₦airaland Forum

Welcome, Guest: RegisterLoginWith GoogleTrendingRecentNew

Stats: 3,329,997 members, 8,443,417 topics. Date: Saturday, 11 July 2026 at 06:32 PM

Toggle theme

Olawalebabs's Posts

Nairaland ForumOlawalebabs's ProfileOlawalebabs's Posts

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ... 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 (of 131 pages)

Jokes EtcRe: Boko Haram Trembles As Jack Bauer Flies To Naija by olawalebabs(m): 3:33pm On Jul 08, 2011
Join Jack, Almeda, Cole, Gael, Chloe, Salazers. One boko haram don do for them
IslamRe: Barka Juma'ah by olawalebabs(m): 3:24pm On Jul 08, 2011
barka da jummah
PoliticsRe: Let's Have Your Complaints Here by olawalebabs(m): 3:15pm On Jul 08, 2011
mukina2:
this people can make a nun swear.
dont tell me you are one
PoliticsRe: Let's Have Your Complaints Here by olawalebabs(m): 3:56pm On Jul 07, 2011
mukina2 take am easy
Jokes EtcRe: Angry House Maid. by olawalebabs(m): 2:40pm On Jul 07, 2011
Syed2011:
LoL, can you give me the address of that maid, may be she can even work at my ome tongue
to do what with for her
Jokes EtcRe: Chinese Product by olawalebabs(op): 2:36pm On Jul 07, 2011
Why you com change am now, no worry, no body go hear.
Jokes EtcRe: Chinese Product by olawalebabs(op): 2:28pm On Jul 07, 2011
no comment, wait make mod come, we go send you back to Yaba Left
Forum GamesRe: The Blame Game! by olawalebabs(m): 2:26pm On Jul 07, 2011
Blame yourself for always procratinate

Am miss the all important meeting
Jokes EtcEmbassy Palaver by olawalebabs(op): 2:23pm On Jul 07, 2011
A Hausaman interviewed at US Embassy:CONSUL: Ur name?Hausaman: Musa Adamu.C: Sex?H: 6 times a week.:O C: I mean, male or female?H: Doesnt matter sumtimes even camel.X_X C: Holy cow!H: Yes, cows too.=)) C: Isn't dat hostile?H: Horsestyle, dogstyle, any style!:& C: Oh Dear!H: No deer!They run too fast,
PoliticsRe: Acn Govs Resolve To Pay Minimum Wage by olawalebabs(m): 2:22pm On Jul 07, 2011
iz2much:
I wish that party should have won in Kwara State
they may get it from the tribunal
Jokes EtcRe: Chinese Product by olawalebabs(op): 2:19pm On Jul 07, 2011
busybody20:
it b like say d moderator don travel undecided
make yourself clear
PoliticsRe: Nigeria As One Open Toilet by olawalebabs(op): 2:15pm On Jul 07, 2011
but not leaving the second one too, you know we lack maintanance culture in our country
Jokes EtcRe: Tenses by olawalebabs(op): 2:13pm On Jul 07, 2011
lysaa:
abi? lol
shocked
Nairaland GeneralRe: Am Sick Of Nairaland by olawalebabs(op): 2:10pm On Jul 07, 2011
PAGAN 9JA:
@olawalebab, go visit a doctor. cool
first refer yourself
Jokes EtcRe: Brain Teaser by olawalebabs(m): 1:52pm On Jul 07, 2011
I disagree, you said "he went to bank" what if he uses the ATM? Or to see a colleague (driver, gatemen)
Jokes EtcChinese Product by olawalebabs(op): 12:53pm On Jul 07, 2011
A Nigerian girl got married to a Chinese man and had for him a baby boy who eventually died. At the
burial, her aunt came crying, saying “I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT!!”
Curious relatives took the aunt to a corner and asked her what she knew.
She said loudly, “I KNEW IT, CHINESE PRODUCTS DON’T LAST !!!”
Jokes EtcTenses by olawalebabs(op): 12:52pm On Jul 07, 2011
It was a day after a general election characterised by violence and killings in few parts of the country. The
English teacher appeared before the class and the topic was Tenses.
Teacher: I killed a person yesterday. Can someone convert this to a future tense?
Student The future tense is “You will go to jail soon!”
PoliticsNigeria As One Open Toilet by olawalebabs(op): 12:42pm On Jul 07, 2011
If you want to gauge how badly Nigerians have been animalized, then pay attention to how, and where, many of them defecate. Just recently, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that 33 million Nigerians have no access to decent toilets. As a consequence, said the report, these citizens of Africa’s most populous nation answer the call of nature in the open.

Is it really only 33 million Nigerians? One is afraid that here’s one occasion when statisticians have pegged the figure too low. Nigeria – as I wrote three years ago – may be described as one vast toilet. Anybody who has traveled from Lagos to Onitsha by road knows that there isn’t one single rest area with toilet facilities along the route. At stops in Ore or Benin City, pressed passengers must hurry off into the brushes, gingerly skating around others’ feces, in order to relieve themselves.

It’s much the same situation in most – perhaps all – Nigerian cities. Many of Nigeria’s wealthiest men and women have their residential addresses in Ikoyi and Victoria Island. The two districts boast some of the grandest, swankiest, most expensive buildings in Nigeria. Yet, some of the streets of Ikoyi and Victoria Island are monuments to grime and dirt. The streets are defaced with discarded cans, plastic bottles and newspapers. They are littered with the rind of oranges, the peel of bananas, and the shell of peanuts.

But by far the worst infestation in these well-heeled districts is human. Look around and you’re bound to see, in broad daylight, the stooped figures of men and women urinating or defecating in full view. It’s this factor that’s created the legend that the city of Lagos in general – but Ikoyi and Victoria Island in particular – may well be one of the world’s most expensive slums.

This habit of doing in public what ought to be done in private strikes me as pointing to a much deeper cultural crisis. There are several nodes of the problem.

Let’s begin with what I’d call the animalization quotient. We are accustomed to lower animals relieving themselves without regard to location or the presence of others. In adopting the way that dogs, horses and cattle go about things, Nigerians, in effect, exhibit sheer animal instincts. It wounds one’s sense of dignity and fellow-feeling to realize that millions of Nigerians have been compelled to exist and behave like animals.

Long habituated to inhuman conditions, many Nigerians have ceased noticing those peeing or defecating in the open. Or, when we notice, too many of us have lost our sense of outrage at the oddity. Public acts of pissing and defecation have become – more or less – normal, part and parcel of our social experience and landscape.

There’s, of course, an undeniable (even if largely uncalculated) health cost. Often, hawkers of food in Nigerian cities stand close to feculent, fly-infested gutters and sites of public urination and defecation. God alone knows how many people, especially children, the elderly and the ailing, are gravely sickened by contact with fruits and other kinds of food bought off disease-stalked streets.

In an environment where university research is informed by the vital issues and needs of society, studies would have been undertaken to measure the extent of Nigerians’ food supply to open sewage and to determine the health hazards. If such studies exist, then they ought to be made public. In fact, they ought to inform a two-pronged public awareness campaign: on the one hand, emphasizing the urgency of providing public toilets; on the other, educating Nigerians on the perils of living in squalid, poo-infested conditions.

Nigerians treasure handshakes. Introductions and discussions are punctuated by frequent handshakes. I cherish that custom and the rich, warm connectedness that handshakes express and signify. Even so, owing to the fact that too many Nigerians have no access to toilets, I confess to a certain sneaking uneasiness about shaking hands when I visit. For me, it’s often a dilemma. I know how scandalous it would be to refuse to offer one’s hand. Yet, I can’t help wondering where the hands I shake have been, and whether they’ve been washed.

Two anecdotes illustrate the depths of the problem. Two or three years ago, a fellow writer told me about the chastening political experience of a mutual friend. Appointed by a state governor as a local government administrator, this mutual friend was shocked to discover that there was only one toilet in the secretariat. Marked “executive toilet,” the facility was meant for his exclusive use as the chairman of the local government area. The staff of the local government did not have a single toilet where they could retire when they came under nature’s pressure. This fellow then decided to remedy the situation by building toilets for staff.

To his utter surprise, the caucus of local government councilors sought a meeting with him. They wanted him to know that they staunchly opposed his plan to build toilets. They informed him that his predecessor was a man of great political wisdom who steered clear of toilets. His predecessor knew that the way to “move the local government forward” and to “carry all stakeholders” was to distribute the local government’s monthly allocations among the councilors. They asked the new administrator to stay that course.

When he asked them whether workers did not deserve a dignified way of relieving themselves, their blithe response was that no worker had petitioned that he or she had a problem about slipping away into the bush. He then sought to drive the argument in the direction of self-interest. “How about you?” he asked the protesting councilors. “Don’t you think you deserve toilets?” They were adamant. They told him to just give them a share of the public funds – and to leave it up to them to decide on toilet matters.

The fellow stubbornly went ahead to award contracts to build new staff toilets. One imagines that the workers were grateful. Even so, the administrator’s action did not inspire effusive gestures of affection. Instead, the defied councilors were so incensed that they wrote petitions against the administrator to the state governor. Alas, the man did not last long at his post.

More recently, I attended Mass a few weeks ago at the Catholic cathedral in Awka. Offered for the late Archbishop Albert Obiefuna, the Mass was so crowded that many of us had to stand outside. When I saw a man go behind a parked car to pee in the open, I told him that there were toilets at the cathedral. Ignoring me, he went ahead to do his thing on the grass, within sight of hundreds of people. I confronted him again after he was done. “Why didn’t you go to one of the toilets?” I asked. He smirked mischievously as he replied, “I already started doing it outside. Next time I’ll go to the toilet.”

I was left wondering if the man really didn’t know that the cathedral has toilets for the use of congregants. Or was he merely insistent on what a friend of mine cheekily calls “the joys of doing it in the open”? No self-respecting people should gloat about such

http://saharareporters.com/column/nigeria-one-open-toilet-okey-ndibe
PoliticsRe: Acn Govs Resolve To Pay Minimum Wage by olawalebabs(m): 12:30pm On Jul 07, 2011
Am sure they will do, but before we hail them let's wait for them to pay the first month.
Forum GamesRe: 3words Per Post: Part 3 by olawalebabs(m): 9:27am On Jul 07, 2011
Check the thread
Nairaland GeneralRe: Am Sick Of Nairaland by olawalebabs(op): 9:24am On Jul 07, 2011
Mathematician Yinka, you make me lose my line
Jokes EtcRe: Angry House Maid. by olawalebabs(m): 7:20am On Jul 07, 2011
Lol
Jokes EtcRe: U must Laff by olawalebabs(m): 7:10am On Jul 07, 2011
Mikuz go about it gently.
Nairaland GeneralRe: Am Sick Of Nairaland by olawalebabs(op): 7:05am On Jul 07, 2011
But free speech does not meccersarily translate to sentimental reasoning.
Forum GamesRe: 3words Per Post: Part 3 by olawalebabs(m): 6:57am On Jul 07, 2011
Wetin she do
Nairaland GeneralRe: Am Sick Of Nairaland by olawalebabs(op): 5:45am On Jul 07, 2011
Am not forcing anybody, is a free world.
PoliticsRe: Degree Holders Accept Cleaner's Job In Osun by olawalebabs(op): 9:30pm On Jul 06, 2011
In Nigeria Networking is the main thing, better still "man know man"
Jokes EtcRe: Girlssss by olawalebabs(op): 9:18pm On Jul 06, 2011
Maka i believe that is from personal experience.
Jokes EtcRe: Brain Teaser by olawalebabs(m): 8:46pm On Jul 06, 2011
Gateman. Why did he leave his post.
Jokes EtcRe: Ode Remo And Son by olawalebabs(m): 8:42pm On Jul 06, 2011
Bin you try well well for this one lol. @ode se na true?
PoliticsRe: Degree Holders Accept Cleaner's Job In Osun by olawalebabs(op): 8:31pm On Jul 06, 2011
What should we call this? Is it fate or the situation of the country?
TravelRe: Where Have You Lived In Nigeria-only Places one year and more please by olawalebabs(m): 6:46pm On Jul 06, 2011
Kaduna
kwara
ondo
being to all the sw state, 4 in the north west, 4 in the north central, 1 in the south south and none in the southeast and northeast

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ... 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 (of 131 pages)