₦airaland Forum

imustsaymymindo:
It is such a masterpiece.

Thank you.

imustsaymymindo:
This write-up sounds similar to a documentary I saw. Is there any documentary culled from this article or vice versa?

The documentary was most probably culled from or adapted from this write up. It was quoted in an M. Sc. thesis and the author duly contacted me for approval. It was first published in Sahara Reporters in October 2008.

Badonasty:
Op abeg make una try to dey proofread una grammar abeg

I did not really understand the write up. Photo-speak to the rescue.

Of course Chemical Engineering is tougher. I am talking from experience. I am a Chemical Engr. As student at the university of Lagos, we undertook courses in Civil Engineering up to year three. The reverse wasn't the case. Chemical Engineering had much more number of units to pass to graduate. The work load is unimaginable. The fact of more first class in Chemical Engineering is about volume of entrants. More and more brilliant students take to Chemical Engineering than to Civil. It is easy to understand. It is not rocket science. Again, much has to do with individual flair. What you regard as difficult is to another person, quite easy.

I am still searching to see the hot girls. All I see are naked prostitutes.

( An article originally written and published in 2008 by Clarius Ugwuoha.)


Against the backdrop of the University as a microcosm of a utopian society, the menace of secret cults in our institutions of higher learning leaves myriads of perplexing questions: When did secret cult originate and how did it integrate itself into our institutions of higher learning? What, in spite of its obvious dangers, inform students patronage of secret cults? What factors in the campus world, inherent or extraneous, have so far stalled concerted attends at eradication of this hydra-headed scourge? Can cult kingpins be proselytized into the patriotic society and if not, how does the campus community contain the excesses of these malcontents? These and more issues are what this article will attempt to tackle.

Secret Cult dates back to the ancient world, to the Greco-Egyptian society of omens and superstitions. However, its origin in Nigerian Universities highlights the paradox of existence. Where the then average student was cultivating unbecoming manners, then Mr. Wole Soyinka, Mr. Muyiwa Awe and others formed the Pyrates Confraternity, with the noble objective of exposing the absurdity of the colonial mentality in the post Independent studentry. The Confraternity being exclusive, students not allowed to identify formed their own confraternities. These new formations did not share the gracious intents of Mr. Soyinka and clique. Over time schism broke their ranks, with breakaway formations pitched against one another for supremacy. The result was a rash of societies, misplaced values, unhealthy rivalry and an antisocial culture of fire eating and bloodletting sustained by the cause-effect principle. Hundreds of innocent students are slaughtered yearly in our campuses.

They are simply awe striking. They evoke images of intransigence, blood and death. Name them: The Bucaneers, the Supreme Vikings Confraternity, the , Klu Klu Klan, the Executioners, Black Berets, Daughters of Jezebel, the Eiye Confraternity among many others.

Cult fanaticism is a creation of the system. We belong, in the words of Prof. Wole Soyinka, to the wasted generation. We belong to the era of juvenile extremism and effervescence. We belong to the era where the abuse of cannabis, hitherto the preserve of our outcasts and only spoken of in whispers, has been elevated to a social cause celebre. Our values are not only confused and intrinsically defective but also counterproductive.

Harvesting from the chaos of cultism are the politicians and other elite class whose pool of bodyguards, assassin squads and rabble-rousers are conscripted from the miscreants. The elite class is heavily culpable for the menace of cultism in the universities. This retrograde trend has spilled into near and distant communities with unprecedented tolls posing more danger to our communal existence than HIV/AIDS and hunger combined. The wave of militia in the Niger Delta is the direct result of Campus cults. Various deadly factions have mushroomed in our various communities with every trapping of their alter egos in the campuses. The same gory rituals and mind-bending initiation rites are their hallmark. They are even more deadly, feeding from the denatured clique of village psychopaths, half and raving lunatics, stark illiterates with bestial, earthy, and barbarous impulses.

Despite the obvious dangers of secret cult, it would continue to entice our fancies. The allure of power and dominion; desire for protection against real and imagined enemies, are usually canvassed by cult scouts who go about enlisting like-minds. There are instances whereby unwilling students have been browbeaten into identifying with these bloodletting cliques. Students engage in cultism to dare, to shore up their ego, to intimidate even their lecturers and to court the best of girls in the campus. Some girl hostels are ‘fenced’ off by a given gang and intruders paid dearly.

Parental initiations exist, of course, whereby heads of confraternities recruit their wards and charges. These conscripts go about with spirited dear-devilry, shored up to mind-boggling orgies of destruction by a sense of invincibility, by their impregnable patron-fastness. That feeling of invincibility was real. Fingered in the sponsorship of cultism and cult attacks are big wigs of the society before whom the law and law enforcement agents shrank into oblivion. I cannot forget in a hurry, the feeling of demystification one morning, in the late 90’s while on a visit to the University of Nigeria, Enugu campus. The Police had been flagged in to rapid gunfire between some undisclosed cult factions. For the Police of then, the immediate response was unprecedented. However, for some undisclosed reasons, their presence could not deter perpetration. The law enforcement agents could not produce any tangible report about students caught in action with live, sophisticated weaponry.

That observation underlined the invincibility of the hoodlums. In Unilag of then, students picked up with firearms and even, as was the case in Jaja Hall, a hand grenade, only stayed away the night at Panti and returned the following day, breathing more threats, and posing greater danger to communal existence.

Until the then Omotola regime took the eradication of cultism in Unilag seriously, spurred on by the irrepressible Omoyele, then Unilag Students Union president, Unilag lived under the firm grabs of cult-terrorism. Students woke up to gory tales of slaughtering of their fellow students, of blood bath. You were witnesses to chaos, to murder in broad day. Waves of gunfire shattered the air like glassware; and you have this sense of being in a war-front, and funny enough, you were a student, expected to be cultured against a rustic society.

Cultism is abuse of the freedom of association. Majority of those who enlist are either forced to or were not abreast of the hard facts about cultism at the outset. New university entrants are lured in by rosy promises of dominion on campus, protection from enemies and sundry others. But then, the tolls begin sooner than later. There are frequent reports of students who had lost their lives in the stiff initiation rites. Then the survivors, far from protection, become targets of rival cults; are hounded by the police, the campus, the student union authorities and the civilized world.

The constraints to cult eradication are legion. Cult membership is usually the preserve of the children of the top echelon of the society. They thus operate with reckless impunity, fully conscious of their immunity in a lopsided society as ours. The pool of members are teenagers with low self-esteem, whose academic orientation is suspect; die-hard criminals and crime-minded without any compunction over anti-social vices.

Cult kingpins can be proselytized into the patriotic society. We must first understand that Cult patronage is in shades. There are the hardened and the peripheral. The later quickly shed their obnoxious affiliation once they fling the doors of the Ivory Towers behind them, barely enduring the frightening reign of chaos. The former are career cultists who would graduate to mind-boggling dare-devilry. Whichever one, they can all be re-orientated into orderly, civilized conduct.

· A well-funded rehabilitation centre is the answer. Graduates of these centres can be offered careers in the armed forces and the police, where they can use their know-how to combat crimes and protect the society.

· All Secret Cults should be registered in the corporate affairs commission in Abuja, with their leaders and patrons, who should be legal entities, known. They should also be registered with school authorities.

· Freedom of arms in the campuses, nay in Nigeria, should be legalized by an act of the National Assembly. These cultists are able to intimidate you because they are armed and you are not. And whether we believe it or not, there are more illegal arms out there than we imagine.

· Demilitarization of our collective psyche and enthronement of an egalitarian society.

· With the New look Police under the dynamic leadership of Sir Mike Okiro; we are rest assured that high-level collusions are untenable. We should therefore give the Police maximum support, moral and material, to help secure the society.



Finally, as Sowore Stephen Omoyele, former Unilag Union President, and Civil Rights activist, put it

“When cult members find themselves in colleges in the US or Europe, they don’t go around killing innocent people. They don’t even kill squirrels on their campuses. They do so in Nigeria because the system lets them.” A complete overhaul of that disastrous system is imperative.

AS NIGERIA CLOCKS FORTY EIGHT

BY CLARIUS UGWUOHA
(An article originally written and published in 2008 but still relevant today)


There is a puzzling irreconcilable paradox in the potentialities of Nigeria and her accomplishments. The talent pool in Nigeria is depleted yearly, while her natural resources are being siphoned away openly and secretively at a rate that must alarm all patriotic minds open to the long-term effect of this depletion. The secretive transplantation of our very best to the developed economies, aided by our collective complacence, is deplorable.



The oil glut in Nigeria, rather than positive effects, has created motley of incompatible sensibilities. So much is the Nigerian society stratified that we practically live in different planets in one country. The monumental sleaze of past office holders go to enrich the income per capita of some lucky nations, while Nigeria and Nigerians continue to wallow in abject poverty. What is the rationale behind the continued exportation of crude oil, where indeed we can refine to myriads of exportable end products? What is the basis for importation of products that are producible in Nigeria? Our rice and groundnut pyramids and indeed every other thing cultivated or manufactured locally have all disappeared, the few locally sourced industries hinged on the ingenuity of entrepreneurs like Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Femi Otedola and Mike Adenuga.



As Nigeria has always prided itself as the giant of Africa, what gave birth to such arcane metamorphosis? This self-arrogation had tended to obscure the blunt truth, in the recent past when Nigeria fooled itself around the West African sub-region keeping the peace with scarce resources, while hunger reigned at home. The fact is, the giant-ness of Nigeria in Africa begins and ends on population, a not-so-savoury index of giancy.



What has Nigeria as a country contributed to the technological advancement of the world? Japan, before the era of Emperor Hiro Hito, was just another developing country. Germany, a country without abundant oil and mineral resources, was industrialized by an amalgam of intellect and human attitude. We need not recast as far back as preindustrial revolution Europe, which was as outback as any African Country, governed by omens and superstitions. But even at then, there were separate movements that sought revelations on various mysteries of the technological world. There were the Alchemists, whose distinct preoccupations were to turn everything into gold, the creation of "the elixir of life," a remedy that supposedly would demystify all diseases and prolong life indefinitely; and the discovery of a universal solvent. These prescience, magic-impregnated inquisitions were the precursors of modern day technology.



Today, there is nowhere in Africa where breakthrough in Science and Technology is canvassed, espoused or significantly encouraged, even if with magical undertones. This is despite superabundance of technological geniuses in Africa, who are tactically repressed in the hostile policies of their various countries, or, if lucky, spirited away by knowledgeable civilizations. The contribution of Nigerians in Diaspora to the conquest of the Technological world should instruct us on the negative effect of the current brain drain in the academia.



Sifting across Africa, it is quite easy to see that mere presence of well-funded research centres with heavy incentives for competent researchers will catalyze technological growth. One does not have to be a genius in the real sense to invent or discover. The inventors and discoverers of the past were mainly intellectual dissidents. Some may have passed as mere nitwits who questioned established truths of existence. Like Galileo Galilei, almost branded a heretic and personally handed, by Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino, an admonition warning him off teaching or even advocacy of Copernican astronomy. Like Albert Einstein, termed a dunce by his teachers but who grew to propound the theory of relativity that revolutionized the intellectual world. Like Leonardo Da Vinci, Henry Ford, Hans Christian Anderson and many others, who suffered one learning incapability or the other but conquered the world.



The greatest bane to growth of Science and Technology in Nigeria, nay Africa, is the prevalence of superstitious belief. We amplify coincidences to explain away observed phenomena. Would Newton have arrived at the various laws of gravity if he had explained away the falling of the apple to the ground instead of upwards? When the African mentality was not in the way, there obtained parents stereotyping of Children’s academic orientation. The parents already knew before the child was born, which courses they MUST do. Thus the natural flair of the child was negated, talent was wasted, and frustration and disorientation follow. The upshot was the continued churning out of half-baked graduates and outright miscreants.



Monumental corruption is another disincentive. The acclimatization of corruption in Nigeria is a worst form of dis-ingenuity we ever evinced. The wrong role models are created. Any endeavour that did not translate into quick wealth was a nuisance. The rigours of academic discipline were unappealing, why will it when certificates are purchased over the counter, when a wave of global counterfeiting has submerged the sane world? The result is prevalence of immediate-effect initiatives, Frankenstein’s monsters and demonized society on the edge of paralysis.



Nigeria can still be salvaged and repositioned for leadership roles in Science and Technology in Africa and the world. There is a role begging to be played. There is, hard to believe, technological stagnation in our material world, a problem caused by the syndrome of regarding any new invention or discovery as a way out in advancement. A more objective appraisal would show that not even the so-called developed countries are developed in the real sense. By what indices of attainment are they? They are developed only in comparison to the less fortunate countries, derogatorily tagged the third world. Development is not a closed system. Our material world, if you have a technological eye-view, is replete with crude devices and resources that beg for refinement. If only we accept it that way, and Countries like the USA, Germany, and even, laugh it off, our dear Nigeria, recognize that they too are backward, we can attain in no distant time, an advancement that would otherwise materialize in subsequent centuries.





Thinking outside the box in solution to problems of electricity supply in Nigeria is imperative, in addition to the present nuclear options being canvassed. Whenever I see electric poles and high-tension cables, I have the sense of being taken centuries behind. Electronic lights are long overdue. Can light impulses be transmitted through the ionosphere, over great distances, to be received at source as quanta of light with the use of remote sensors for use in our various homes? For another instance, when sound enters our handsets, they are excited in one way or the other, some even beep with light. Is this excitation convertible to steady light by any obscure mechanism? A situation will then arise where light is quartered out to subscribers by means of intelligent devices mobile or installable. Tall dream, you may say. But it is a fact we find difficult to accept, that so many hitherto impossibilities can be conquered by even a so-called third world like Nigeria, only if we can dare. So many near-magical inventions were given birth to by mechanisms so disappointing in their very simplicity. Just like the switch that completes a circuit.



Can we dream of computerization, of industrialization as a way out of our technological logjam? Competently funded research centres can truly put Nigeria on the cutting edge of Technology. We have a lot to give the world. Like, for instance, computerized kitchens, in which you log on in your house in Nigeria and would be washing a dish for grandma resident in London! Like development of zero fatality softwares that make accidents impossible! Like industrialization of the entire country through establishment of cottage industries and commercial scale industries, sourcing from abundant local raw materials. To gain the attention and respect of the world we have to be unique. We have to, like the Chinese did, give the world African brand of Science and Technology; we must eschew the present recycle process.



CLARIUS UGWUOHA, a public affairs analyst, writes from Egbema.

quid:
But why are you changing direction now?

The title reads: "POEM: To Nnamdi . . ."

The poem is obviously NOT about any Nnamdi. It was written long before "he" came to limelight.

GMBuhari:
Make a poem shecow if he inspires you too

Shecow doesn't inspire me o! lol

quid:
no poem for Shekau?

Hehehehehehehehe.
This is a satirical poem o. It is taunting at those who see something wrong only when they are not in charge.
Once they are there they forget and become like those they criticize. It is aimed at no one in particular but humans in general!

Ibu and romantic face. I comment my reserve.

To Nnamdi whose idiocy inspires me


he stands marking time
and when he moves
round and round a circle he roves

our problem is one of attitude
if I must replace him
i must learn to be prim

and move forward with zeal
not shall i look back
like a quack

or whet my tongue
on Nnamdi who preceded me
but since i have had to replace him

i have failed to improve
upon him, now my anger has melted since
i can see the wisdom in marking time
and roving in a circle
like Nnamdi who preceded me!

Clarius Ugwuoha

O boy, are you really there? What is really special about that slut? Are you bewitched or something? I do not think you need to make this post at all. You should know what to do. She is begging you over what? That girl has little or no respect or regard for you. You have greatly underrated and debased yourself in her sight. She can never see you as a man any day. She will continue to underrate you. You seem to have self-esteem issues. Whatever qualities she parades is out there in tens and hundreds for the asking. Stop being a wussy. It is disgraceful to even think of the possibility of accepting her back.

Too sad. Human life is human life. It is improper to take it, more so that of vulnerable women and children.

Well, what he did was unprofessional. He abused the trust reposed in him by his boss. It is called conflict of interest. He ought to have handled the matter professionally. If there were to be any backlash he would lose everything - the oga's trust, his job and his integrity. This is the kind of sentiment that left Nigeria the way it is. We ought to divorce sentiments from professionalism.

eezeribe:
Is he mummy's boy
Wasn't he living as a bachelor in a separate apartment
was he living with her before the wedding
can't she be visiting him once in a while
Is he relocating to outer space

Women hate each other. A rival is taking over her place in his heart!

The lesson: beware of the measure you give even to the worst of your enemies. The table can be turned against you any day and you wont fare any better. If Doe hadn't executed his captives or paraded them naked, he wouldn't have fared that way in the hands of the rebels. It was essentially a revenge mission.

Beosten:
I grew up in a town where there were four government primary schools. Note that there was nothing like private schools there in those days. I was a popular pupil then, because I was winning inter-school competitions for my school. I was a class captain throughout, and senior prefect.

I repeated this feat in my secondary school, and became almost a household name in a town of over 50 thousands dwellers. My type should have worked harder to earn good grades in the university, and probably get retained. But I was hustling to fund the education, and consequently shared my time between earning money and lectures. So, handouts and photocopies were my learning aids. I graduated with second class lower.

My fame soared when, during my university days, my school principal invited me to teach finalists Mathematics due to dearth of teachers.

Fast forward to 2017, no job is forthcoming. A brother of mine from a different mother now owns a car and an auto-mechanic shop. He was known as a very poor student because people wondered at such discrepancy in IQ of related brothers.

To keep body and soul together, I'm doing a job that requires me rendering a service from door to door everyday. I make at least 25k in this job monthly compared to 13k these proprietors are offering me--their argument is that B.Tech degree is not suitable for teaching. It's a common knowledge that only the uneducated and street urchins do this kind of job I do now.

Now I rendered the service to a couple who happened to know me back in the days. I couldn't recognize them at first. The wife was a classmate of mine with four children while the husband was a senior student in our high school then. The husband recalled how the then English teacher used me to ridicule the SS3 students to which he belonged. They couldn't pronounce 'colonel' correctly. So, he shopped for me in JS1 and I got it right. Living in a city now, I didn't think of it that I could easily run into my contemporaries.

"Is this not Yemi?" he asked rhetorically. "Didn't you proceed to the higher institution? How come you are doing this kind of job?" he continued.

The wife reminded me of her name, and I recognized her.

If 17k is used for feeding, 2k for consumables monthly, how much will I be able to save to start a decent business? Note that responsibilities like parents and siblings in needs make it difficult to have savings.

Venting one's frustrations on keyboard these days is soothing, so I'll advice you be like me.

My brother, you got it all wrong. This is the result you have when you compare yourself with others. You have it. It is in you to excel. How will you regret going to the university? How will you compare yourself to an illiterate with car and shop? The funny thing is that while you are sleepless, they too are feeling inferior they never got the opportunity to see the four walls of a university. Most of these people can give an arm to have a degree.

Back to starting off slowly. That is the normal thing for those who had spent years in the university. Almost all your counterparts who did not attend a higher institution tend to be miles ahead. But mind you nothing is static. I had a similar case. Two years after graduation with good honours, I was still doing menial teaching jobs. A shop owner in the neighbourhood just called me one day and told me that all my degrees were for nothing. That all my mates were married, had money, etc. Blah Blah. This kind of comment was enough to kill one's spirit. I understood it was a general view and he was the one close enough to convey it. My response? I laughed it off telling him everyone had their day. Well, two years later, I had job. These mates were queuing for assistance. Well, the shop owner was still in the neibourhood.

You have a degree. You can not unhave it. You have to be proud of it. I think you have come to start feeling inferior to others. The classmates you overwhelmed in the past can not stop holding you in awe. It is there. On record and cannot be unrecorded. That they happen to be more comfortable today doesn't change the story. You were still the infant terrible they adored and admired. The case tomorrow despite their seeming better start today is unpredictable. Time and chance happeneth to them all.

Now, your take. Package yourself. Do not lose yourself searching for jobs. Let jobs search for you! Paid employ is overhyped. There are many things you can do to manage an own job and employ people! No salary earner ever earned a place in Forbes list. But for a start, you have to work on your mind and imagination. You have to queue in to the doorstep of greatness. Instead of thinking about 12k and 17k, picture yourself signing cheques worth millions for your employees!. It will at first sound ridiculous to you because of that known human barrier that resists change of that sort. But with time and repetitions, you will come to believe it. When you have come to believe it, the next phase is, how and what can I do to get there? You alone can gauge your potentials. If we discuss privately I can assist you on that score. Once you have mapped out the road, you are there! Gbam. Grab it.

So stop whining and regretting. There is nothing to regret. Your destiny is in your hands! Read the life of great men and you will find a common thread. None had it so easy. The crowning glory was turning stumbling blocks into stepping stones. If the gds want you to fly high, they make the grounds on which you walk too hot!

It might not be Nigerian flag but that of Andalusian Autonomous Community in Spain. There is a close resemblance.

Why not politely ask her about it as though joking? Her response will highlight if it was intentional or not. Anyway, it isn't an issue unless there are things you haven't told us.

babyboy4every1:
Eggs and little snails

That is great of you. I need the e-book on snail and grass-cutter farming. I once had a grass-cutter farm but inexperience cut it short.
Email: clarius.ugwuoha@yahoo.com

HungerBAD:
The Coward.

Who care's about Ojukwu's speech?history don't remember losers. He lost the War he started and ran away, dressed a like woman to Ivory Coast.

Coward.

Diepreye Alamieyeseigha learned his dressing like a woman to escape skills from Ojukwu.

That said.

Who is the DARK SKIN beautiful lady seated to the right?now that is somebody worth mentioning.

You are the real coward for daring to insult Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu.
You in your entire lifespan can never do one quarter of what Ojukwu achieved at age 33 only.

eph123:
You guys should stop this nonsense.

Tribal sentiment is our number one national enemy. The tribalist forgot that the so-called Afonja rescued the boy. Haba.

And the dog looked so seriously meditative! Hehehehe

MrBrownJay1:
How is this poor governance?! No car was available to fix the issue (probably dealing with another emergency), is that so difficult to understand?! Stop comparing Africa to the west where such issues are dealt with on the spot.

You just perjured yourself. What a contradiction? You evidently pointed to poor governance while trying to defend it. Too sad.

johnydon22:
Africans can be terribly stupid: Corpse refused to be buried and take villagers to the house of it's killers, baam when you check you see people carrying the corpse. why isnt the corpse taking them there on it's own without humans having to carry it.. ndi nzuzu everywhere

If I have not witnessed a similar scenario, I will be inclined to dismissing this post. But something of this sort happened before my adult eyes. A corpse refused to move in a particular direction and was leading the pall bearers away from their chosen path. It was a real tug of war. you don't need to be told it was real as the pallbearers strained fruitlessly to have their way.

MARKone:
Ola niyi

Rama Otu.

Yem isi ( give me head)
Ola niyi ( Futureless)
Rama otu ( hmmm, too heavy. I no go interpret o)

sexy74:
I get am before truly is not a property, but remember history is there to teach.
Lagos being the most important state in the west does not make its Oba superior.
From what's learnt is that Oba of Lagos, is the head of white capped chiefs, please correct me if am wrong.
Ooni ,even if younger is still more recognized and more cultured than Akiolu who talks anyhow.

Is Akiolu Oba of Lagos Island or Lagos State? I need to know please. We speak as though he reigns over the entire Lagos State.

I don't understand this culture of parading or even lynching petty thieves while the main looters who impoverished everyone are celebrated! This one is simply hungry.

This is epic. Resilience at its best.

Godswillnwaoma:
fertility in men does not drop after 40yrs, a man can pregnant a woman ever after 70 yrs.

That it drops doesn't mean men become infertile at 40. It means that the virility reduces. That is fact. A boy of 18 to 29 is more virile than he will be when he reaches say 40 or 50.

A laudable initiative. However, it is much safer to state that the Kano State Government donated not Governor Ganduje as in the caption. I am not sure he actually did. Kano State Government did.