THE NAME CONTROVERSY

What should matter? Is it what something is, or what it is called?

I have observed that a number of people who are unhappy with the vicissitudes of life and their personal misfortunes have laid the blame for the trajectory of their lives at the doorsteps of the names given to them at birth. Clergymen and parents have also reinforced this deep-seated belief that your name ultimately leads to your destiny like the rudder of a ship. The belief tends to suggest that one is helpless after being named and just drifts along in the strong currents and course charted by one’s name - for good or bad. The ritual of child-naming is therefore an important occasion in the African setting.

Children during christening or such naming ceremonies are given names that bear testimony to such mindsets that their names will reflect on their character and ultimately make or mar their lives.  

Also, every now and then, a baby name boom is spawned by a societal fad or celebrity obsession. It certainly will not be surprising; looking back years from now, that many children born in this era got christened Goodluck and Patience. Named by parents hoping that the President and his wife’s knack of having political good luck and bidding their time will rub off on their own wards and children. Just like the Obama name rush when he was declared the 44th and first black president of the United States of America. Or the Yvonne and Denzel baby name boom at the height of the musical and acting careers of Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Denzel Washington respectively.

Beautiful and meaningful names are good to give to children but the hood does not make the monk. Only a few babies have been named after Barack Obama in the United States. But 43 children were named after him or Michelle in Kisumu, Kenya, the village where Obama's father lived, by only the end of the election week.

We need to liberate our children from fraudulent manipulations by teaching them the art of critical thinking. They need to be taught the art of listening to all perspectives, questioning motives and evidence and applying independent critical thinking from an uncluttered mind freed from age-long shackles. This skill is sorely lacking today.

Our prisons and a glance at the list of condemned prisoners indicate that it is full of people with beautiful and even religious names. They are incarcerated despite their ennobling names. Our upbringing, actions, inactions and personal choices ultimately decide the trajectory of our lives rather than our names. Changing a name without changing one’s personality, harmful or displeasing habits won’t make much of a difference in breaking the connection with supposed ill-luck.

We should be more concerned with building character than names because character is who we really are while the name is merely a wish - Just as one might utter a “Good morning!” wish to a friend, neighbour or colleague on a miserably dark and cloudy morning.
It is better to reflect and adjust your character if you are rejected wherever you go than to constantly swear affidavits for change of name. Your character goes ahead of you even before you mention your name.

It is more important to train and equip our children with the tools of success in life than become mired in name controversies and their impact on the trajectory of the bearer's life.

I won't be surprised to find that there is another married couple from Bayelsa State also known as Goodluck and Patience who are wallowing in abject poverty and living in penury and obscurity. Disadvantaged by lack of education, upbringing and circumstances of their birth.

Mary was the name of the mother of Jesus Christ.  As such, the name was at first considered too holy for ordinary use. Its use began in England in the 12th century, and by the 16th century it was the most frequently used name for girls. Mary, in Hebrew means bitter but Mary the mother of Jesus was described as blessed amongst women because of her personality, upbringing and chosen role. Her name did not make her a bitter person.

Even when we read about individuals in biblical times whose names God changed, this was merely symbolic of the promises or covenant with such people. They were already chosen at the time they bore their previous names.

George Walker Bush was the 43rd President of the United States, serving from 2001 to 2009, and the 46th Governor of Texas, serving from 1995 to 2000.

Bush is the eldest son of President George H. W. Bush, who served as the 41st President, making him one of only two American presidents to be the son of a preceding president.

It is glaring that their last name BUSH, was not a deterrent to their ambitions in life. The circumstances of our lives are determined to a large extent by our quality of thoughts and the choices that we make. This in turn is influenced largely by the education that we have, our parental upbringing, environment and the opportunities that we avail ourselves. Education teaches us to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character gets you further in life than a fancy name. The purpose of education is to boost our opportunities in life and to enable us provide great service to people. You have to be ready and prepared to take advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself.

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen (John F. Kennedy). As a man thinketh so is he. As he continues to think, so he becomes.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet is a quote by William Shakespeare from his play Romeo and Juliet meant to say that the names of things do not matter, only what things are.

Drowning in the filth of their character and poor choices, people often turn around to blame their names.

CAN’T TELL THEM APART

BY LUCKY JOSEPH


Good and Bad
Used to be this and that…
Sworn enemies
Agreed on nothing
Went to war over everything
Areas of cooperation?
Not on your life!
Long gone is the divide.

Bad goes to church with Good –
He was made an Elder recently!
He gives lots of long testimonies

A lot of them about is ill-gotten monies
After church, Good grooves like mad
In the good company of Elder Bad
At nightclubs and strip joints
Good says he loves the atmosphere
Seeing the beauty of God’s creation
Parade without inhibition…

Like it was before Adam’s transgression
In the office and everywhere else,
None can tell Good from Bad
He gives and takes just like Bad
His favourite scripture –
A man’s gift makes room for him!
The way Good is going
He’ll soon be worse than Bad!


Smokin’ Gun’s response:
When good and bad call a truce
It means the conscience has been slain.
When the line between good and bad becomes blurred
It is a sign that the destruction of a nation, society or group has begun.
When moral values are no longer distinct like night and day,
Then the destruction of all that is sacred stares us in the face.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – Kanye West stirs controversy

A topless phoenix and a demon appeared in the album cover released for Kanye's new album. Kanye says the album will have five covers all painted by George Condo.

Geniuses don’t always work and play well with others
Rapper Kanye West is always stirring controversy, it seems. His latest is the cover art for his upcoming album, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," scheduled to be released on Nov. 22.

Does Kanye West not remind you of legends like Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Madonna, Bob Marley, Tupac, Michael Jackson and others?

Does this album cover not fall within the kind of prank the Abami Eda,
Material Girl or 2PAC would play? Remember “Just like a virgin” by
Madonna and the burning crosses in that musical video? Remember
Fela with his huge wraps of “cigarettes”?

A common thread amongst these great artistes is the "rebelliousness" of their music and ways. They stir up things, always pushing the envelope and taking us to new frontiers. They are daring, outspoken and mention to the embarrassment of some, the huge elephant in the room (stereotyping, religious hypocrisy, racism, poverty, human failings, oppression and even nudity) that others pretend isn't there. They are truth seekers, sometimes controversial but socially relevant and producing thought provoking works.

This is a source of concern, to me personally, as our current Nigerian musical ‘stars’ churn out empty lyrics and compositions – their only consideration appears to be that it has a party beat.
In my candid opinion, Kanye West is a genius – toss the album cover aside if it is too hot to handle - and just listen to the lyrics and flow with his rhythms.

A WITCHCRAFT HAUNTED STATE

Just after midnight, the pastor seized a woman's forehead with his large hand and she fell screaming and writhing on the ground. "Fire! Fire! Fire!" shouted the worshippers, raising their hands in the air.

“I have been delivered from witches and wizards today!" exclaimed the exhausted-looking woman.

This church scene was taken from an Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, CNN report (August 28, 2010.)

It appears some pastors in Akwa Ibom State now specialize in delivering the congregation from what they firmly believe to be witchcraft. The pastors charge a fee for these deliverance sessions.

These Pastors allege that illness and poverty are caused by witches who bring terrible misfortune to those around them. And those denounced as witches must be cleansed through deliverance or cast out. Children are cast out of their homes for causing the premature deaths of their siblings with black magic. Some of the children are thrown into the river, buried alive or stabbed to death. They are beaten and forced to make confessions of killings and causing misfortunes. These children bear the scars of being beaten, attacked with boiling water, and cuts from machetes.

When Mary Mitchell Slessor left Aberdeen, Scotland on August 5, 1876 for Africa, her intention was to touch the lives of the people. Mary Slessor lived all her life in the coastal areas and villages around Cross River and Akwa Ibom States saving twins and empowering women. She was stunned when she arrived and learnt that slavery and the killing of women and slaves was commonplace.

Basically, the people then - and even now from all indications - lived in horrifying and barbaric conditions of superstition, ignorance and sickening cruelty. At that time, twin babies were thought to be evil and were cruelly murdered while their mothers were driven from their homes to die in the jungle. Mary Slessor, despite the inherent dangers, moved around the coastal and riverine villages in an enlightenment campaign. She went on to discover sets of twins abandoned to die and saved them - eventually stopping the hounding of their mothers and killing of twins.

Unfortunately, the age of enlightenment has still not arrived Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria despite Mary Slessor’s inspired efforts. It is still a witchcraft haunted enclave and seemingly some pastor’s delight. Blames for natural incidents and personal misfortunes are still laid at the doorsteps of mystical beings or witch children.

Human (child) sacrifices are still being made to appease the “gods”, stop diseases and dispel ill-luck. Despicable and false prophets are reaping bountifully from the ignorant under the cloak or guise of religion.

Babbling esoteric nonsense and waxing scriptural, they befuddle and hoodwink the gullible and leave them impoverished and worse off. It is a case of the blind leading the blind. The congregation - sheep following blindly, unwillingly to challenge the pastors – are forced to perform criminal and self-demeaning acts.

It is far easier to follow the crowd and beaten path than blaze a new trail. The people, especially the parents in Akwa Ibom State, just need to take their minds out of the Neanderthal age and think independently for themselves and ask more self-enlightening questions.

The state government however feels the incidents are exaggerated. They argue instead, that a new Child Right's bill outlawing child stigmatization has largely ended the problem.

But despite some arrests, so far, the government acknowledges, there have been no prosecutions.

“It’s been blown out of proportion and people are capitalizing, on what ordinarily may be a social problem, across the globe in painting Akwa Ibom state black - that is the aspect we say no to. We will not allow the image of our state to be smeared." said Aniekan Umanah, the Information Commissioner of Nigeria's Akwa Ibom state.

Surprisingly, I haven’t heard or read anywhere else of this social problem trending across the globe, where when night comes, bishops or pastors torture their congregations in the name of deliverances and child witches are cast out.

The dehumanised children of Akwa Ibom State are another sad tale in our abysmal depths of human right abuses. One of the ‘clergymen’ in the state was bold enough to say that he had killed 110 of these children whom he had tagged witches.

It is instructive to note that these spurious allegations and dehumanisation of children has gone on for years. It took the broadcast of a video by the British Channel 4 documentary ‘Saving Africa's Witch Children’ on British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC in 2008 to expose the macabre child-witch situation. That was the prodding the state government finally needed to wake up and intervene in the child abuse, molestation, torture and killings that had been going on for months in the state.

The Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly suddenly woke up from a comatose state after the British documentary was broadcast on their channel 4 with a plea to save the unfortunate children of Akwa Ibom state. They shook off their state of inertia and hurriedly passed the revised Child Rights Law, making it an offence with a punishment of 10 years imprisonment without an option of fine for anyone who subjects a child to inhuman treatment in the process of purporting to cure, purge or exorcise a child of witchcraft. The police also swung into action arresting the ‘clergyman’ who claimed to have killed a 110 of these children. I wonder if he has killed as many as 110 cockroaches in his life-time.

Has human life become so cheap? The suspect, with the self-acclaimed appellation of ‘Bishop’ Sunday Ulup-Ayah told the documentary film team that he delivered children from demonic possession. It was a barbaric and bestial video of horrors. If indeed these children had any demonic powers, the charlatan Bishop would not be alive to tell his sorry story. These were defenceless and deformed children with nails struck in their heads, lost sight, mutilated limbs, bathed with all sorts of corrosive chemicals and inflicted with torture marks beyond what words can describe.

Illiteracy and abject poverty is the common link found among the hoodwinked parents that give up their children for slaughter and torture in Akwa Ibom state.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, (UNESCO), reports that the number of illiterates over the age of fifteen in Nigeria is 25 million and that over 55 million Nigerians are stark illiterates. Such illiterate minds are prone to superstitious, irrational and ignorant beliefs.

The fingered clergymen in Akwa Ibom State must not go unpunished. That’s the only way to stop the unfortunate recurring incidents of child abuse and killings. This proclivity for deceiving and stealing in the name of religion has to stop.

THE CAR HORN IS NOT A TOY

Have you observed while waiting – like the good citizen you are – for the traffic lights to turn green at some roundabout or junction, that some wise guy usually keeps hooting his car horn behind you? Is this possibly a sign that his car horn works? Or is this a case of an adult compensating with the car horn for some deprived childhood toy? It certainly couldn’t be that this impatient Nigerian wants you to beat the traffic lights?

Strange as it may sound, to some car horn loving Nigerians, those car horns that we constantly hoot as force of habit or at every slight irritation on the road are not actually toys. The horn is a device on an automobile for making a warning noise especially where danger is perceived.

This realisation may come as a rude awakening. I do appreciate that some of us may have grown up as children deprived of toys and envied others who had those attractive toys that we desired. But we're now adults and it will amount to over compensating, if we consciously or subconsciously decide to make up for this childhood loss by playing with the car horn while driving. This distracting, annoying but seemingly pleasurable action constitutes noise pollution. There is enough pollution going on without adding this often unnecessary nuisance. We pollute the air with the exhaust fumes from our cars and dangerous fumes from power generating sets. We pollute the atmosphere with noise from water pumping machines and generators - a necessary evil in view of our epileptic national power supply. Our parties are often noisy and we block the roads with our rented plastic chairs, canopies and play loud music from the turntables or the popular live bands. We pollute the atmosphere with industrial wastes, resulting in ground water pollution and acid rain. We pollute the air and the ecosystem by gas flaring and oil spills in the Niger Delta region. We pollute the atmosphere with the noise from the loudspeakers mounted on the rooftops of mosques, churches and the record stores, and those break-of-dawn foot evangelists with their megaphones who appear to be crouching directly by your window with their repentance sermons and seem to completely ignore where their freedom ends and where your rights begin.

Apart from permanent hearing loss, these pollutions have other health implications such as unhealthy air, stress, insomnia and affect our quality of work and life. The "Big Oga" or “Madam” after - arguably - a hard day's work gets to the gates of his house and starts hooting his car horn for the gateman to open the gates leading to his/her fortress. Meanwhile, the poor gateman has diarrhea and is using the restroom. The entire neighbourhood is plunged into a cacophony of noise as the Big Man keeps his hand steady on the car horn until the poor gateman, sweating and with his trousers bunched around his knees, runs out of the toilet - business unfinished or still ongoing - to open the gate. I'm sure we can work out more ingenious and effective ways of alerting the gateman that we're approaching the house with our big cars without alerting, at the same time, the entire neighbourhood and robbers - for that matter - of our arrival.

The list of noise pollutants in our noise-loving society is endless. But we can do away, at least, with the unnecessary hooting of car horns. For those who were deprived of toys to play with as children, and are now compensating as adults with their car horns, my advice is to buy those missed toys for your own children or children around you. The sheer pleasure of watching them play with these toys and the gratitude on their young, innocent faces will compensate for your loss and deprived childhood. For the reggae music lovers, I know that Bob Nesta Marley in his song, "Punky Reggae Party", avowed that it takes a joyful noise to make the world go round. But that joyful noise he referred to wasn't the car horn.

I've a theory that some Nigerians do not use the turn signal often because it doesn't make much noise. We're a loud people and have evolved a relentless noisy environment. Have you observed some Nigerians greeting themselves in public places such as the airport? They become the cynosure of all eyes. They sometimes scream dementedly and supposedly in delight and slap themselves vigorously as if to cause bodily harm. My advice to car manufacturers for the Nigerian market is to provide some sound to the turn indicator so that more people can use it correctly and with pleasure. It may just be a whistling sound.

The Power of the Green Shirt

In my third-year at the university, I was smitten by the charms of a beautiful girl with whom I had never spoken. She was in my department but in her second-year. The irony though was not only that we didn’t see often, but whenever I saw her, at intervals of between three and four months, I was always wearing the same green shirt. She would cast a pitiful look at me with those beautiful dark eyes and the lovely, fluttering eyelashes. She probably wondered if that was the only shirt I had.

I felt bad and this further diminished my courage to speak with her.  I consulted a friend of mine who knew her well and he told me that the reason she was not often in school was that she was ill and was often on admission in various hospitals.  I was not deterred by this sad news – love knows no bounds, right?

To right any wrong impressions already created , I decided to lay my beloved green shirt to rest so that whenever I ran into her on campus again, it would definitely be with a new look. I gave out the shirt. Unfortunately, I never saw her again after that. Alas, the week I laid the shirt to rest was the week she was sadly laid to rest. She was overcome by the ailment.

Sometimes I wonder if there was some power in that green shirt. May be I shouldn’t have given it away?

Letter to MEND

Dear MEND (Movement - supposedly - for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta),

While many Nigerians may share similar sentiments with you that there was no justifiable cause for squandering billions of naira in celebrating 50 years of decline and slippage, most Nigerians will also find your actions around the Eagle Square venue of the Independence Day anniversary celebrations, morally reprehensible.

Nigerians were brutally killed in acts of terrorism and these citizens have no verifiable, direct responsibility for the current rot and decay in the country which you claim to be your grouse. Your action has not in any way helped the cause of achieving a better life for these Nigerians. Rather it has cast a pall of gloom and deepened the pain and sorrow of the families of the slain bystanders at the Independence Day event, some of whom are the breadwinners of their grieving families.

These were hapless Nigerians already under the strain and yolk of 50 years of misrule. The lives that were violently taken are not replaceable no matter the remorse or apologies issued after this dastardly act. It is a popular Nigerian adage that where there is life, there is hope. That hope keeps the average Nigerian going in the face of the chasm and disconnect between the citizens and the often inept leadership. But even that life that they had, no matter how miserable it was, you have now taken violently. You have added death and more woes to their sad plight by those bomb blasts. The brunt of your actions was borne by the ordinary, downtrodden and long-suffering Nigerians. Your actions are no less despicable than those of the armed gang that held 15 schoolchildren hostage in Aba, after they hijacked their bus on their way to school.

Many Nigerians will agree that amnesty to militants is not the panacea to the ills of the Niger Delta region. There is a need to address the issues of environmental degradation, unemployment and lack of basic infrastructure. There needs to be improved corporate social responsibility and human resources development. But the struggle for a better Niger Delta and Nigeria goes beyond bomb blasts. It goes beyond arms running, kidnapping, blowing up oil pipelines, stealing massive amounts of crude oil, killing and raping of women. Peaceful methods with unshakeable commitment have transformed struggles. Martin Luther King, Jr. posited that, “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.”

There are a million and one grandiose, political conspiracy theories making the rounds over the actual mastermind of the Abuja bomb blasts. The spun conspiracy theories range from the infantile to the absurd. Even the President, Goodluck Jonathan, has waded in with his “Political Opponents Theory” – possibly colouring the outcome of the investigation by the relevant state security agencies who may now be working towards unveiling the expected answer. But you have claimed responsibility for the carnage and it is indeed a huge and blood-thirsty act of irresponsibility. Whatever the agitations or grouse, MEND should note that the destruction of a nation or any organization starts with the erosion of decency and decay of moral values as evidenced in this avoidable loss of precious lives in the Abuja bomb blasts.

If MEND has any ideas or suggestions to improve the way the country is being run or run-down for that matter, then it should offer such alternative suggestions in a civil manner. If such civil behaviour goes against the grain or natural inclinations of MEND, then they could adopt a political party which will serve as a platform to attain power by contesting elections and seeking the mandate of the people. That way they can right all wrongs in the Niger Delta. This wanton slaughter of Nigerians is despicable and totally unacceptable.

In the words of Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician, we should make a habit of two things – to help, or at least do no harm.

Your disappointed countryman

Smokin' Gun