EPISODE 5: How Primark Saved Me + News Roundup

Dear readers, I apologise for the unannounced one week break, it was as a result of a small matter called Media Law examinations and assignment deadlines I had to meet. Much as I tried to pen something down, it just didn’t happen. Instead, pieces of Law terminologies I have crammed in my head kept interfering.

Anyways, during the exams, while my brain was hoping for a miracle to remember things, I looked around the hall and noticed the stark differences between the exam atmosphere here and in Nigeria. If you had the time to look around during exams, you would most definitely see all methods and types of examination crimes ranging from neck extensions (giraffing) to sign and coded messages sent over long distances without the aid of Bluetooth. Look on the desks and you would see that mini-textbooks have been jotted on them and if you looked close you would see that some people had the nerve to bring in textbooks as big as Oxford dictionaries inside the exam hall. 

Bodily writing is another matter as students could write a semester worth of answers on parts of their body in manners and designs even a tattooist would blush at. I had a female friend that was rusticated for writing on her laps, and I must confess those laps were ‘yellow’ and fresh. After the incident, we nicknamed people that wrote on their laps as people carrying lap-tops. 

In the hall here, it was dead quiet, so quiet you could hear biros scribbling, clocks ticking and I think I heard my brain crying in dismay for the stress I was putting it through. I am pretty sure a camera must have been spying on us but I wasn’t about to put that fact to test and get rusticated wasting the Village Trust Fund that paid for my Masters program.

Well, back to my story from the last time. As the time ticked to when I was going back to Nigeria, my excitement knew no bounds. I felt like Nicholas Cage in Con-Air, like Russell Crowe in Gladiator. I felt like a virgin on her wedding night, who just wanted the pastor to get it over with and the guests to go home. I remembered when I was in Nigeria, I used to crave privacy. Now I got my wish but it was a tad too much, I wanted the company of my friends. I lusted for Lagos, had mental-wet dreams about it. Lagos was like a cross between Beyonce, Angelina Jolie, Eva Mendez, Jessica Alba and Ini-Edo and I wanted to be wrapped in her embrace. The mere thoughts of the Iya Basiras canteens, riding down Ikorodu road on an Okada and even imagining being extorted by the police and LASTMA made me shudder in excitement. The thought of my one-way exploits made me more excited than Tom Cruise on the Oprah show. Thinking about Abe-Igi cat-fish pepper soup made me higher than One-Thousand and Four Buildings (1004) or a child on alcohol.

 I had left Nigeria for like Seven million, seven hundred and seventy-six seconds (7,776,000) and every second away hurt. Sleeping at night became a challenge because of the excitement and of the worry about what I was going to buy, the gifts I would take back home. After all. I couldn’t just go home empty-handed!!! I walked down the High Street walking by to check shops like Marks and Spencer, Timbaland out but the prices always increased my blood pressure a few notches and this wasn’t good for a young man like me. Worse still, the fastest way to get depressed was to always check my bank balance which looked as low as an Aboki hooked on anti-depressants.

One call saved my pockets though. A dear friend showed me the truth, the way, the light. She recounted how this particular establishment was well known ad had saved the blushes of many Nigerians who were in the same predicament as I was. This particular ‘saviour’ was called a shopping outlet called PRIMARK. In Primark, you can get semi-quality, extra-cheap clothing for next to nothing. If you are a frequenter of bend down select at Yaba, Oshodi, Mile 12, then you know what I am talking about in terms of prices.

Well I won’t say how cheap the clothes I bought were because if those I bought them for are reading, they might start tearing them to use it for washing car or use to clean their kitchen stoves. I ask for your forgiveness because I actually wanted to buy Armanis. I am sorry. In the same vein, if you are surprised as to how that wicked, stingy relative of yours actually got you something from the UK, check the label. If it is Primark then your misery and wonderment ends right at this moment. But on the other hand, what if all the clothes your loved one bought for you are all from Primark...? Well, maybe it is just the recession. Let’s blame it on that.

With the Primark goodies safely secured in my bag with the better gits reserves for Ma and Miss Nizzle, I swaggered into Heathrow airport to board my Arik flight to Nigeria...

                        MEMOIRS NEWS ROUNDUP

A lot of people loved the Yara’dua chronicles I posted the last time. Here’s more from Asukwo, who I think is a good cartoonist.

In other news is a tragic fascinating story of a Nigerian that died at Zurich airport last week while he was been deported. A very strange story that highlights the desperation of Nigerians who are all too eager to leave her shores and never return. Apparently this guy preferred dying rather than come back home.Pity. Read more here on Jangola.

Rounding the news up for this week is an interesting story about a 12 year old boy who I really feel needs to be entered into the Guinness Books of Records because of his criminal activities. His criminal record is described as appalling due to the fact that he has committed more than 30 crimes in the short space he has spent on earth. If you are into crime and curious enough, you can get the full gist on Times Online here.

That’s a wrap for this week. Thanks for reading. As Jenifa used to say, ‘Catch ya later, bye’

EPISODE 4: Reasons why Naija Rocks + News Roundup

“Guy, it’s a mail sorting job. All you have to do is turn up for some hours; sort the mail in the right post codes and collect your 7 pounds per hour dough.” That was what my friend told me. It was just supposed to be a job where I was supposed to make a quick buck. It was supposed to be easy.

My friend continued: “One snag though is that, it is in the early hours of the morning, from 1am to 9am.” I told him not to worry with my mind already multiplying the quick buck I would make. Although I was a big failure at mathematics at school, I hurriedly calculated the sum in my head. I multiplied: 7 Pounds X 8 hours=56 pounds. I went on further to multiply 56 pounds X 250(Nigerian equivalent in naira) = N14, 000. Sweet! That was enough to at least buy cat-fish pepper soup and beer for my guys and I wanted to do like five days work of ‘easy mail sorting’. You can do the maths from there.

However my big money dreams all vanished when the work started. First, it was a factory and it wasn’t letters we were sorting, it was big, massive boxes of goods. Secondly, it was in the open and the temperature was in freezing conditions. I instinctively knew I was in for it. Till date, the experience is one that is intensely traumatic for me. That night alone, I think I worked more than the Israelites when they were captives in Egypt. The only thing missing was the whip and Pharaoh grinning from his royal seat above.

 Just two hours into the work, I lost all my orientation and began to sleep-walk and work. I began to curse in languages from Arabic to Hindu and was extremely bitter at the fate that had befallen me. The look I gave my friend who recommended the job to me was so withering one that could make the Amazon jungle a desert. It was like the scales finally fell from  my eyes, it was as if I had eaten ‘The Apple’ only this time it wasn’t a sexy naked Eve that made me but suffering.

Everything came into perspective and I realized that everything here in the UK is a LOAN. You watch them in movies and see the lives they lead and you are awed but know what? The house they are living is a mortgage. The car they drive was gotten through a loan. The fancy phone they use is a contract (which they pay for in instalments). Even in the house you live in, you have to pay for your heater and Television License (which is about 120 pounds!) Can you just imagine paying £120 to watch NTA? I shudder at the very thought. Even marriages now are a contract, I have had people approach me to forget Miss Nizzle, get hitched and pay a white gal! It is now a cartel, a business, an industry.

Here, you are a slave to the system.

Fine.  Accepted. Nigeria is perceived as bad over here, nobody wants to go back. We see the killings at Jos, we see on TV as our leaders make a mockery of themselves. There is no constant electricity but it is HOME.

It is where you could avoid paying NEPA/PHCN Bill and just bribe the official when he comes. Besides don’t you get the tingle in your spine when you hear the rapturous cry of ‘UP NEPA’!!! It is where you might have water coming out of your tap (if you are lucky) and not know who is paying for it.

It is where you can drive as you wish, beating traffic rules if they were any, without having thousands of pounds fined out of anal cavity.

It was where your family knew it had hit pay dirt once a member got elected into government, even if it was just a Local Government Councillor appointment

It was where you could park your fleet of cars and put plate numbers for every day of the week, or the name of your girlfriends.

It is where you could celebrate with the flimsiest of reasons. A lot of livestock like cows, goats and fowls would be regretting ever being born in Nigeria because of the frequency in which we put them to the sword. Nigeria is the only country I know that even if the family is so poor as to not be able to pay their kid’s school fees could throw a burial ceremony costing about half a million naira.

It is where you could make untaxed dough and become a billionaire with ideas borne out of your head or stolen from others.

It was where you could open a bar by the side of the road or a canteen; make a ton of money that’s before Fashola comes to shut you down.

It was where you could eat cat-fish pepper soup, Nkwobi and drink Guinness (the real bitter one). We are not the second highest Guinness drinking nation in the world for nothing!!!

It is where your loved ones are at. It was where mine was. It was HOME and I was going.

                                               MEMOIR NEWS ROUND UP

I came across a cartoon that epitomises the situation of things in Nigeria. It’s really nice; it was done by a dude called Asukwo. I couldn’t resist using it in what I have fondly called, the Chronicles of Yaradua.

 Some episodes ago, I wrote about the joys of Facebook where two folks got united and married after several years apart. Here’s an ugly side of the social network and how a dude killed his ex-girlfriend in a murderous rage all because he saw her in a picture with another man. He flew all the way from Trinidad & Tobago to London to commit this act. Read more about it here.

 While Facebook has been a place for old friends/classmates to reunite, a place where business transactions have been struck. It is also a place where a lot of individuals find preys to satisfy their lust. A site that has potentially caused a lot of breakups. Well, different strokes for different folks.

 This sort of made me remember when Miss Nizzle gained access into my Facebook inbox. Oooohhh! I shudder whenever I remember her murderous gaze.

This ends this week’s edition of Memoirs. I am sorry for been late this time, school stress and a mild bout of depression are the reasons why. I promise to be good henceforth. Enjoy the rest of the week.

EPISODE 3: The Quest for Money + News Roundup

One of the first tips I picked up when I got to the UK is that your pocket is your very best friend. Firstly, to combat and beat nature, you need to always put your hands in your pocket. Even if you are wearing gloves, it gets so cold that hell fire actually begins to look like a good holiday resort. You actually start to fantasize about using a long fork to eat noodles with Satan and his minions if you are trapped out on a cold night. Simple things you take for granted suddenly become extremely difficult. For example, you can’t pick up a call, you can’t tie your shoe laces, write, type, button your shirt, remove money from your wallet and I actually dare you to send a text message! I have a lot of missed calls on my phone primarily because my hands were just too frozen stiff to press the green call button. Very frustrating I must confess.

Another reason why your pocket is your best friend is simply because your wallet resides in it. Over here in the UK, you have the most polite group of individuals ever, who would hold the door open for you, family who would stuff you with food, you have friends who are willing to help out but one thing I must point out is that it all ends when it is time to pay the bills, when it is time to show the money. When it comes to this, you are on your own!

It was when I got here that the cliché ‘It’s not easy’ or in Yoruba dialect ‘Ko easy’ started to make a whole lot of sense. It is easy for you to imagine when you are in Nigeria and hear that someone earns 10 pounds per hour. Dreamily, you convert it into naira and you suddenly start to dream that all you have to do is get to Britain and before long you would be building a house in Nigeria that could feature in an episode of Cribs. However, the harsh reality is that for every pound you make, the more bills you pay and less I forget, the Queen a.k.a Iya Charlie would also demand her ‘royal share’ to buy Prince Harry another Rolls Royce(Oops! Did I just speak against the crown? Strike that out, I don’t want to be deported). Even the air you breathe here feels taxed!!!

With this in mind, it beats me why folks back home could sell their right testicle; go through all means, steal, and cheat to come over here thinking all they have to do is turn up here and pick pound sterling on the streets or pluck it on trees. Think again.

 Well, putting my sermon aside and back to my sojourns, I managed to twist some arms and made false promises to get my plane ticket to Nigeria but then I faced another dilemma, a huge one. I felt very cornered. 

I couldn’t go home empty-handed; I had to show that I have been blessed by Iya Charlie. Even though it showed physically as I was looking tremendously hot and handsome with pink lips and all, I had to back it up with gifts, spray some cash around and pretend like I was P.Diddy. I envisaged a tough task convincing folks back home that I wasn’t picking pound notes on the streets. In fact I could already hear them saying miser and sniggering behind my back. With few weeks left before my trip, a friend alerted me about a job opportunity in London where I could make some few bucks. With pound notes obstructing my psyche, I boarded Britain’s version of Ekene Dilichukwu bus called National Express and made my three hour trip to London.

Remember in previous episodes when I felt like Rosa Park in the bus because I was almost the only black in Bournemouth? Well, the reverse is the case in London. London especially the eastern part is more like a Nigerian island in Europe. I think a white guy would feel odd being amongst so many blacks, so many Nigerians. In buses here, I basically feel like Kunta Kite in the slave ship. All around me, I would hear Yoruba, Ibo, and Pidgin English all spoken. It was a bitter-sweet feeling though. Anytime any phone rings, the ringtone would be a D’Banj, Terry G or P-Square song and to tell you the truth, most Nigerians are lousy when speaking on the phone. All their life details would be in your palm within minutes and the noise they make is worse than Answani Market on a busy Tuesday.

Walking down East London were Nigerian barbing saloons, shops, I actually saw a woman wheeling down semo and pounded yam in a cart down the road albeit in a classy manner. Anyways, I got to my friend’s house and prepared to work, to earn a quick buck or so I thought...

                              MEMOIRS NEWS ROUNDUP

With news that has been filtering since the arrival of our president from Saudi-Arabia, one begins to wonder what condition he is actually in. Since nobody has actually been able to see him to ascertain his health, it is not too hard to imagine that even the late Michael Jackson was in far better health than our president before his death. Compare this to this story in Daily Mail that thoroughly analysed the health of President Obama.

If Obama’s health is a cause for concern, then that of our president is a disaster. The fallout continues. The video below by a Nigerian senator(after the very lenghty presenter's cue) fully epitomises the confusion the country is in. His vocabulary is unrivalled and words that have not been invented and never will were freely used. Get your dictionaries out people to search for words that never were

Beats me how the guy got elected. Nonetheless i admire his cojones to make a mockery of himself on national television.

Moving on, the story I am going to talk about could possibly tempt you to out of school and become a cleaner or start gambling big-time. It is about a British couple who incidentally are Britain’s highest lottery winners after winning £56 million and gave their cleaner a £400,000 house. Read more on the story here. It just makes you want to drop your pen, ignore your assignments and go to a casino to either gamble or post your CV for a cleaning job for the rich and famous.

Well, this concludes this week’s edition. Many thanks to you all for reading about my not- so -glamorous life and experiences even though I wonder why you all do.

Till next week...Cheers.

EPISODE 2: Kings of the Loo+News Roundup

To kill the boredom and loneliness, my snow-infested brain formulated 3 fail safe plans. First was to get a six pack of my favourite drink in the UK called Stella Artois. Stella is quite a notorious drink over here and is fondly called the ‘Wife beater’ because when the Euro Nationals drink it, it intoxicates them so much that in most cases, their wives bear the brunt. I tried that and it didn’t work, in fact it made it worse, I proceeded to Plan 2 which was to go on a night out and party.
Dressed like an Eskimo in the wintry conditions, I manoeuvred myself into a bus going towards the club. In the bus, I reflected on my life so far. Back in Nigeria, going to the club with my ‘hooliganic friends’ was like a ceremony in itself. From bar to bar we prowled, making Arthur Guinness smile in his grave as his earthly pockets swelled with our Naira. With our brain molecules mixed with the barleys of Guinness we would enter our cars and form the most joyful procession ever, a convoy of promise, a night train. On the way there, we would break speed limits, punish our tires, bribe the police with money and booze...Back to the present, I winced, looked at myself through the glass and couldn’t discern the difference between myself and Santa Claus with the amount of clothing I had on. Only the beard remained, it seemed.
If you are a regular club-goer or alcohol sympathiser then you know that the toilet is one of the most frequented arenas to get rid of the life-saving poisonous liquid inside you. On my numerous trips to this hallowed place did I come to this scientific observation. I observed that from empirical studies, Nigerians are undisputedly the Managing Directors of toilets in the United Kingdom. Truth be said, I have not gone to any club in the UK from Bournemouth to London without seeing a Nigerian overseeing the night-to-night activities of the lavatory. My research led me to the fact that most of these ‘Toilet Research Administrators’ are from either Edo State or Port-Harcourt.
I have talked to a couple of these distinguished ‘Managers’ but the love of the pound sterling to them far outweighs the respectability of their jobs. If these same dudes go back home to Nigeria, it is this same you and I that would descend on them as fast as a LASTMA official on an offending driver passing one-way. When these dudes come home, we see them as established, millionaires, successful but from my vantage point here, I call them Kings of the Loo.
A sobering thought indeed so much that after most of these discussions, my inebriate mind clears making me waste the precious pound notes I used to buy the beer that was supposed to keep me tipsy and ‘loneliness proof’. Damn! Worse still, at 4am when most leave the club, there are no buses at that time, only cabs.
Due to my rare illness called ‘Cabophobia’, a strange illness caused by watching a cab money-meter increase by the pound thereby making me all sweaty, nervous and broke. I elected to keep fit by pulling my hoodie on my head and walk the 40 minutes back to my room in minus 3 degree conditions. How thought and mind sobering could that be? As if the Man Upstairs wanted to take a piss out of me, the clouds opened up and it started raining. Terrific. Just my luck.
Arriving my room and shivering like Jack in Titanic and cursing in languages in which I understood and didn’t, I switched to Plan 3. It was the last card I had to play; it was all I had left lest I lose my mind. I decided a fortnight in Motherland, Nigeria would cure my craze. The thought in itself warmed me up...

                 MEMOIRS NEWS ROUND UP

Last week, after months of debate, expectation, controversy, our president finally came back home after months of being incommunicado in a Saudi Arabian hospital. Just as acting president, Goodluck Jonathan was just coming to grips with Aso Rock and probably thinking about redesigning his ‘new home’ shows our president.

Don’t let that picture deceive you, according to reports, especially those of 234NEXT, our president is not as fit as a hip-hop star but still in a hospitalized condition. In fact if conspiracy theories are your thing, you should read 234NEXT’s version that might lead to suggestions that our president is no longer a he but a SHE-his wife Turai Yaradua.

 The Nigerian political tussle gets more interesting,more interesting than a chilled bottle of small stout and Nkwobi. More here to come as it unfolds.
Talking about tussles, last weekend in the world of soccer saw another between former team-mates John Terry and Wayne Bridge come head-to-head for the first time after the truth about an affair between the former and Bridge’s partner. After the disclosure, Bridge sensationally quit playing for England and the eyes of the world focused on the pair to see if they would shake hands. Bridge snubbed Terry big time and ignored shaking him in one of the most anticipated handshakes of all time.

Wouldn’t blame him though, if I was Bridge, I would be sorely tempted to take it a notch further and kick him in the nuts till I hear it crunch and see him writhe in agony.Well, that is my own opinion anyway but i still feel boys need to arrange Terry even though justice seemed to have been done with Bridge's Man City beating Chelsea 4-2. You just don't shag your pal's gal and expect three points after.
Hope you enjoyed this week's edition? For comments and suggestions, you could drop it in the comment box below or alternatively on my Facebook wall(Akin 'Nizzle' Solanke). You can also follow me on twitter by searching for me typing akinizzle.
Cheers