Saturday 14 July 2007

Your side of the bar

I'm recovering from the Nigerian event, I went to yesterday. Okay, I'm exaggerating, it wasn't so bad, that I have to recover from it. Nevertheless, Nigerian events can give someone a serious head ache. It never starts on time, it is unnecessarily prolonged. It was a reception program for one of the commissioners. The event was nice, but just too long. It made me freaking tired that I wished I was back in school. Even the speeches were so long and most of the speakers were just saying stuff that I wished I had an ear plug. There was this guy representing the Sudanese community(mehn!! these people are coal black). His speech was interesting . He reminded the audience of those killed in the Darfur war, which the Nigerians closed to me expressed their shallowness and lack of interest in issues affecting other parts of the world. He specified that there are about 2.5 million Nigerians in Sudan. Honestly, I didn't know that. Of course, the Naija man behind me said "Kini won shen be". Which was what I also thought of. "What are they doing there". This is another proof that Nigerians are in almost every part of the world. The Sudanese guy said a line which I loved. He referred to Africa as "a rich continent with poor people". The commissioner was quite nice and friendly. He was very energetic and outspoken. Most times when one meets people in government, they seem like nice people who don't fall into this corrupt group, we all put them into. Okay this is going to annoy some people. When I met president Obassanjo(not personally oh!!) a few years ago, he was so nice and polite. He greeted everyone and shook hands with people. That impression of him being this cruel and corrupt president didn't match with what I was seeing. It just made me wonder if these people put up a front, and at the back do all the.......I was chatting with someone who isn't Nigerian on Nigeria. Surprisingly, this person who has also lived in Nigeria said there was alot of indiscipline in Nigeria. I know alot of Nigerians will be quick to refute that, and claim there's more discipline in the west. Well, there's indiscipline in both parts of the world. Though, we view ours mostly as not respecting your elders, not following the customs. But, indiscipline here goes beyond that. It's failing to obey the traffic light, because the police isn't present. It means your lecturer trying to take bribes from you , in order to give you good grades, or being disorderly in an event. I have discovered that alot of people place their values mostly on what side or group they belong to.

I had this random memory of when I was writing my exams in high school. I peered at my friend's work (malpractice) to see what he was doing. What I saw made me laugh my ass off, that I was lucky, I wasn't caught.
Here is his answer to this question

Ways of controlling vector insects
Use of insecticides----good
Use of sleeping nets----good
Clapping with hands-----ahhh

7 comments:

Ubong Da said...

interesting piece

Afolabi said...

@ubong da..thanx mr. randy

Femme said...

when you think about our traffic,you realise how really indisciplined we are.
and it has to be the first time nigerian politician and nice has been used in the same sentence.

Ms. Catwalq said...

Nigerians can floor you with their insensitivity. Unless their house is under the threat of burning down, they will not rush to their neighbour's aid and they wonder why the country is the shits.

I always say: Do the right thing because that is what you should do. Why are you clean and tidy when u go to the white man's land but you treat yours like a pit.

Naijadude said...

As a Nigerian, I have tend to realise the whole lot called Nigerians are insensitive, selfish and gullible.. sad!

Atutupoyoyo said...

When Obasanjo is not busy stripping Nigeria of his wealth, he is also a very convincing actor. The performance you witnessed was just that......a performance

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