Those elders who have ruled this country over the years are the elders who left our doors wide open all night. They left snakes on the roof of our family house and went to bed, foolishly thinking that the snake would stay on the roof. But the snake soon found out that it is warmer inside than on the cold roof. It found out that it can curl more comfortably under the owner of the house’s pillow and around the legs of the children, so it came in. Don’t forget that the snake is a cold-blooded animal who is always seeking a warm place. What better place then to find it than among the wrappers of the landlord?

Every pregnancy has gestation period, even that of rats. A hen must sit on her eggs for 21 days before she can hatch them. She still must keep them warm for another day or two before presenting the new addition to her family to her owner. Lesson? Every good thing needs effort. Every home needs protection. Every baby needs the mother to provide the warmth and assurance that makes life worth living. Do we not see how the mother hen alert her chicks, takes them quickly under her wings when the hawk comes hovering? The hen is a small bird, but it can sense or see a hawk still in the sky, long before it gets close to her precious chicks.

Should we compare our leaders to mother hens? Have they protected their chicks in their vulnerable years or let them wander into the waiting sharp beaks of the hungry hawk? Is it the fault of the snake that it is looking for a warmer place, more comfort than the roof of a house can provide? If the owner of the house forgot that a snake takes its bag of venom everywhere it goes, why should the snake advertise it while looking for a bed to hide under? And if one of the children steps on its tail, should it not bite? After all, this snake is not as foolish as the house owner. It knows his powers, never forgets to draw on them and does not allow little children to ride roughshod over it.

I hope by now you understand who the house owners have been over the years in your neighbourhood and the snakes that are on all the 36 roofs in our family compound. Sorry, some of the snakes have already found their ways into the beds and bedrooms of some houses, but I assure you there is no single house that is safe in this compound. The snakes that are not yet in are wisely reading the map and their venom bags are growing by the day.

We’ve got terrorists, kidnappers, cyber criminals, ritual murderers and even baby-making factories all over the place. They are some of the snakes our past leaders (no heroes, those ones), left to sun their blood on the roof during the day. Now, night has fallen and the snakes want in.

It is easy to put all the blame on President Jonathan, but he wasn’t the head of the family when the snake first arrived. He wasn’t the one who let the snake feel welcome. He is just the current landlord, the one who ended up with the short end of the stick. That is why we are hitting him with clubs, cudgels and everything we can lay our hands on. But if we are going to be true to ourselves, when we are not looking for a scapegoat, we must admit that this terror problem did not arrive today. These snakes have been here for decades. They came as little snakes that a broom could have killed. Now that they have grown into boa constrictors and rattle snakes daring us, we are all running up and down like headless chicken, uncoordinated.

With the size of the army of unemployed youths we have in all the states of the federation, the snakes are already in, let us not play ostrich. Terrorists are handing them bombs and guns because we did not hand them jobs. Our wives, children and fathers are being killed in their dozens and hundreds, right before our very eyes. The devil is presiding over the decimation of our family compound. Satan is smiling and handing over vodka and cognac bottles to his aides. He is happy, very happy. Demons on assignment to our national home are swigging champagne straight from the bottles, celebrating our pains and sorrows. And what are we doing to stop the evil party?  We are speaking English (dogon turenchi), blaming everybody but ourselves. We are organising seminars and workshops on security both locally and internationally. We want Europeans to teach us how to lock our doors. We want Americans to teach us how to make amala and tuwo shinkafa. We are generally sitting on our hands, believing that if we throw enough ‘grammar’ at our terrorism troubles, it will go away.

Unfortunately, the devil did better than that. He increased the salaries and emoluments of his demons and now everywhere is on fire. Yes, most of the snakes will die, but they will take a chunk of our homestead with them. Isn’t that what is going on largely in the North?

I agree, a President’s got to do what a President must do, but this is a fight to protect what is ours. We have no other country. I cannot imagine going to be shopkeeper in London or washing toilets in America. That is what will happen if we don’t all face up to the realities already staring us in the face. What do we do after the emergency rule? The devil has armed our youths with guns and bombs, what are we going to use to replace those things when we take them away? We need to reconvert our children, return the bombers to the path of national truth and pure values of our real heroes past. Talkshops, committees and white papers won’t do nada. This is serious business and we must face it frontally because our lives, our tomorrow, our children’s future depend on it.

Mass employment is what I propose.

Let’s start with what I call the Grains Brigade. How many times have I repeated the need for federal farms in this country? Someone said there is no federal land and I say BS. How come this same Federal Government is now all over the place hunting humans in games reserve? Who owns all those hundreds of hectares that stretch between one town and the next on our highways? Okay, let’s assume they belong to the states, can’t we just start mass grains farms, planting millet, maize, beans, rice, guinea corn, all over the country. Oh, and let no thief start thinking of importing heavy duty equipment. No sir. We want to start tomorrow. We have enough people to start. All we need are the basics: hoes, cutlasses, hats and little farm houses where the Brigade can stop to have lunch, drink water and rest their backs in-between work. They can work shifts. The unemployed women will prepare the lunch, serve it and return home. If we have that in every local government in the country, do you want to put a figure to how many people we will employ? Imagine the number of able-bodied men that would go home tired, too tired to listen to the proposal of suicide-bomber-recruiting terrorists? Now, let’s compare how much Nigeria has spent on ‘security’ and how much we will spend on ‘small small’ salaries for members of the Grains Brigade. Think of how much Nigeria loses every time a soldier is killed. How many members of this brigade can you pay from the death benefits of 121 policemen? How much does a bullet proof vest cost? How many N20,000 make one AK-47?

When are we going to stop expending energy on foreign investors who will not come, anyway, because our house is full of snakes?

To be continued…

Let’s call him the millennium toy boy then. He has come a long way from being the naive, unemployable bushmeat from the hinterlands that the rich ma’am rescued from hunger and dragged into the shopping mall. He is no longer the one who has no permanent home address, living with the current sugar mummy. No, he is not the scruffy thing the cat dragged in. He is his own man and this thing he does is by choice. Gone are the days when ‘Chief Mrs’ can raise her voice and threaten him with ‘ I’ll return you to the gutter where I picked you from.’ Naaah. That’s old school and so not working. This toy boy is tush, veery polished. He can pick and choose because he has many clients. The madams know it and so does he. He has a permanent home address, probably a lox pad he acquired on the job. Unlike in the past when all Chief Mrs had to do was snap her fingers and he went running, these days she could snap all the fingers on both hands and he’d pretend he didn’t hear a sound. The value of his commodity has simply gone up and whether you wanna believe it or not, he is quoted on the Stock Exchange. And unlike my shares in the banking sector, the toy boy’s dividends are rolling in and his share value improving by the day. So, he knows his worth. Fortunately for him, his clients are also ware of his current market value and the sad fact that he is hot. So they handle him with care.

You probably have met a couple of toy boys today, in the banking hall, in his nice office in Asokoro or even Three Arms Zone in Abuja. He may even be a real life stock broker, if you get my meaning or even somebody in the ivory tower. You’re scandalised? Don’t be. These human beings are everywhere, both as students and lecturers on our university campuses. In other words, they can be sons and husbands! Yeah, they did not drop from the sky.

Using what he has to get what he wants is the long and short of the toy boy’s tale. He has brains which he has always been told will take him somewhere. Then he looked in the mirror one day and saw the six-pack abs and handsome face. He saw the other thing too, which I will not describe because my brothers pulled my ears last week (because of A kiss is just a kiss) until the two were red. But the toy boy knows what he saw and decided that he is loaded both upstairs and downstairs and why should he allow endowments like that  go to waste? So he started peddling stuff and because the world has come to a sorry pass and it is full of lonely women, business soon picked up. Wait, I need to amend that. The world is full of lonely and greedy women. They constitute the toy boy’s market, clientele. He gives them what they want and gets credit alerts on his phone and in his e-mail.

What won’t he do for the extra cash? You don’t want to know the details. Let us just pray a prayer of agreement; may our sons and husbands not become toy boys. Amen. Old or young, fat or thin, ill or healthy, the toy boy does his thing if the cash and connection are right. Don’t let your imagination run away with you, some of these women are beautiful but where they are not, the toy boy just ‘covers the face and fires the base’. Ah, that expression belongs to Olumide (surname withheld to protect him from consequences and repercussions).

The toy boy, like call a girl (come to think of it they sound like ‘words and opposite’) cannot openly brag about his vocation, unless among his colleagues. He cannot give testimony in church about his real source of ‘blessing’. He cannot tell his parents or pastor about his latest breakthrough. Let’s not forget that he is one vulnerable customer. There are stories of male prostitutes who got into trouble because a ‘ little powder’ got  into their soup or wine. They got stuck or sucked in and became slaves to their ‘Chief Mrs’ who took both physical and spiritual advantage of them for years. Well, what a man craves for does kill him sometimes, doesn’t it? But that is another matter for another day. For now, let’s adjourn till another business day.

Now, on checking many crime scenes over the years as a private relationship investigator, I have discovered that too many women let themselves be used and abused. Too many women fall in lust with their eyes wide open and accuse the men of not loving them back and breaking their hearts. Awful logic. When a man falls in lust he does not hide his raging desire. For a man, lust is lust. It is a woman who mistakes a man’s shaking legs when he sees her well-shaped breasts for love. Like I have written more than once, a man’s third led is stationed outside his body for a reason: so it can exercise its independence. That thing in between a man’s legs has a mind of its own and in case you haven’t noticed, it is on an island far from the heart. Measure the distance if doubt my logic.

A man’s staff of office does its business independent of the heart most of the time. It is smarter than the heart and you hardly find it at a crime scene. Only the heart gets caught. Men know this fact of life, women don’t. Men exploit it and  women suffer the consequences. Well, sometimes, the boot gets to be on the other foot when the tables are turned, which is not often enough if you ask me.

A kiss is a kiss and it is, in the minds of men, just that. Nothing to moan or groan over. Nothing to be fussy about. Men know it, women don’t.  So we have more women saying stuff like;

He wasted five years of my life.

I am no believer in long courtship when marriage is the goal. Every smart girl should do the smart thing. Watch the guy closely. Check out his past and see if he gets his kick from breaking hearts. If he does, don’t stick around him for a day longer than necessary. Why should you be another feather in his philandering cap? If he won’t shape in, he should ship out. Loitering around where you are not allowed to park is dangerous. Only you can waste five years of your life. No man can.

We dated for three years only for him to marry someone else

Does anybody need three years, 36 whole months, to know when an affair is going nowhere fast? A woman’s instincts are God-given and I am of the opinion that a woman in denial is different from a woman who does not know, if you understand what I mean. Sometimes a woman knows that she is in a relationship that is not going anywhere permanent, just drifting but because she is in denial, she drifts along. Now, how is that the guy’s problem? If you are just one of his retinue of girlfriends, for goodness sake, don’t pretend to be his woman. You are one of many and he is under no obligation to choose you. He alone gets to choose who wears his ring.

I gave him everything; my heart, my body, my money and he married someone else.

What you gave you gave freely. Or did he force anything out of you? I bet he’s a great kisser and a world-rate lover. He made your toes curl in bed, didn’t he? That was why you kept going back for more. He loved your body, still does actually and your money was good as added advantage. Who no like better thing? He was having fun and so were you. Nothing more, nothing expected. You were the one who threw in your heart for added measure.  He married someone else because you only had his body, his heart someone else held. Too bad, but it was nice doing business with you.

After all I did for him? I already introduced him to my mum, my uncles and he still left me?

What did you do for him and what did he ask you to do for him? What was he giving back each time you do something special for him? It is not his fault that you couldn’t read between the lines. As for your introducing him to your mother or whoever, that was absolutely your choice and when he didn’t reciprocate the gesture, you ought to have smelt a rat. A man who won’t introduce you to his family after one year of solid dating is just kissing you.

I am an advocate of a woman going into a relationship with her head screwed on tight and her eyes focussed on the ball. It’s sweet to feel all mushy-mushy. You are allowed to wear the rose-tinted glasses even, but not for so long that you forget the true colours of love and life. You can believe his purple prose and revel in his charm. All’s fun in love but it is absolutely foolish to hang on to a ship that is adrift. It knoweth not where it goeth, so you can’t hang on to it. If a relationship is not heading for the altar and the altar is your goal, cut your losses and cut loose. If he’s in it for just the fun and sweet romance, you can’t force him to commit. Even if you get pregnant, you’ll only end up a miserable single mother.  And he’d move on as a fresh single bachelor, ready to mingle again.

It may be tough right now but look at the big picture, look further down the road and consider what you’ve got to lose in a relationship that is just about the kiss. If he’s not in it for the long haul, mourn your loss and move on.

•This piece was earlier published on Sunday, February 10, 2013.

This is one of the repercussions of going into marriage without shock absorbers. If a woman is not prepared for the thorns that come with the bed of roses, every storm will throw her. Now, I am the first to admit that the sight and or sound of a second wife is perhaps one of the biggest storm difficult to weather in marriage. It is like your husband telling you that you are no longer enough woman or good enough for him. A new wife feels like your replacement, like your nemesis. You begin to wonder what you didn’t do and where you went wrong. If you had not met her, you send friends, siblings to check her out. Is she more beautiful?

Is she richer? Is your husband tired of a school teacher wife and prefers this new corporate executive? All the answers most likely will leave you feeling less than a woman. And all of them are lies of the devil. You are still a great woman, a wonderful wife. Your husband is the one who has changed. He’s the one who is not as great or wonderful as he used to be to you. He needs revalidation that he is still attractive and a long-distance runner in bed. He has issues with his libido, self esteem and inborn greed for variety. Tell yourself it is not you because most of the time a man needs no excuse to stray or take second wife.

He just wants what he wants. An incoming second wife is not just a headache but a blinding migraine. The first wife has every right to hurt and she should not bottle it up either. Cry in your closet. Never in the open. Don’t curse your husband because he will always be your husband. What is the use of a cursed husband anyway? You need to consider all the bills he still has to pay and his conjugal duties. Hmmm, don’t revoke his license to your bed. You can suspend the license. You can amend his rights but what the heck, you don’t want to try another third leg at this age, do you? When your anger and aggro are over and dealt with, it is better to return to familiar terrain with twists and turns you know how to navigate.

I am not glossing over the threat that a second wife poses and the pain of sharing your husband. It could put the most virtuous woman in a murderous mode but you have to start dealing with it. You could start by asking yourself if you gave that marriage your best shot. Did you do all within your power to keep a second wife out? If your conscience absolves you of every blame, then you must forgive yourself and ask the next question; can you still prevent the arrival of this second wife? If you can, then go ahead and do whatever you can. If it is a fait accompli, cut your losses and accept it. If it is a baby that has already been born, it is a pregnancy that you cannot abort. It means the wicked have done their worst; the wicked in this case being your husband.

So, should you now pack your bags and kids and leave your home for a new comer? If you do, how else would you describe admitting defeat? Jumping out of your own car because a rat or a cockroach has strayed on to your back seat is cowardice. No woman worth her salt should abandon the home she built for another. Unless and until a marriage becomes life-threatening, I do not support any kind of separation. It is only when your marriage starts feeling like a maximum prison and you feel like you are on death row, that is when I think a break is in order. That is when you need to effect your own prerogative of mercy. Note here that this is my very personal opinion. But if a man wants two wives, you should let him feel the full weight of his decision and choice. If a woman wants to become a second wife, why should you let her become the only wife? Imagine leaving your husband of 20 years for a 30-year-old woman; sometimes the man may even decide to marry a 26-year-old after 30 years of marriage.

Why should you let him get away with a fresh start by moving out? The husband of two wives must pay the price for his prize. If he wants the warmth of two women in his bed, he must be ready to face the intricacies of a sleeping roaster. He must counsel all the children. He now has two sets of in-laws and that comes with its own challenges and expenses. If the new wife wants three children, you as the first wife should encourage her. If a man wants to buy JAMB and WAEC forms at 70, we should let him. If he wants to be young again, you must let him. But a woman who abandons her matrimonial home for a second wife is a coward like no other. It’s not like the newcomer is gonna stay in your bedroom or on your head.

Let the man figure out the new arrangements. Let him love you equally. Let him decide if he wants a branch office or he wants both of you at his headquarters. Let him shuttle between two homes. He needs the exercise Don’t fight anybody. The pain may be indescribable but like I wrote a few weeks ago, it won’t hurt so badly after a while. You can move over for the latest addition if you wish. You could also let her fight for the space she so desperately craves. You can refuse to cook. You can take a long holiday. Anything but moving out, even screaming is allowed. But every wife must defend her territorial integrity. Don’t let his second wife become the only wife.

Re: This oil will dry up

I read your piece on Dangote’s warnings. You made my Monday. Your craftsmanship in writing this piece soothes my nerves after a very busy Monday.

On Dangote’s warning, the richest man in India and second in Asia, Mukesh Ambani, predicted recently on CNN that the United States will be independent of foreign imports of energy in five to seven years. I want to believe that Dangote knows Ambani – two wealthy men warning us of our dependence on oil.

To be forewarned is to be forearmed!

I have read this story in other dallies, but they are not as captivating as yours. –etukudoh.ime@gmail.com

I just become a fan of your articles. You are really creative. More wisdom. God bless you. –Rotimi Akintunde, rotemzo@yahoo.com

It is glaring that our leaders have an uncanny inability to think beyond the present. That is why we are in this bind. That is why we remain a mono-economy. That is why it is beyond their ken to believe this oil will dry up.   My prayer is that this oil will either suddenly cease to flow or lose value. It is only then that they will come back to their senses. –engremekaokeke@yahoo.com

Reading last Sunday’s piece has given us all, Nigerians, another prophetic message. Unfortunately, the blooming generation of our children are the ones to suffer; after the last squeeze of the oil.

This profligacy and madness will soon end before our very eyes; but I hope the culprits will not “beg for amnesty” then, or someone someday is granted another prodigious state pardon. –bensonladeji@gmail.com

If we want to grow as a nation, we must become manufacturers like China. The wealth of a nation depends on manufacturing and agriculture. –Ikeazor Anieto, 08063871875

I simply asked them why it was okay for me to be in a male-dominated profession where as a nursing mother I spent Thursday nights in the office as editor of The Post Express on Saturday (and my baby girl had to wait all day and all night till Friday morning to be breast-fed) but it was wrong for me to drive a ‘male car’. They had no answer. Case dismissed. Then there were those who had nothing good to say about Mercedes Benz 190.

They told me it was difficult and expensive to maintain. It was a troublesome car. Its parts were hard to find and its engine could knock from over-heating anytime. Now, those factors would scare anybody in a country of bad roads and flooded streets and endless traffic jams. In the course of trying to make up my mind whether to buy this male car or opt for a female one, I discovered that none of the people who ran down Benz 190 had ever owned one.

They were simply passing on old wives tales that someone told them. If they had never owned the brand how come they knew so much about it? I pooh-poohed their theories and went on to buy the car. It was a wise decision and Benz 190 turned out to be one of the best cars I have ever driven and maintained. I drove it until one of my brothers nicely ‘dispossessed’ me of it.

He said he enjoyed it too. After that I bought a car based on if I liked it and on the informed opinions of those who have owned the brand or are currently driving it. So, when Alhaji Aliko Dangote on Wednesday said in the next four or five years, Nigeria will be struggling with America to sell oil to China, my jaw almost dropped. Then he said struggling to invest in gas in the current world is moot unless Nigeria or any other country for that matter, wants it for local consumption.

But when he said our oil which we think is the greatest thing to happen to the world since Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden will soon become irrelevant and our economy will finally know the true definition of trouble. In his real words: the consequences of our continuing dependence on oil is going to be worse than Boko Haram. At that point, my jaw finally dropped on the breakfast table. Such heavy stuff coming from Dangote is frightening.

Unlike those advisers of mine who had nothing to say about Benz 190 even when they had never bought one, here is a man who knows, has weathered the storms of our testy economic terrain and successfully stamped his name on the world economic map. It is not like we hadn’t heard that our oil could dry up or its loot disappear before. The power-point wielding whiz kids had shown us maps and percentages and frightening graphs of the impending doom several times. But a Dangote confirming it is like a man who drives only Mercedes Benz telling you how the car runs.

Whose other report is there for you to believe. You could say the Harvard economists are talking theories and stuff they got from Google or Economic Confidential but if the richest man in Africa says the colour of the naira has changed, then you’d better check your wallet. I believe Dangote and I think we all should be worried. If a well-traveled billionaire tells you that there is no country in Africa more blessed than Nigeria, do you doubt him?

Not that we didn’t know the extent of our blessing. God has been very partial to us. We are simply not a thinking nation. When next you travel by road, note the trees that grow on our rocks and mountains. Check out the hundreds of kilometers of virgin forests we leave to grow wild. We are just a bunch of crazy spoilt rich kids drunk on inherited easy wealth. We are convinced that this money will always be there, that our crude oil can never run dry.

So we continue to careen from one disaster to another, running around like headless chickens, doing nothing but spend money we do not have to work for. We pay top price for the worst fuel. We can’t stop oil theft. We can’t farm. We can’t even set up food processing industries. We make money and share it as soon as it is made and return the following month to share the next set of our oil loot. According to Dangote, at the rate at which our population is growing, we should hit the 200m round figure by 2020.

Now, how does an unthinking, un-planning and undiversified economy feed 200million people importing rice and sugar? Are you worried? I am trying not to go into a panic mode. Our leaders are not planning for the future. They are worried about sharing formula and oil derivation percentages. Nigerians are perhaps the most intelligent, aggressive entrepreneurs in the world but what is the good of good sense kept in the freezer?

What is the use of enormous resources that we ignore? In Brazil, it takes about $100 to clear a container but in Nigeria, our congested port system still shamelessly charge about $1000. What do you expect from a nation whose population and economy is growing per minute but built its last port in 1978!? My brother who was born that year is married.

What kind of adjectives would you deploy in describing parents of a child born in 1978 if all they think the young man needs is feeding bottles, baby formula and baby boots, and yes diapers? A man who knows this brand has spoken. A trader who made his billions here has warned us: when our oil wealth disappears, Boko Haram would look like Tom and Jerry television cartoon series. Happy birthday again, Aliko Dangote.

Re: A little powder in your soup

I am a real big fan of yours. Every week, I look forward to your next article. With respect to your article ‘A little powder in your soup’, Let me quickly say that I agree with you that most men ‘ask’ for the love portion. However, majority of the victims of this love portion syndrome are single men who are manipulated into getting married to ladies who gave them the love portion.

–Obinna from UNIZIK AWKA. futurestar4sure@yahoo.co

You have made me an addict of the Sunday Sun by your incisive articles. This epic one is unequalled. “ Don’t be silly is an advice” as my late father always told me. Your essay is an honest but very important advice to adventurous boys and men that they should be careful because many have gone. Same for some extremely beautiful or rich ladies. Randy gold-diggers abound and are ready to wreck havoc. Those who have ear let them hear! –coajah@yahoo.co

Most times stories about this powder thing sound like fairy tales. But then, when you observe some men who are, supposedly, in love, you cannot help but wonder if bewitched is not a better description of their state.  As for the doctor, he must have learnt that ‘what kills a man begins as an appetite to him’. However, both the feeder and the sucker should visit the Synagogue – the one for a celestial certification of the ‘NAFDAC no.’ of the mammary product and the other for deliverance.

–engremekaokeke@yahoo.com

Re: Before I divorce Nigeria

Nigeria is a husband who is not faithful to his wife due to many distractions from his concubines among which are corruption, tribalism, nepotism, insecurity, unemployment, poverty among others. Posterity will always remember for your contributions to social order and good governance in Nigeria.

–Franklin Chinaemerem, Owerri. franklinojims@gmail.com

An Egbemode-ish piece with the usual sarcasm and passion. That’s by the way.

Nigerians are wont to say that our problems started in 1914 when Lord Lugard fused the North and the South. But I definitely know our problems did not start then. I was born in the 1980s, but I did hear that Nigeria was metaphorically a land flowing with milk and honey, even long after the Lugard political adventure.

So, when and how did it all change? It started when our leaders decided to forgo the essence of public service for the lure of personal aggrandizement.

It is very doubtful that a country that celebrates corrupt and inept leadership will progress. And to top that, the soul of the country is mired in an economic formula that only benefits the rich, while it inches dangerously everyday towards total collapse owing to high rate of insecurity and injustice.

Those who still think Lugs did our country a disservice should ask our leaders to be true to their oaths of offices. If that happens, I’m sure we will be too comfortable to even remember that Lord Lugs ever existed. But the point is that our leaders will never change. Corruption is not their second wife like you pointed in your article; it is their soul mate, their first love.

–tonyebakare@yahoo.com

Of course you’ve heard of it. You are even free to argue that it doesn’t exist. My prayer is you don’t fall for it. Those who have tell stories of its powers and efficacy and will assure you that its potency is better imagined than experienced. Do I believe it exists? Ah, what do you think? I hear things and see things just like you but I am the National Assembly Joint Committee Chairman on Intimate Affairs. So, I will tell you what I have heard over the years.

However, let me quickly put it on record that the love potion is something a man takes willingly. Perhaps for a few exceptions, men who ‘eat’ love potion always ask for it. It is not something that is forced down a man’s throat. He will yearn for it, ask for it. Then it will be prepared for him and then both the taker and the giver will live happily ever after. Never mind the brand of happiness involved because you never see a man well fed with love potion complaining of constipation or diarrhea. He is too high on the stuff to notice what the rest of us think.

It is his siblings, friends and oftentimes his wife or wives who suffer on his behalf. In other words, a man asks for love potion, he is served a full course of the stuff, he becomes as high as a kike and his loved ones suffer the consequences. This is strictly my opinion. If you think men are forced to eat this thing called love potion, you are free to write your story and it will get published. Now, before you reach for your pen, paper or blackberry, hear me out.

Dozie married Ify in a big way. He is a big boy too. Ify is one beautiful babe with a to-die-for figure. Dozie is loaded. According to Ify, her husband is loaded ‘downstairs’ and in his pockets. He was 12 years older than Ify when they got married. He spoilt her silly with expensive gifts. She spent every summer in Europe and all her friends were permanently green with envy. Ify worsened her friends’ already bad case of acute envy by regaling them with stories of how her marriage was made in heaven and Dozie the best man under God’s heaven.

Not all of them believed her but they had no proof. You know how truth always catches up with falsehood in a jiffy? Ify sent an SOS to her closest friend one morning. Time was 5.30 am. The sms read: come, urgent, dying. Irene drove like a bat out of hell to the Lekki , Lagos home of the Uche-Obi. She found Ify in her nightwear unable to stand with ‘doubled-up’ lips and one eye swollen shut. One of her legs was broken and swelling rapidly.

That was when the true story of this ‘heavenly marriage’ was told. Dozie had been battering his wife for as long as she could remember, and had impregnated three of their house-helps. It was when she confronted him with the news of the pregnancy of their latest house-help and threatened to leave Dozie that he beat her into a pulp. After days in the hospital and hours and rivers of tears, Ify and Irene decided to call Dozie to order.

A little powder in Dozie’s favourite soup and today, Ify decides when Dozie will and can go to the toilet. She holds the family purse strings. Dozie does as he is told. He no longer practices karate with his wife and the house-helps are safe from his ‘dangling modifier’. He is generally of good behaviour. And I say once again; a man who will eat love potion will ask for it. There are also those who like to flaunt their ‘staff of office.’ These are the professional philanderers. Every fine girl must be sampled. Every lonely but rich woman must be serviced and ‘obtained’.

They are in the business of that toothache medicine called Touch-and-go. Have your fill and flee. Most of the time they succeed in having their way. But once in a while, they get caught and stuck. They feel up a girl who has super-glue all over her. A little powder and the ‘designer’ eye-liner is all it takes and Mr Ever-Ready is caged. Yes, I hear it is not only powder-in-the-soup brand that gets the job done. A flirtatious wink can leave a man walking on water.

There’s this story of a successful doctor who loved full-breasted women with long smooth legs. He went cross-eyed each time a well-hung woman passed. He touched them and left. Until he was breast-fed by the owner of a pepper soup joint in the heart of Lagos. He is still being breast fed even as you read this. He has also changed profession.

His hospital has been sold to expand the pepper soup joint. Wonderful story of love. As far as he is concerned, he is in seventh heaven. It is his wife of 17 years and his children and aged mother who are gnashing their teeth. Doctor is having the fun of a lifetime being breast-fed. I will tell you more some day because women also get caught and stuck in this love potion thing. So guys, watch your ways before you eat the apple laced with super glue.

Re: Before I divorce Nigeria

The wedding of 1914 was without your consent or did anyone ask what you wanted? Though you grew to love him, it isn’t your fault. Who wouldn’t fall for a wealthy and extravagant man? Now that you have found out his true nature, call a family meeting with your children. If he is bent on self-destruction, divorce him. Who says husband and wife must die together? –Tobi, Makurdi. 08064348418

You have carved for yourself  a rare platinum place amongst print journalism. Your carefully chosen topics, which have always clearly addressed our situation as a nation, have been a source of inspiration to me. So, one can still get an oven-fresh ideas like these?

Ride on my lady, you are a source of pride to most of us. –Benson Oladeji Adegoroye, bensonladeji@gmail.com

I love the article ‘Before I divorce Nigeria,’ I felt the same way you do since I left Nigeria in 1972 to pursue my education in the US I felt like Nigeria and I have divorced. –Olu. olu_shaola@yahoo.com

He is indeed everything you pointed out. I couldn’t agree less or more. Notwithstanding, there’s nothing prayer can’t do. We won’t stop praying for our BEWITCHED husband!

I believe Nigeria is going to be great again in Jesus name (Amen)

–Omolaolu Ayodele John, ajodbase@gmail.com

My husband and I always read your articles! I am American & my husband is Nigerian. I have been to your country many times and I was married in Delta State! I absolutely loved your writing on Before I divorce Nigeria! My country also has so much corruption and discrimination against blacks! I am a black female Law Enforcement Officer and I have faced many times discrimination and corruption from the white male officers! Your writing gave me more courage and strength! I just want to say thank you and please keep writing your outstanding articles.

–S. Olise, macdolise@aol.com

It crosses my mind every day. Sometimes I even see vultures hovering in the sky waiting to swoop on the corpse of this once great country. You can’t blame me if I feel like giving up once in a while. I pride myself on being an incurable optimist when it comes to this country of mine. But right now, I am afraid for its future. This great, or is it once great, country is unraveling before our very eyes because its rulers are preoccupied with a goddamn itch instead of focusing on the leprosy eating away its toes and fingers. That is why I am publishing this letter of complaint which original copy is with my divorce lawyer. I love Nigeria with all my heart but the country does not love me like I do.

It strays into the arms of too many concubines too many times. If he is not romancing bribery and illegalities, it is drunk with foolhardiness. His vices are so many and they keep increasing. I have reported Nigeria to many pastors. I have asked many muslim clerics to give me spiritual water to cook and bathe for him. Dibias and Babalawos have carried sacrifices to hills and road junctions, all to no avail. The demons tormenting my country are so many. I feel like packing up this romance. But where will I go? I love Nigeria so much. Other nations have winked at me.

I have even allowed them to woo me, take me to lunch (never dinner o) in moments of frustration but there is none who can make me feel wanted, comfortable like Nigeria. He takes time off his demonic ways once in a while to buy me flowers and perfumes. He showers me with gifts, yes, I must admit that. But I must also place it on record that those gifts are far below what I deserve and what Nigeria can afford. But his concubines take his time, sometimes his energy.

He comes to me when I need him, empty and tired. He makes excuses when he should be home with me. He spends everything that is naturally and legally mine on concubines. I weep into my pillows. I threaten him with bodily harm. I have threatened him I will leave him and take the children. He begs all night but as soon as the day breaks, he returns to his bottle of foolhardy brandy and into the arms of his latest mistress. He is addicted to everything mean and evil. But I love him. I feel in the depth of my soul that I will be lost without him. He knows his powers over me, I know. Wait, is that why he is taking advantage of me? Is that why he keeps this evil harem of distractions? Does he think buying me the latest Toyota Prado and custom-made Rolls Royce will pacify me?

Will somebody tell him that I know that he bought two private jets for his demonic distractions last month? Yes, the sapphire ring and diamond set are exquisite but he just bought a house in Monaco for another distraction. How foolish does he think I am? That I have not left him is not because other nations don’t find me attractive. I also have a long line of sweet suitors outside my door. All of them are promising me heaven on earth. Nigeria has pushed me to the wall. I am at a breaking point. Maybe I have let him get away with too many sins. He is now a chartered sinner and I am simply, totally fed up. Let me also confess, I have briefed a divorce lawyer. I want to try one of my suitors. I am keeping his identity because I have discovered new mean streaks in this love of my life.

He overheard one of my conversations with my lawyer and had one of his goons trail me to the man’s office. Now he watches all my movements. He has increased the number of guards and details in my convoy. My cars are bugged. All my mobile phones too. I will not be surprised if there are bugs hidden in my shoes and dainty slippers. Over and above all Nigeria’s meanness and demonic ways, he now sleeps with a special gun called Boko Haram under his pillows. Every night. Can you beat that? He is planning to kill me in my sleep, don’t you think? Well, I am sure in his drunken stupor, one day, that gun will go off and plaster his brains on the ceiling. He will ruin the POP and the silk Arabian custom-made bed sheets. Mean idiot. I am getting angry now. But I must rewind a bit to how we got to that part and portion where Boko Haram gun now has a place under Nigeria’s pillow.

Though I have resigned myself to his roving eyes and hands. How many times have I caught him in bed with his distractions? Innumerable, I swear. He has even given me a few unprintable ‘ailments’. But when he came home one day, after five weeks away from home, and announced he was taking Corruption as a second wife, I flipped my lid. What effrontery, temerity and audacity? Who did he think he was? Did he think he was so handsome and wealthy that I cannot leave him or replace him? Did anybody tell him I had become bad market or ‘unsold’ or factory reject?

I screamed, held him by his designer shirtfront. I threw the stupid designer perfume bottle against the wall and yet another diamond set in the trash. I was mad, even he cowered. He had never seen me like that. Marry Corruption and bring her into my home? Osanobua! Corruption that cannot stay with one man. Corruption that is everybody’s mistress. How low can Nigeria descend? But with him, I guess there will always be a new low, every time the demons decide to have a ball in his head. Oh, I am so angry, so frustrated. And he knows it and that is why he now romances Boko Haram. But I still love him. I can only hope that this love will not destroy me.

At our wedding on January 1, 1914, Lord Lugard said our union ‘ is the product of a long and mature consideration.’ I believed him then but now I am not so sure. This man no longer loves me and I have reached the end of my tether. There is just so much one woman can take, especially from a stubborn philanderer like Nigeria. This union is still being held together by our children; Natural Resources, Resilience and Vibrant Population. But I will not let him take Corruption as a second wife. No, I won’t.

From my mail box

That was very beautiful, in fact it made me realise so many beautiful and positive sides of pregnancy. Thank you very much. It was well said and straight to the point. Well done and keep doing a great job!

–Uche Mbonu,

uchegirl16@yahoo.com

Ah! You almost had me wishing to be a woman. Then, I thought If the life of a woman is so blissful and powerful, why the bouts of nagging, chants of “emancipation”, demands for affirmative action and the volumes of combative feminist literature. I suppose it’s all about an egoistic contest for power and supremacy.  As it is, both sexes are victims of the distortions of their complementary roles, occasioned by historical, cultural, socio-economic, religious and even political factors. –engremekaokeke@yahoo.com

I read your article on the back page of the Sunday Sun and must confess it’s a nice piece about the ladies even though I am a guy. –ikenwa4lyf@gmail.com

Okay, what am I talking about? The in-house General Overseer of the Sinners Chapel in The Sun started this topic. He was puffing and boasting about how women suffer and men have all the fun. All because Oge, heavily pregnant Oge, was trudging her load across the newsroom. We all greeted her like we do all pregnant colleagues: How are all of you? And she answered like she should: ‘ we are all fine.’ As far as G.O. was concerned, pregnant women should be pitied. As far as I’m concerned, men don’t know diddly about life or what perks come with being a woman.

Let’s start with pregnancy. It is a beautiful experience, even for those of us who were ill for all of the nine months. You could puke the whole time and feel like eating charcoal (it’s called cravings) but a pregnant woman forgets everything when the baby kicks for the first time. Do men know babies respond when they slam the car door when they are angry? Well, it is soothing for an expectant mother. It’s like the baby is supporting you against his dad or telling you ‘don’t mind the old man’. And you pat him and smile.

But there is nothing like the first time a woman feels her baby kick. Before then, all the evidence of pregnancy most likely is the nausea, weakness, loss of or increased appetite. There may not even be a bump to show the world there is a new life growing inside her…then one day, suddenly, the baby registers his or her presence. The feeling is indescribable.

Women get to talk to their babies long before they are born. Oh yes. I remember towards the end of my first pregnancy, how my baby turned my tummy into a football pitch and his favourite soccer time was anytime from 10pm. Just when I was ready to sleep. The limbs were everywhere and I couldn’t find any comfortable position to sleep. One night, I was so frustrated I went to the kitchen, brought out a very cold bottle of water and poured it on my tummy. Suddenly, the stadium went quiet. The tiny thing must have been shocked witless and gone into the dressing room. I finally was able to sleep for a full hour and then the second half whistle was blown and that was the end of the night.

I bet you are smiling as you imagine that scenario. Right, now imagine the joy of a woman who gets to tap different bulging parts of her tummy and whisper, ‘can you be quiet for 30 minutes, Junior? Mummy needs to take a nap. That’s my good boy.’

And the joy of bringing into the world a new life, the final push, the first cry of your daughter, the nurse or doctor holding her up and then you get to hold her for the first time. Men can never know that feeling, the excitement, joy after hours of hard labour. The baby’s little warm lips on your nipple as you hold her tiny hand in yours. Why would any woman want to be a man, tell me.

And if a pregnant woman says her back aches, the husband is all over her, rubbing the back and telling her to put her feet up.

You this woman, I just pray you don’t put me in trouble.

Did I not warn you not to do any laundry today?

Didn’t my mother tell you it’s bad for a pregnant woman to bend down too often?

I think it’s time for a maid and I’m not interested in your excuses.

If a pregnant woman won’t cook, she’s forgiven. Her reason may be genuine or fake but in her state, she’ll get away with blue murder almost all the time.

Let’s move further.

Men must spend their hard earned, or even soft earned money on all the women in their lives, all the days of their lives. That’s the way God designed it, and so shall it be forever and ever. Amen. Ask the tired man you share the office with why he can’t retire yet. He’s exhausted. He even hates the job but he can’t quit because he’s got bills to pay. It doesn’t matter if his wife earns as much or even more than him, every man brings a good chunk of his earnings home, to his wife or wives. I’m not talking about the she-men, of course. Those ones are neither men nor women.

The he-men, whose mothers properly brought up, know they have to work and work until they can no longer move their bones. The ones who are respectfully called ‘daddy’, Chief, Otunba and so on are the ones who pay school fees, give their in-laws regular gifts, change their wives’ cars, buy Christmas and August Meeting wrappers. Women, we keep the house, make babies and raise them. Not a few women die while helping men keep their fathers’ names and lineages. It’s one of the risks of being a woman. And that is why men have to pay for the time we serve in pregnancy and the hard labour we go through giving them sons. That is a price they must pay until they join their ancestors. So help them God.

Hey, do you also know that it’s really a woman who decides how many children will be rolled out of her factory? It is the one truth men like to argue but we let them. What’s the point of the argument when we know we are in charge? It is a woman’s world, men are just tenants in it. You see, a woman owns the factory. She decides when the production line will work. The man is the factory manager but what can he manage if the machine refuses to work? And how does he stop this huge productive machine when it’s operating at full-installed capacity? So, until your wife says no more babies, you cannot hang your boots sir. Or how are you going to undo the pregnancy when she ‘unhangs’ those boots? A dey laugh o. It’s such a powerful thing, being a woman.

Wait, did someone say; well, I’ll stop oiling the machine. Well, the man suffers in silence especially if the woman refuses to complain or ask for the oil. The poor dude starts to wonder and worry if another manager is oiling his machine. Sleepless night, high blood pressure and so on and so forth. Women are the ones with in-built stabilizers. We can live with polygamy and forgive serial philandering. A woman strays once and her husband goes into depression or suffers a stroke. Women are strong. It’s not a matter of arrogance. It’s the way we are made.

To finally worsen men’s already bad situations, after working so hard and handing over the bulk of the sweats of their brows to their wives, they give the remaining to their girlfriends and mistresses who are women, of course. Well, at least most of the time.

Women have all the luck, all the power, because that is the way God wants it to be. We have convinced the men that we are the weaker sex and they have made a song of it. It is music in our ears. May they continue to believe and may we remain in power.

They have money-wise heads on their shoulders. They knew how to translate power to money through opportunities. And may I also submit here and now that it is not their fault that they own those oil blocs instead of my PhD-crazy, grammar-blowing kinsmen and my container-on-the-high-seas importer and exporter Igbo friends. After all, my South-South compatriots are doing what they have to do as you read this, turning power to wealth through opportunities.

A smart man’s got to do what a smart man’s got to do. Non? Oui, tres bien. But all that and their implications are a long matter for another day soon. For now, I am appalled as I applaud the Northern wise men. Appalled that those oil blocs have been in their hands for long enough but the region does not have enough to show for it. Appalled that they have made so much money from their lucrative ventures and the North is still like what it is. I know that I do not know everything but I know enough to conclude that with so much milk and honey in the hands of the wise men from the north, there is so much thirst and hunger in that part of town to make me cry. Of course, there is room to further educate me.

I’m even amenable to an excursion through the region with a guide who can show me structures, business empires and other fruits of all those oil blocs in the North, from Abuja to Sokoto. And let nobody tell me about how textile industries in the North died. I am totally not interested. BATA, MICHELIN, DUNLOP and all the textile industries in the South also closed shop. But the wise men from the South are still providing employment and reinvesting. Not a few graduates still get employment in the private sector. Yes, once in a while, we feel like the southern wise men can do better but we can’t deny that they are doing something. Apart from their investments that are yielding profit, they still do charity.

They still give scholarships. I know the wise men from the North also do great charities. But I will love to see Transcorp Hilton in Kano. I’d love to see the city become a choice centre for concerts and conferences. It’s got the ambience, the history. I also know one rich man who can single handed take Trancorp Hilton to the north. I don’t have to mention his name but I know that he has the power and clout to bring the best hotel groups in the world to the North. He has crisss-crossed the world in his prosperous life to invest in a hotel chain that will make all the hotels in Lagos beg him to include them.

Now, we all know what improvement a flourishing hotel will bring to the local economy in which it operates. The hotel must recruit gardeners, laundry men, cooks and guards. The waiters and waitresses will come from the city and neighbouring towns. Those who come from outside the city will rent houses and more landlords must necessarily emerge when tenants increase. That means the bricklayers and all other construction site workers will be employed. Hotels usually have car hire services.

So, more cars (which will increase the number of litres of fuel sold per day) will get into Kano. More drivers, more cars mean more mechanics. More mechanics will mean more mechanic apprentices. Spare part shops must increase. Where will the hotel kitchen get its beef and poultry supply? Won’t the hotel have to build staff quarters for its top management? In fact, I’m already imagining me applying to supply the towels and even stationeries for the conference rooms. Won’t Nigerian Breweries, Coca-cola and Guinness do more business? I could go on and on, and this is just about one or two five-star hotels by one of my rich daddies in the north.

Let’s imagine my second daddy who also owns one of the oil blocs decide to build a specialist hospital with the best gadgets in the world, employs the best specialists in Maiduguri, complete with a helipad. You know the one I’m talking about, yes, the one with the beautiful daughters. Imagine a hospital that will make a particular high-end hospital in Lagos look like a small clinic. This daddy of mine can afford to build two simultaneously. A hospital modelled after the ones Nigerians go to in India and Germany. It doesn’t matter if it is expensive and not for the poor. What matters is what a one-of-a-kind specialist hospital in Maiduguri will do to the reputation of Maiduguri and Nigeria.

Are you thinking of the number of doctors and nurses that will leave Lagos and Ekiti and Ebonyi and other states to work there? Which means those governors who lose staff to the new hospital, let’s call it GOLDEN CREST HOSPITAL, will have room for new doctors. I am already thinking of getting the contract to build the doctors quarters and or do the interior decoration of the nurses’ apartments. Are you seeing the bigger picture; ambulances, medical supplies, shopping malls, more cars, more houses, jobs for drivers, bricklayers, tailors… yes, I have a few uniform designs in my head for smart nurses and even five-star hotel cleaners. Why must Asaba and Enugu be choice location for Nollywood?

What’s wrong with Mercy Johnson, Funke Akindele, Omotola Jalade and Genevieve in Yobe? Then Damaturu Airport will get built and crime will subside as young men get busy. Nollywood, as far as I am concerned, is the most successful sector of our economy. It employs daily and reemploys as it improves by the day. Why can’t one of my rich daddies who have oil blocks build a movie village there? I will build a small guest house for the stars who want exclusive services, complete with a Moroccan spa.

See? I want to be part of a great North. Like most Nigerians. And why are all the choice private universities in the south when my rich daddies in the north can build better ones? ABTI in Yola is eye-popping. Why is it standing alone? If more private universities spring up from the proceeds of oil blocks, won’t we generate more employment as we have always wanted? And university towns always develop faster than their neighbours. There are so many things that we can do with proceeds from oil wealth.

There is so much we can accomplish with sheer focus and determination. I do not agree that Nigeria is a hopeless case or that our unemployment rating can’t improve. I also know that the difference between ETISALAT, GLO, MTN, and AIRTEL on the one hand and the defunct NITEL on the other is because the new telecommunication companies are in private hands and the latter was government business. Therefore, oil wealth reinvested by individual businessmen will profit the nation more than oil wealth being managed by government.

We cannot continue to wallow in economic sin and selfish acquisition and expect national prosperity to fall in our laps. If wealth in the hands of wealthy northerners is reinvested in the north, prosperity will return to that region. If wealth returns there, unemployment will reduce drastically. If able bodied men can find jobs, crime will become unattractive to them. And then peace will return. I know it a little girl’s simple logic but if the wise men from the North consider it, they just might find it useful. And this proposal is free-of-charge, anyway.

The little city club soon spread across cities in the land. In fact, the club soon swallowed other city clubs. Members became small gods and acted as such. Their problem wasn’t just their size but their ever growing wealth, strength and influence. All eventually led them into a multitude of sins. They now had too much money they knew not what to do with. They enlarged their coasts and acquired everything in sight. They shut up every voice that spoke against them.

But because of the patronage and material affluence at their disposal, more men flocked to the GMC. Soon the club stopped battling to resist temptation. It simply fell into it. It was easier that way. The members knew where all the temptations were. Nobody needed to lead them. And GMC was so at home with all the brands of sin. The money drew more men to them. All their successes were also headed in the same direction, their head.

Swollen head, swollen ranks, deepest of pockets and limitless access to temptation…GMC soon became sinfully proud. Even as we speak, the Good Men’s Club is still influential, still very rich. Only now they seem to be on a determined road to self destruction. To people who have watched them over the years, the only logical conclusion for the affliction currently ravaging GMC is that the club, having gone all the way to the top, has nowhere else to go but down. And since the staircase that took them to the top of their game is still there, the downward journey shouldn’t be difficult. The club is steadily descending.

However, there are two baffling angles to the GMC’s rise and fall story. It looks like members are struggling to push one another down the slope. Secondly, the elders and leaders of the club are busy drinking cognac and smoking Captain Black tobacco in designer pipes to notice the stampede on the staircase. With the din and cacophonous confusion going on around them, the leaders of GMC are still dancing with their wives and concubines and celebrating what used to be. They are totally oblivious of the havoc being wreaked around them.

All the in-house committees are at war with one another. Young members are threatening to beat up old members. When they are not struggling over who heads what group, they are holding one another’s ‘agbada’ over who is or has become too powerful. When they are not expelling founding members,  they are swinging swords of Damocles over the heads of those they decide have committed hara-kiri. Yet the endless stream of full-figured fine girls and choice red wine won’t let these old men do the needful. The only saving grace for GMC for now is that the confused men on the staircase are yet to remember that the journey to the bottom of the ladder can be done faster in the elevator. The moment they find the elevator, GMC would finally sink and rest in peace.

Somehow this story reminds me of the confusion going on in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the largest party in Africa. All the big boys in the party seem to be on the staircase right now, ready to trample one another to death in their deadly power game. There is enough mutual distrust and suspicion to sink a warship in PDP and we, the people, just can’t understand the nature of the affliction that has overtaken  the party that threatened to rule us forever. Why are they fighting over everything? Why has fighting become the only thing we get to report about the ruling party? How come even children can predict where the rancour in PDP will end and self-acclaimed political men of timber and calibre can’t see beyond their fat cigars? Yes, the drama is entertaining and the intrigues produce great headlines every day but has the PDP become so sinfully proud that it cannot see that it is on a shameful staircase to perdition?

I know that too much money and clout has left PDP in drunken stupor and its elders with a disgraceful false sense of non-existent power and clout, I will still remind them of what awaits them as a political group.

Once upon a time, PDP reigned and ruled Ogun state. Then the leaders and elders of the party became too full of themselves. One man felt the other was getting too big for his boots and needed to be cut to size. One elder felt the other  was overbearing and controlling. They went to battle, pushed each other down the same staircase that took them up, crushing the party in the process. In their arrogant bids to cut each other to size, they now have no size, no clout. The opposition came, saw the fighting elephants sprawled in the mud but still cursing each other anyway, took  the staircase and used it to climb to the top. In Ogun, PDP is part of the history of how the state became what it is today, just because a few big men became too big to sustain their success.

The Yoruba say when a child falls down, he looks in front of him but when an old man falls, he looks behind, obviously to see what made him trip so as to avoid a repeat. So how come the elders in PDP are not learning from their terrible fall in Ogun? Why are they determined to replicate what undid them in Ogun on a national level? Is it that there are no elders in that party or what? Wait. Perhaps Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, former PDP Chairman, was right after all. Remember while on a campaign trail pre-2011 elections, Ogbulafor took a memorable swipe at the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN)’s party symbol, the broom, saying that when you see a fully grown man waving a broom in broad daylight, he is either mad or is a witch. Maybe he was right. Maybe ACN has bewitched PDP and that is why the ruling party is scrambling for doom.