings and fly away only to send a post card pledging never to return, overnight all the taps and showers in Nigeria will start to flow at a good pressure for no country in the world can match Naija when it comes to improvisation in a crisis. Our politicians and engineers can do things very quickly when push comes to push me-push you. So where did all this talk about buckets come from anyway?

Well, I needed a new bucket and asked my son where we should go for a new blue model. We brain stormed a bit and various shops were mentioned. He discounted a particular store as their clientele was predominantly White and as he put it, ‘white people do not keep buckets in their bathrooms’. It set me on a course of meditation that has brought me to this point. I have examined myself and concluded that I have a Naija Bucket Mentality. A unique mindset derived from a very simple necessity to avoid pain and embarrassment.  Getting stranded during a shower when the water stops, you learn to know a pain that will never be forgotten. Unable to open the eyes you call for help and when it arrives, opening the locked bathroom door is a struggle. It only needs to happen once for you to understand the importance of a bucket of water as insurance. When you grow up not trusting the utilities, your paranoia means you have buckets inside the house and an electric generator and bore hole outside. Must add that one man’s paranoia is another man’s common sense.

My personal journey into bucketism started as a class monitor in primary school. Part of the job description was to go and fetch the break time snacks; puff- puff and squash in two buckets. The squash was then served into plastic cups by dipping the master cup into the bucket and filling the cups held out by fellow pupils. It was indeed a position of power. On the school playground you heard stories of the famed Ojukwu bucket alias Ogbunigwe, a kind of anti-armoured vehicle weapon made in Biafra. No this bucket did not contain water to wash you clean. It exploded on impact.  At home, the low pressure of the water supplies meant you had no running water upstairs and had to fetch water from the down stairs tap. When it was time to go into boarding school, you got a list of essentials to bring in and the bucket was usually high up the list. The same applied to going to university. Everyone packed his bucket, sometimes before the books.

So having been fully bucketanized mentally, it is no wonder that having moved to the UK, where the taps run at a reasonable pressure, I still haven’t changed gears mentally as regards to my bathroom rituals. It is just an irrational habit for I know that I only need a mop bucket at present. On holidays or when ever I check into hotels, I do not expect to see a bucket in bathrooms and never notice the absence of one. However once I am back into a home I call my own, I look forward to having a bath out of a bucket and having a small bowl with which to throw water on my body.

So why is this important?  I look at myself and I wonder. The ‘normal’ of yesterday has not given way to the ‘new normal’ of today in some departments of my brain. The brain and head are out of Suru-lere but parts of Suru-lere still exists in my frontal lobe. As seasons change, being stuck in the past becomes a weight. Since different countries exist in different ‘seasons of advancement’ one needs to ‘change gears’ when one travels to another country. Being used to something is not a good enough excuse. Naija says, ‘shine your eyes’. A skill or daily chore that has become obsolete must be forgotten. The great hand washer of clothes with skills honed through washing senior students’ clothes in boarding school must find new things to do with the hands once they move into a country with washing machines, light and free flowing water; rather than insist that ‘dis washing machine no dey wash cloth well’.

Of course the skills should return if he travels back to his native country. There was this lady I stood next too while we awaited the arrival of our luggage on the conveyor belt at Murtala Mohammed airport, Lagos. This lady had no Naija Bucket mentality at all. She complained more that the Europeans with an accent like beans wey never done well.  She said over twenty times that, ‘dis Nigeria is too hot’. I looked at her and wondered how being in Europe for 3 weeks had taken away her acclimatisation to heat talents. She was fanning her face with some brightly painted nail extensions studded with fake tiny diamonds. She paused from fanning once in a while to scratch her weave. She was just acting like an Ajebuta  that she was not. I advocate losing eighty to ninety per cent of our bucket mentality but not a hundred per cent abeg. You must still know how to endure tropical climate and slap-to-kill at mosquitoes without complaining, as the tropics will never become Europe.

In summary (African style), I hope I have convinced you that the Bucket is mightier than the Basket and it holds a significant place in Nigeria. It also sits on the mantel piece of my heart as my early life was spent lifting water holding onto the arched handles that so calloused my palms. (Now everyone who shakes me says my hands are soft, how embarrassing). The lessons to learn must be spelt out clearly. The old normal is gone. Just because you had adapted to low water pressures in the past and were happy and content with life does not mean that you must keep using these adaptation skills till you kick the bucket. Seasons will change and so must we.

I foresee a poor ‘bucket mentality’ chap importing one million electric generators into Nigeria in the near future because that was a good business plan for his father, only to discover that there was no demand for his products as a new era of Light 24/7 had been ushered in.  Or perhaps in the near future  someone without a visionary bone in his body decides to open the biggest bucket factory in the Nigeria because research done last year  showed that there are more buckets than children in each Nigerian household so he figured that the high demand would gulp up his industrial output. Then the government suddenly does a 360 like Asha song and pipes portable water to every Nigerian home, Church, Mosque, Prison, Babalawo joint and School. The magnate with the bucket plant don enta gbese bi dat.

 With light and water, everyone will own a washing machine and the Omo anointed hand washing ministries and all night soaking of clothes ministries will all be raptured into antiquity. So in summary, friends, business men and country men, shine eye and in all thy shining, shine retina.

 

 Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

26-3-2014

Of Wombs & Trees ( Down-sizing for success)

Of  wombs and trees (Downsizing for success)

A hormonal rumour spread to the womb- ovary axis about an impending visit. This was not the first or second time a rumour had flowed down stream full of promise and nothing else yet they began to prepare for the visitor who always failed to show. ‘May come, should come, might come, probably would come’, it went on and on. Both parties, (the womb-ovary alliance and the visitor) had protocol officers who exchanged mails trashing out dietary requirements, hotel preferences, musical tastes, allergies and the expected date of arrival. It soon emerged that the visitor intended on this becoming a long stay. The womb- ovary alliance decided to prepare for a long stay and began to recruit staff to make the visitor’s stay both comfortable and memorable. Staff were given contracts and put on the pay roll. A distant relative asked if it was wise to expend resources on a visitor who might not show up. He was told to shut up for ‘it is not when the presidential jet arrives at the airport that the host country starts planning for the visit’. In life you plan long before the day. You invest for a rainy day when the sun looks like it will shine forever. The womb refurbished its carpets and recruited the breast department to prepare the welcome for the visitor. On the said day, the ovary laid out food and the womb’s red carpet was in pristine condition. The visitor did not show up. What followed next was a painful meeting where it was decided to get rid of the womb’s red carpet and the ovary’s egg which both had no second hand value. The distant relative laughed as he taunted them with the predictable monthly ‘I told you so’. Every body’s contract was ripped up and the company down sided. The breast department threatened legal action for unpaid fees but soon realised that there was no business to sustain the fees as no generation of revenue for the organisation was likely.

So we move outside

Out in the fields the geographical rumour spread. It was spring and summer was on the way. The tree was keen to grow its business and recruited hundreds of leaves. The payroll bill soared and the roots sank deep into the ground to find the revenue to sustain them. It was exhausting. The tree was on the brink of bankruptcy for he was paying bright luxuriant leaves that did nothing but sway in the wind and provide shade to passers by bringing no profit to the organisation. Just in the nick of time the sun was out in force and the leaves showed what they were made of. Photosynthesis was in full swing and the revenue poured in. The gamble was worth it. The new revenues generated by the leaves combined with what the roots brought in meant a growth to new heights previously unheard of in the history of the field. The tree stood proud winning award after award and the leaves became the stars of the organisation. The leaves tripled their population through a vigorous regeneration exercise.  Everybody was a winner till summer gave way to autumn. The leaves could not produce as before and their huge wage bill could not be justified. The painful decision had to be made. The leaves had to be shed; the whole lot of them. The leaves felt betrayed and considered legal action. Their lawyers were leaves also and the day before the case was due the court, the branches got rid of every single leaf.

Down- sizing, stripping down, losing excess baggage or stream lining are all universally acceptable concepts that sit well in the cerebrum so long as you are not the one being gotten rid of in a cost cutting exercise. Then the emotions kick in. Who can really be objective when given a chair and a cup of tea then told that they have become surplus to requirements? Instantly your hours of unpaid over -time flash before your eyes and anger rises like the cost of oil. Law abiding individuals have been known to transform into rabid arsonists when faced with such a painful dismissal.

However one could plan for days like this by knowing that when business is good and one serves a purpose everybody is all smiles. When usefulness is out lived or business slows down, the knife is wielded.  A few examples for the light to bounce off will be expedient here.

The appendix is tolerated till it gets infected. The intestines count their losses and the surgeon does his thing. The politician in the run up to an election needs a large entourage on his pay roll. As soon as victory is secured it is every man to his tent. Though the political thug might feel dumped, how on earth did he expect illiterates to be rewarded with ministry jobs?

There is a place for loyalty and ‘till death do us part’ alliances but these are far and few between. Most of the time, ventures are entered into only for a season and not knowing what season you are in can lead to a big shock. Some people even go far as to say that they need to ‘upgrade’ on their loved ones from time to time and suddenly brandish the romantic red card followed by the substitution board.

Finally, life can be like a triathlon. At the start you lay aside every weight and slip into your swim suit, hat and googles. Travelling through the water your swim suit feels one with your body and a symbiosis develops. Just when things are getting cosy, the swimsuit is dumped for a bicycle and the hat foe a helmet. With pedals moving the chains and the wheels, man and machine harmoniously cover distance. The bicycle carries the weight of his partner in sport while enduring his farts but in the end he gets ditched for the running shoes which take our man over the finish line and up to collect the finisher’s medal. The running shoe is dumb founded when taken home and put in the bin. He remembers how white and fresh he was when he was chosen in the sports shop as the perfect fit on the day of his purchase. As he was laced on, he thought he had found his life’s purpose. Through hours of training he had grown familiar with every metatarsal and toe nail. He had fallen in love with the heel and now stationed in the bin he realises his beloved heel will be wrapped in another pair of running shoes soon.  

So the lesson is this. It is alright to be the bicycle in your friend’s triathlon but don’t be shocked if he does not cross the finish line with you. You should have offered your services to a Tour de France cyclist.

Even the most intimate of unions; that between the spirit and body endures not forever. One day the spirit will just up and go leaving behind a body for burial. You better chop up well and prepare to meet your maker. Chai!!!!

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

17-7-2014