THE LAND OF GERINIA!

Once upon a time, in a far away land called Gerinia, lived a great people. The land of Gerinia had comprised of different villages and clans before they were forced to come together under one name. Before they became one, they fought many wars amongst themselves. The land was blessed with milk and honey by the gods. Other villages saw this and wanted to steal it from Gerinia. They were conquered but later became free thanks to some of the noble villagers. The people’s eyes were now open thanks to the invasion. Formerly in the days of yore, they were contented with little, thanks to the merging of the villages and clans into one; they knew there was more available from the different villages. They wanted little no more.
They had to elect leaders for the new village. The leaders all wanted what the invaders wanted, to exploit the people, to take the milk and honey for themselves. Monsters, the lochness monster, goliaths, ruled the magical land. The villagers groaned and cried. They were suffering. They attributed their misery to members of a particular clan that had ruled them repeatedly.
In the village of Gerinia, lived a young man called Elebe. He was from one of the smallest clans. He was blessed with that name by a god. The name was to take fortune from others and give to this young man. He from the poor background and small clan excelled. He that never had shoes growing up. He that was laughed at by others. He understood the game. He seemed quiet and meek from the exterior. He wanted to get to the top. He joined the biggest men in the land. He ass kissed and obeyed. He always took over from others. He carried on until the highest position in the land was within his grasp. He had studied the people well. His name once again played in his favour. He got the town criers, the court jesters and the village drama group to sing his praises. The people listened. They thought to themselves. ‘This young man’s name has been good to him maybe he will bring that goodness to us.’
‘He is from the small clans and not the clan that has put us in so much misery.’
‘He is the saviour we have been waiting for.’
‘He is too good to pass up.’
‘This is the messiah of the people.’
They fought for him. They killed all the men that rose up against their messiah. They admired his gentility and soft speech. The village elders called the men vying for the leadership position to come and address them. Elebe did not go. Elebe might have had good intentions for the people but he lost it on the way. The people excused his absence. He won and became the leader. The people rejoiced with him. They relaxed and said to themselves, our sufferings are over.
Elebe lost his good intentions. The asses he kissed to get to where he was wanted more. He ran and got advisers. He listened to everything he was told and carried them out without questioning. He forgot the people that saw him as their messiah. He turned into the biggest lochness monster the village had ever known and seen. He let them suffer. He would tell them it was for their own good, to make the village bigger and greater. At first, they believed him but this monster grew in size every day. The people cried and killed themselves.
One day, they decided they had had enough when he passed a new heavy law on them. They picked up their hoes, pitchforks and set out to kill the monster named Elebe. Yes, Elebe had lost his good intentions, ambition had shattered it. The villagers decided to be their own messiahs. They fought for their freedom. The villagers of Gerinia looked for different means to vanquish the monster called Elebe but he refused to be vanquished. They decided to elect leaders who would lead them in the fight. One of the elected leaders was called Balour. Balour was a valiant soldier but he was a man. The people listened to him more. They placed all their trust in him. They showered him with praises and submitted all they had to him. Balour felt good. He had never tasted such power before. He thought about all the rubies he could garner from this. He gathered the people and they decided to stop work. No farmers would till the land, no anglers would fish, no palm wine tappers would tap, and the markets would be empty. That day, the villagers trooped out in their thousands. They marched the pathways and the streams. They sang the protest song in unison.
Elebe knew what the villagers wanted but he refused to give it to them. He had worked too hard to get to where he was. He was not going to let anyone ruin it for him. He sent his soldiers, the goblins after them. Some of the villagers were killed. His advisers told him not to worry, that hunger would send the people back home and to their vocations. It did not work, the protests increased. It went on for nigh a moon. Elebe ,called a secret meeting with Balour. He offered Balour rubies and diamonds. They cooked up a plan. He called for an open meeting with Balour, the whole town was aware of this. Balour and his men stormed out of the meeting. They told the villagers that Elebe was not serious. A second open meeting was called. Elebe reduced the law. Balour stormed out, that it was not enough. He told the villagers to stay in their houses. The people sang balour’s praises. Later that day, Balour called off the protest. The people of Gerinia were happy to return to work. They said Balour had tried his best. Balour and Elebe held another secret meeting. They rejoiced, their plan had worked. The people of Gerinia were happy. They had won. Have they??
Remember occupy Nigeria? (written January 18,2012)
Elections are coming; what will be your stand next year?

THE VENT ISSUE I: ELECTRICITY

                            

  Ever since I was a little girl, every president's promise has been that electricity will be constant. Now, I’m an adult and that promise seems farfetched. They all sing, before the year 2000, before the year 2004, before the year 2010, 2012, 2014 and on it goes. The electricity issue just seems to deteriorate. Then they promised that the privatization of the Power sector would make electricity constant. If you ask me, they should have just left it as it was, it’s worse now. We go on for days without the electricity that a great inventor had been so gracious to invent.

  It’s saddening, that every kid born in Nigeria grows to learn the national anthem and dance of ‘UP NEPA!’ You hear them scream it with glee. When will it change? I tell you, not in a long while. 
                                                       

  I was in Lome, Togo for almost a year. I remember the day we arrived, early in the morning that January; we all ran to look for charging ports to plug our appliances into. You should have heard the cries of’ I got here first’. We went for registration and got back, there was still light. We slept and woke up, there was light. It went on for three days straight; we began to question ourselves if this was Africa. If Nigeria couldn’t have light, how could they? One month straight, that light never blinked. I heard rumours of we give them light, that’s topic for another day. I entered Ghana, it was the same. My first night in Ghana, it was announced that the lights would go off for a certain period. I was shocked, is this Africa? In my country, the light officials act like demi-gods, like you should be grateful to them for it. You should see Nigerian electricity officials, the way they carry themselves. People begging them, greasing their palms just to have the meagre light that is doled out.
                                               
In the end, they bring a heavy bill that makes you wonder if you run a factory, where power is consumed all day.

  As I got older, I began to realize the sad truth. The reasons why any grandeur thoughts of having constant electricity in Nigeria will not be possible for a long time.

·         One of the biggest and unannounced businesses in Nigeria is the GENERATOR business. I remember my Togolese friends laughing their hearts out when I asked if they use generators. Every single household in Nigeria, be it a shanty, a tiny apartment, a mansion plus all businesses have a generator or two. One in the office, another at home. The generators come in varying forms; the tiny ones called ‘I pass my neighbour’ that makes enough noise to raise the dead to the silent, Lister types that use diesel. Just sit down and calculate the population in the country, then you’ll see what I mean. Even students use generators.  Nigerians are so proud of it, that a man who uses the ‘I pass my neighbour type’ rejoices when he upgrades to a bigger one. It’s just sad. If you know the amount of generators that are imported into this country daily, you’d shudder. Every big business has one; all the factories have more than one.
                                   

You may wonder who the importers of these generators are, yes, your guess is as good as mine; ‘THEM’. They reap billions of naira from it. The Generators weren’t enough; they introduced the inverters and solar panels into the country. This is the big brother of the generator business. Only the big boys and girls, use those. Yes, all these are a thing of pride. Imagine if we had constant power supply, there’d be no need for the generators, inverters and so on. They’d lose billions of naira. So, they can never let us have constant electricity.
                                    

                                      

·           They say we are an oil producing country. One of the largest. OIL, that accursed black gold is another reason why we’d never see constant electricity in a hurry. The oil business is the biggest in the country. From it we get all forms of fuel, Petrol, diesel, kerosene etc. Have you ever wondered why even though we are an oil rich nation, we still pay almost a dollar per litre for petrol? It’s because they know we have no choice. If you get two hours of electricity in a day, you are blessed. Every single thing you do, from your house, cars, business and every appliance in them, even that generator of yours, you need to use fuel. At work, you make money and still spend more than half or more of your capital to power your business. God, help you if you are into production, maybe you are into textiles and the rest, and you need fuel. That’s why produced goods are expensive here. The Coke I tasted in Lome is different from what I drink here. It’s downright disgusting. 
                                       
        They want to break even in the biggest Black Country, every material they use has to be transported to the factories with fuel, the machines in the factories use fuel, moving the finished product down to the consumers need fuel too. Hence you have an expensive shit for a drink. It’s the same with every manufactured crap they make. Let’s not enter the tasteless frozen milk and water they produce as ice cream and yoghurt, which tastes better in other countries. Ok, I’m deviating.
                                      

The oil men make a buck load because thanks to the nonexistent power, we depend on them to progress in the modern world. Writing this needs electricity. Oh darn it; the idiots just lived up to their name.

Imagine if we had constant electricity and our president opens that his mouth to announce some fuel subsidy ish again, we’d just park our cars at home and take taxis because there’s light at our offices and in our homes. What more do we need. But you try to break even in business, and still spend money you don’t have on the costly shit they have refined in some other country for us. That’s the dumbest thing this country does; you have oil, you take it out, then give people with refineries operating with constant electricity to refine for you, then they sell your own thing back to you at a high price, which you now sell back to the people, that’s just crazy! And we say we are no more colonized. Reminds me of the whites taking our resources from our country, sending it to theirs where they refine it, then sell the shit back to us.

  These two factors and the people that run them are our biggest problem in achieving constant electricity in this country. I am sick and tired of it. Just pause for a minute and imagine a Nigeria with constant electricity; road accidents will reduce because there’s only so much your headlights can do. Our economy will boom, people will be more productive in every sphere, more SMEs will spring up and survive, investors will troop in, our bank balances will be happy and maybe some of these companies will stop serving sugar with coloured water as orange drink and pay attention to the quality of their products. The cost of living will go down. Robbery and other related acts will go down; imagine the police using torchlight in a dark neighbourhood trying to rescue you, are they witches? They have to see. We’d be able to stay out and walk the streets four a.m in the morning and not be scared. So many things that are wrong with this country will be better.

  Maybe our rulers have constant electricity in their houses, if not I don’t see the reason, they’d travel round the world and see the basic amenity called electricity and come back to their home country then relax in their houses with a generator or inverter. Maybe they don’t have neighbours with noisy generators living close to them. The neighbour in the next house, rented his house out and now, I have sleepless nights filled with the thunderous sound of a tenant’s generator, I have flung that generator into the Bar Beach a million times in my head but can I blame the generator owner?.

  Forget the anti gay rights law or whatever cock and bull law they draw up next, forget the constitution amendment crap that they’re wasting billions of naira on. We have more pressing issues in this country. I don’t care what they promise, just give us light. 
                                                 
Well, can you blame the rulers, when the people themselves don’t know what they want; they’ve all accepted the no light situation. Give me constant electricity first then we can talk about the other things.

   Constant electricity is what we deserve from them, it’s our bloody right. Pardon my French.

  When you provide constant electricity, your next job is the rotten sick education sector. Well, these are my thoughts, what’s yours?

  May I see constant electricity in Nigeria before I die, may my children meet it.

P.S: looking for land to buy in Ghana and in Lome. Why will I build here and spend all my days not enjoying the house I built, with the heat and constant noise?