Dealing with Christmas stress in Lagos

After such a long wait for it, at last, Christmas is here again. While many have called it the most wonderful time of the year, others call it the most stressful time of the year. Whereas, there is a third group that are of the opinion that it is a bit of both.

I have over the years moved across the three divides. Growing up, I was responsible for few things so I had all the time to enjoy Christmas and my opinion was that Christmas is such a great season. As a grown up now, with the influx of responsibilities and the dynamics of Lagos traffic situation, I soon convinced myself that to say Christmas is a great season is the farthest thing from the truth. Over the years however, I have through constant exploration and ingenuity discover options that helps me strike a balance.

So, where is the major source of our stress at Christmas? First, almost everybody has the same routine. Especially in a place like Lagos, most people go to work between Mondays and Fridays and in a very religious environment like Nigeria, a Sunday is too sacred for anyone to go to the market. This leaves almost everybody with a singular option-shop on Saturday. When you get to the market on Saturday, it is flooded by people of like passion and it does not respect how early you wake up to do it, there will always be earlier risers.

What really is the problem? In an urban environment like Lagos, the number of middle class citizens is always on the rise. Middle-class citizenship also comes with middle-class responsibilities and middle-class desires. For instance, a middle class desire is the need to own a car. Having a car in itself is not the problem, it becomes a burden when the existing infrastructures (road) earmarked for this cars are not upgraded with the same speed with which people are en-massing into middle-class citizenship and buying more cars. The effect of this is seen in the constant traffic on Lagos roads.

 In order to break through the barrier of traffic and fulfill their responsibilities of leaving early for work from Monday to Friday, the middle-class people have to wake up early and close late. While this is a solution, it also creates another problem-No time together as a family. The Christmas season and the various attached holidays are expected to provide this time with the family but it is also a time to buy things, more predominantly food items.

To save yourself stress, turn to internet technologies. You don’t have to visit the PHCN office before you get your bills paid neither do you have to visit any office of your cable TV providers before you can subscribe, most amazingly you don’t have to visit the market to buy pepper, tomatoes, fresh food, bag of rice or any supermarket product. Using a website like Supermart.ng for instance gives you access to over 70,000 items ranging from local products to foreign brands, baby product, cosmetics and many more. In fact, you will order and wait for it to be delivered the same day in as early as three hours and you can sit back and spend the time with your family rather than moving round the market without hope that what you set out to buy will be available and for the budgeted price.

This Christmas season, keep the stress in check and double your dose of wonder, with a little strategic rethinking about the Yuletide, the source of what usually stress you out and leverage on technology to give yourself the rest you deserve. This season comes only once in a year, make the most of it.

The blind man showed me the way

The sight of the event kept me wandering if he was really blind, the encounter took me back to the dictionary to check if my definition of disability is actually correct. If a blind man can confidently lead a man with not one eye but two, then who is the disabled. Trust me my place of primary assignment is getting more and more interesting by the day.

By the way, it may interest you to know where I was posted for my primary assignment. It is the Enugu state special education school, now, the word special in the name of the school simply meant that it is place for the challenged students- the blind, deaf and dumb to be more specific. When I first saw it on my posting letter at the parade ground on the passing out day, I was angry but I summon courage from within to overcome every scorn from other corp member, soon, I became so proud of it that I began to shout it on the roof top- I am posted to SPECIAL SCHOOL!

However, when I got to the school, I was out rightly rejected, that sounded interesting because I already had another alternative, the police college was ready to accept me with a decent accommodation of 2 bedroom flat and full responsibilities for my health insurance but I was ready to dare the impossible, I wanted to serve indeed, I really want to know and feel what it feels never to be able to recognize colours, to know how it feels to have so much to say but limited in speech, to see people getting excited by what they hear but never understands the reason for their laughter.

Now I’m deviating from the matter, how the blind man led the way. A blind man came to our school after a long period and he was having difficulty locating the exact place where he was going. It was exactly at this time that he met me, he simply ask “ hello, can you please help me to Mrs Igbokwe’s place?” I hesitated and I answered, “ I just arrived yesterday sir, I practically don’t know anywhere here” he said he was very sure the bungalow is somewhere around where we stand, that made my work easier, there are two buildings there, the one on the right is a classroom so the one on the left must be for Mrs. Ogbokwe. While I was still ruminating over this, another blind woman appeared holding the hand of a blind man and leading him to Mrs. Igbokwe’s residence, hmm, what a coincidence!. To cut the story short the same woman offered to help my new friend and they all insisted that I follow them to know the place. Although I had my two eyes, they showed the way, even in their sightlessness.

A KING DETHRONED BY AREA BOYS

Ha! Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the city of ashkeloth, except on the blog of Alofun Oluwatayo, otherwise the daughters of philistine might rejoice. How are the mighty fallen their weapon of war seized by mere hoodlums. It is with great disappointment and heart full regret that I stand here today to tell you about how our King was dethroned, not by the kingmakers with the use of empty calabash as it used to be in the days of old but with area boys. O ma se o !

Hmm!!!, wonders shall never end! can you imagine? The paramount ruler of Calabar South Local Government Area of Cross River State, his royal highness Effiong Mbukpa, was on Wednesday beaten and chased out of his palace by thugs allegedly sponsored by the factional kingmakers (Muris) contesting the throne.

Intelligent report has it that the factional group of the kingmakers invaded the palace with suspected area boys when Mbukpa and the Palace Secretary, Godwin Bassey, who is also the Secretary of Efut Combined Assembly, were having a meeting. The group allegedly broke into the palace, destroyed the monarch’s royal stool removed his cap, his cell phones, broke his portrait and carted away documents from the office of the palace secretary.

Well, the spokesman for the group, Maurice Eyo, however denied that they entered the palace with thugs, claiming that their position was that Mbukpa, who he described as an imposter, should not parade himself as the paramount ruler. He said, “The people that entered here first were the army, and the Department of Public Transportation, they entered here first. Nobody can say that we entered here with thugs. We should have not invited the army if we wanted to enter here with thugs.“We would not have invited the police, and the navy. We invited them because we wanted peace and sanity that is why they entered first.”

Efforts of the state Security Adviser, who told the Muris to go with him to the office of the State Commissioner of Police were rebuffed as they told him that it was a traditional matter and that government should not have any business with it.

Good point, that is the part of the story that I like, if the matter was really traditional, they should have simply employ the method of empty calabash to send the king to the celestial abode or better still, employ the gods to remove him and replace him with the right man.

Narrating his ordeal, the monarch said the thugs he alleged were sponsored by one of the claimants to the throne, Prof. Ita Hogan, came with the cover of security agents to beat him up and destroyed his property.”

Mbukpa alleged that the factional group took the action because Chairman of the state Traditional Council had advised the group to use force to take over the palace, adding that the police witnessed what happened.

Waoh! What is happening, I remember thatIn those days, the kings are feared, their word is authority, in fact, they are called the second in command to the gods, if a king is not dead another will never rise, however, the entrance of civilization has changed so many things, in fact if I’m not also comfortable with the reign of my king today… I know what to do. KABIYESI O

The arrest of 13 Journalists, a professional assault

Ehn!… wait o, let me guess, it must be a joke right? Of course we can’t be serious. Not one, not two, not ten, in fact, not even a dozen, 13 able bodied men, sorry, not just mere men, 13 members of the fourth estate of the realm (journalists) were publicly insulted, assaulted and eventually arrested at the Ikeja magistrate court, Kai, heaven wept!

Top profile journalists like Wale Busari, a judiciary correspondent with Silverbird Television, was grabbed by the clothes and dragged away. Ha! Everyone must hear this.

That is not all, as if that wasn’t enough, his resistance from arrest led other judiciary workers in the area to clamp down on other journalists, which included Francis Iwuchukwu of Peoples Daily, Henry Ojeluh of PM News/The News, Yejide Gbenga-Ogundare of the Nigerian Tribune, Solomon Asowata of the News Agency of Nigeria and Akinwale Akintunde of Thisday. Others were Yetunde Ayobami-Ojo of The Guardian, Nurudeen Oyewole of Daily Trust, Shola Shoyele, Channels Television; Gbenga Shoyele, Nigerian Compass; Ranti Thomas,  Moment Newspapers; Bisi Onanuga, The Nation; and Yemi Adebanjo,  News Star newspapers.

To add insult to the most painful part of the injury, the camera of the Channels Television camera man, who was recording the incident got was seized.

What really happened? how did it get to that point, that my brothers, protectors of democracy and public interested were publicly treated like criminals without any regard for the dignity of their profession of all things at least. From the report, a female prosecutor, identified as Rose had raised her voice and asked journalists who were along the court corridor to vacate the place. An argument subsequently ensued between the prosecutor and the journalists as the latter urged the prosecutor to be civil in her approach. Simple ethical request! But Magistrate A.A Oshoniyi, whose attention was drawn by the argument, made the simple request into a simply complex one by ordering the immediate arrest of the journalists.

Although, following the intervention of the Court Registrar, Mr. Ganiu Safari, and officials of the Nigeria Bar Association, Ikeja branch, Police Area Commander, Mr. Noah Adesoyin, later released them, there are a couple of dangling questions waiting impatiently for answers.

What on earth could be so bad that journalists who are supposed to be the fourth arm of the government were treated like mere everyday criminals, whatever is the situation, a simple caution and peaceful resolution will do, not an arrest?

Again, another question is, will the release of these journalists be the end of the public show of shame that the journalism was subjected to? One key thing that the journalist Unions and Associations must understand is this; that insult is not against the 13 journalists in their individual capacities, it is an institutional insult on the profession, it is a signal of total disregard for the media, it is a mess of everything we mean as custodians of truth, it is a professional assault and must be treated as such.