Saturday August 23, 2008.

I am online, because I work online. I have to report the news from the news agencies and I have to update my news websites and blogs and sell books. This is my life and I love it. It pays my bills and helps me to keep my obligations to our mission fields and charities who need every ounce of support they can get in spreading the word in the Age of Information, but where most people are still ignorant of the realities of our common humanity.

It is still baffling that most of my people in Nigeria are less bothered by the genocide in nearby Darfur, except for the great sacrifices of the brave Nigerian military officers who have been part of the African Union Peace Keeping operations in Darfur and dozens of them have lost their precious lives both in Sudan and even on their way back to their barracks in Nigeria. More people in New York know about the horrors of Darfur than the majority of Nigerian on the streets of Lagos and Abuja.

While I am worried about the plight of the refugees in Darfur, members of my family are more disturbed by the daily threats of the Niger Delta militants. Living on Bonny Island is now high-risk behaviour in these interesting times.

My youngest brother who cannot even locate Darfur on the map pf Africa is asking for petty cash, but does not even care if any of my books is selling or not.
Is it not ironic that a young security officer at a bank on Bonny Island is more excited to sell one of my books than my brothers who are more excited about asking for more money and freebies without asking you how you are faring?

I told one of my younger brothers, if you want money, go and collect copies of my book and sell them and keep 30% of every copy you sell, but I heard that he hissed at my offer, but he wants me to give him money?

Nigerians who are lazy to read books, but they waste millions of dollars weekly on making pleasure calls and keeping vigils to make free love calls and exchange text messages.
Is this the new generation of Nigerian youths we should pin our hopes on?
If the great Nigerian writer and Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka called his own generation, a wasted generation, I wonder what we should call this present generation that is even worse than the wasted generation of Wole Soyinka?
Wanderlust youths wasting their time on their vacuous ways of life in romantic escapism.
They are pathetic.     

I have packed my essential things to return to Lagos.
My assignment in the Niger Delta is completed and my long stay here has been very rewarding intellectually and financially. I will only come back to begin the shooting of one of the short documentaries from the researches on the Niger Delta crisis. Bisi Daniels said I should write a novel on the bloody crisis, but I prefer to shoot a short documentary first.

I was thinking how the five children of my younger sister would fare in my absence when I received the e-mail from  Katie O’Callaghan, the Assistant Marketing Manager of Ballantine Books. She is informing me of Halima Bashir's war memoir, Tears of a Desert".

I read her mail silently.
"Tears of the Desert" is the first memoir ever written by a woman caught up in the war in Darfur . It is a survivor’s tale of a conflicted country, a resilient people, and the uncompromising spirit of a young woman who refused to be silenced.

Born into the Zaghawa tribe in the Sudanese desert, Halima was doted on by her father, a cattle herder, and kept in line by her formidable grandmother. A politically astute man, Halima’s father saw to it that his daughter received a good education away from their rural surroundings. Halima excelled in her studies and exams, surpassing even the privileged Arab girls who looked down their noses at the black Africans. With her love of learning and her father’s support, Halima went on to study medicine, and at twenty-four became her village’s first formal doctor.

Yet not even the symbol of good luck that dotted her eye could protect her from the encroaching conflict that would consume her land. supporter of APC Arab militias started savagely assaulting the Zaghawa, often with the backing of the Sudanese military. Then, in early 2004, the supporter of APC attacked Bashir’s village and surrounding areas, raping forty-two schoolgirls and their teachers. Bashir, who treated the traumatized victims, some as young as eight years old, could no longer remain quiet. But breaking her silence ignited a horrifying turn of events.

Halima is calling the world to action with her story, and I’d like to help her.  I’d love to share this book with you – if you’re interested in reading it, please let me know and I will send you a copy.

I replied her that I have read  Daoud Hari's "The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur", and he is from the same Zaghawa tribe of Halima Bashir.
I told her that words are not enough to describe the horrors and the terrors of Darfur and if I could convince Steven Spielberg to make a film on the genocide in Darfur it would be more illustrative of the catastrophe.

My darling called me and would love to see me in Aba on my way to Lagos. Then I called my younger brother on our financial agreement. He has to refund the petty cash I gave him. It was a loan and not a gift. I have a lot to do and I need more money to do so.

Hey Oriks, how is it going? Did you manage to get Karen King-Aribisala to edit your "Memories of a Refugee Child" story? And, have you put your book back on the market? If yes, do tell me before you send me a copy cos I have moved house and I won't get it if you send it to my old address.

My Dear SMC,
Prof. Karen King-Aribisala is presently teaching abroad, but I have already given the collection to an American editor and she should do a better job than the Nigerian editor who has even refused to re-edit the book.
I can always reach you anywhere you are in the world as long as God permits me.
I have not forgotten the oil on canvas painting I promised you.
Once I am back in Lagos, I will see what I can do before Christmas.
Something I have never done before and something I hope you will appreciate.
God will inspire me.

Please, take care in the UK.

Where is she? I mean which country. I know her book was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers prize. but she did not win though she was a regional winner.

if our youths can be like smc and orikinla. . . . . . .what do we think nigeria would turn to? THE GREATEST LITERARY WORLD!

but we prefer to be sexually romantic to romancing the pen with great stuffs learnt from books.

. . . . .a generation heading towards being worst and wasted. . . . .

by the way orikinla,

as per my copywriting career, i ve started my apcon registration and a creative arm of a top ad agency in the country has agreed to train me for some months without salary.

***repeated post deleted***

May our eyes be opened.

So we may stop chasing wealth that has wings.

SMC:

Where is she? I mean which country. I know her book was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers prize. but she did not win though she was a regional winner.

She was away the last time I visited Lagos. I will go and see her if she has returned.

yicob:

if our youths can be like smc and orikinla. . . . . . .what do we think nigeria would turn to? THE GREATEST LITERARY WORLD!

but we prefer to be sexually romantic to romancing the pen with great stuffs learnt from books.

. . . . .a generation heading towards being worst and wasted. . . . .

by the way orikinla,

as per my copywriting career, i ve started my apcon registration and a creative arm of a top ad agency in the country has agreed to train me for some months without salary.

I am happy for your initiative to join APCON and thank God for the training.
You have a lot to gain.

If you decide to work as a copywriter in Nigeria, you will be successful.
Just take good care of yourself.

Gamine:

May our eyes be opened.

So we may stop chasing wealth that has wings.

God will help us find our way back to the right track.
He loves us more than we know.

Hey Orinkila, I must admit you really hit at some disturbing issues about youths in Nigeria (and Africa). You are right about young Nigerians prefering an easy, problem-free life to really doing some work to make their country better - most young Nigerians, that is - not all of them. Just a trip to any cyber cafe in this country will tell you how bad things have gone; "yahooze" is the name, and swindling is the game.

However, I don't entirely agree with you comparison of people in Nigeria with people in New York. Granted, people here know pitifully little about what is going on in their continent - especially the youths. But comparing them with New Yorkers is really stretching the margin. For God's sake Oriks, those folks have the means; watching cable TV is like a tuning a transitor radio over there. Now consider the flipside: how many Nigerians have cable TV in their homes, let alone the constant power supply to watch it with? And then, when you factor in the gross hardship and poverty - when I was in school, I only ate three-square meals on Sundays. Other days, it was a bromate breadloaf by ten a.m, and a meat-less sauce with eba around six p.m; that's how bad it was for me, and I know a lot of people who were worse of. Now, someone who eats like that, it would be kinda hard having the time and means to procure information about the rest of the world, don't you think? Frankly, it's a wonder how some of us ever got to know about the internet!

Of course, all that still doesn't excuse the laziness and get-rich-quick attitude of most Nigerians. The sunny-side, though, is that there are still some us (like good, old you!) who still believe in the dignity of labour and immutable statutes of equity and justice.

I'll definitely look out for Halima's book (but not now; I can barely cover my rent!) - every African should, I think. Cheers.