1MINUTE DIGITAL PHOTO? YEAH RIGHT!

Have you ever tried taking one of those one minute digital photos in Abuja? Wow! First you find the guy. Then assuming there’s no queue, we start counting the minutes:

Haggle over the price – 2minutes (depends on how cheap you are!)

Clean seat, arrange backdrop and take shot – 1minute

Wait for picture selection and print – 5minutes

Argue over quality – 2minutes

Hunt for your change – 3minutes

Argue over dirty, torn naira notes – 2minutes

Total time – 15minutes

I’ve had enough. Thank God for Soludo’s new coins. Forget about creating jobs.

Bring in the coin-operated photo-machines!

Can I get an AMEN?

Juju for Jobs

Its amazing how crowds form in search of jobs these days. Announce a job offer and suddenly this massive, writhing, crush of humanity comes snaking round the corner at you. And they come armed to the teeth with brown envelopes loaded with CVs, credentials & passports of smiling, frowning & unsure faces.

And since it seems 24years old is the ideal “football age” of the corporate world, everyone’s 24 years old no matter how craggy-faced they look… its scary!

But no matter what age you are, you’ve gotta do your best to stand out! I was outside the Art Center in Abuja yesterday waiting for my buddy Sammy who was there to submit an application for a job with the FCDA. After a rather long wait, Sammy emerged with this Cheshire cat grin.

Apparently, while on the queue, he decided to do something different. When it was his turn to submit, he startled everyone with a war-cry:

“Yee-argh! Yee-argh! Gbugu, gbugu! Gbugu! Gbugu!” Then he leaped into the air, landed wild-eyed and let loose some feigned incantations before spitting and waving his arm over his form. Then he signed the register and walked out as cool as a cucumber.

I was in stitches! When I pressed him, he admitted that he actually didn’t do it. But the thought was so juicy that he would definitely do it some day. Maybe with a little idol or ox-tail to wave over the crowd. I thought. Yeah, I’m just as bad.

Sue me!

Too bad he didn’t do it though. I can just picture the guy supervising taking note of his number and warning his bosses: “Hey, don’t mess with form number 00304. The guy that brought it put some heavy Juju on it O!”

If you’ve been cheated out of a job before, you might wanna try it sometime! But try a little make-up first for best effect and don't say I advised you O!

Margarine Juice

Just back from a trip to Abuja. Wow! Felt like I was in a furnace with no warning. We were driving around in a car with busted air-conditioning. Picture me in a jet-black suit with an invisible water faucet over my head. I had no warning.

Beg your pardon? The forecast?!

C’mon! No one trusts the weathermen in Nigeria anymore. You need a special decoder ring and a Gobbledygook/Fantasy-English dictionary to know what the weather will be. For example,
n. bright & sunny – blazing, searing heat
n. chance of rain – not a cloud for miles
n. light showers – stay home and brace for floods (abi Lagosians I lie?)

Anyway, I heard Minna was even hotter. (As if that’s possible! I thought to myself). Got home to Kaduna and called a friend in Minna. He confirmed the stories. In Minna I hear they purchase candles out of refrigerators! Want a cappuccino? Here’s a hot new Minna recipe:

Place half full cup of normal water on table. Add two teaspoons of coffee, some cream and sugar. Leave on pavement for five minutes.

Presto! One wickedly foaming cappuccino at your disposal. I also hear there’s a new culinary fad; margarine juice! Just leave a tub of Blue Band on the shelf in your crib for an hour. You can almost watch it go!

But seriously, even though it’s bloody hot there, it ain’t all bad. Crime’s down! I hear the devil got a weekend pass from his regular duties in Minna to go to hades to escape the heat. And we all know that when we catch a criminal in Naija, na devil cause am oga!

Peace!

The Stealth Ninja!

Had my boy Stealth on the show awhile back. He was my first guest too! He was great though. We had a blast. He wouldn’t let me tell peeps his real name on air though. Still... some guy who knew who he was sent in a sms describing him as the next best thing to a saint. (My words but you know I can't quote the sms here - you'd think I'd gone soft)

Phone a Dead Friend?

I found it ab-so-lu-te-ly hilarious that President Obasanjo had to hold a phone to a mike to prove to Nigerians that his anointed one was still alive. Especially since I was just about to do the same on the Ghana show.

Bad news sure travels fast! I’d barely heard he was sick before I heard he was dead. Dead? Ha! Wouldn’t that have been a kick in PDP’s teeth? Didn’t President /Prophet OBJ say the man had been miraculously healed a while back?

Anyway,the phone call proves nothing. That could have been his ghost calling. No be Africa we dey? besides, Baba na strong yoruba man. No be so? No long thing!

Ghana Banana!

I made it rhyme! My title I mean. I was wondering how to narrate my pre-Ghana show jitters. Thinking back, I must confess that underneath my cool calm exterior, I was shaking more than Michael J Fox on a bad day. It seemed like i was being set up for a fall on air. Like this whole idea was one big banana peel. Sheesh!

It was to have been a breeze man. Really! But suddenly doing the show was looking like a looming fiasco with a capital F.

It all began when I decided to call someone in Ghana after their 50^th Anniversary celebrations for the unofficial version of events. Know what I mean? And I had the perfect candidate. My boy Delali in Accra. I’d call him up and say hi live on air for the listening pleasure of all KDnites. Great idea, right?

Doh! Had to find credit for the call cos I didn’t know how to get that from the powers that be (besides – my idea, my show, my cross to carry I figured). Also, I’d use my own phone and zip over to Zeeten for a Ghanaian mix CD.

So, the day before. I went through my checklist:

Cash for credit? Check!

Ghanaian mixCD with VIP and others? Check!

List of questions? Nah, I’d wing it. Go with tha flow.

D-Day! And then… I got blindsided by Murphy’s law. Translation? It all went wrong. My Ghana MixCD disappeared before I got to the studio. The CD player suddenly started spinning tracks slower than an old geezer on the expressway. And I was told I wasn’t cleared for a phone-in session.

OK. Lowest Point. But one thing about life… never say die, and you don’t. Got clearance. Got alternative sounds of the system (apologies to my fans for the oldies). And made the call 30minutes later than planned.

Delali made fun of me for not calling him till I needed him for a show. Ouch! Then we talked about the numerous parties, prayer meetings, and political meetings all over the country. It was a blast!

I didn’t slip on that banana peel! And feedback on the show was good, Got a call from my man Chukwudi from “Kingdom of Messiah” ( translation: Kurmin Mashi – a suburb of Kaduna town). He gave props to the show. Man, I was ten feet tall walking out the studio.

Hah! The devil is a liar!

See ya.

PS. Happy 50th Anniversary and much love to my Ghanaian readers. Love y'all.

Get Rich Mr Agbaje

I just saw Get rich or die tryin'. Don't get me wrong, I mean its not like I just found out the movie existed or anything. I'd seen it around but since I was not (and still am not) a fan of G-G-G-G-G-UNIT! I couldn't give a flying fart! (Pardon the expression!)

But I was bored at work today and I happened to have a bootleg copy (yeah sue me!) of the movie so I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. Then again... was there any fuss? It said most anticipated movie of the year on the cover of the CD but since Asian bootleg versions of movies all say that I didn't lay much store by it.

Having said that, I LIKED THE MOVIE! I really did. I was surprised how well it was scripted and directed. Then I checked and find it was directed by 6time Oscar Nominee Jim Sheridan! The dude who did In the Name of the Father. A grit-movie specialist then? COOL!

But I guess I was most impressed by Akinnuoye- Agbaje's utterly convincing portrayal of an American drug kingpin. The portrayal of the character of Majestic was so intense for the Nigerian Buddhist actor that he said he had to do a lot of chanting to get through the experiance.
Chanting hunh? Go figure. The dude was baaaad!

So I guess what I'm trying to say in my own amateur movie critic kind of way is... go see the movie. Or at least get the bootlegged copy. Sorry 50, you're already rich.

Nigerian Born World Citizen

Patriotism. I love it. I even live it. Not necessarily in an American-style, tear-jerking, land-of-the-free-and-the-home -of-the- brave way.
But I try.
I guess you could say I'm part of the new wave of 30 year old Africans who fully appreciate the wasted opportunities we have had as a continent. i sometimes wish I could kill all the big bad Idi Amin/Sese Sekou types but what would that achieve? Besides, that seems to be the same motivation the numerous "rebels" on the continent have and so far, that's gotten us nowhere fast.

I'm a citizen of the world. I hook-up under the radar with fellow world citizens cruising through life with their own goals, views and ideologies. When I chat with my friend Abu in Egypt I learn more than I'll ever learn from CNN. First time we met I asked him his opinion of Mubarrak and he goes "Mubarrak is a piece of s*&t."

And I thought the man was a saint. Shows what I know.

One Love