Random Thots of a Naija Male

Today I go to Benin...

2011-10-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

Today I go to Benin. I am excited for I haven’t been to the land of my birth and education in the five years past since I bade the rusted gates of my Alma mata peace and goodbye and set off deeper into country seeking love, fortune and other attendant pleasures. Much has gone by in the seasons past. Voice has deepened, shoulders broadened, insight is keen, and cock has mastered skill at pleasing the delights that head would lure. I am a man of means, limited though they may seem to the grand yearnings of he who earns them, but means nonetheless.

My friend gets married, and would set sail from the white sands and calm waters of bachelorhood. I go to mourn him, and with it seize opportunity to console eyes with easier sights; sights of my childhood, sights once held dear, sights faded in memory that I have for long yearned to behold again. I want to see again the museum, for it holds within its high wall and lichened moats, among rusted relics and diverse histories the best memories of time spent in that great town.

I have taken Friday off for “the roads are bad and you must set off early” everyone says. And so I’m up before dawn is cracked, taking care not to waken early bird or worm as I rise from restless sheets and make my way to the park. The sky throngs with stars as does the park with people, stumbling about, bad breath and sleepy eyes, most of whom are clad in jeans and t shirts, the occasional dashiki and a sense of purpose, all inappropriate apparel for this hour, a distraction that could only be made right with the breaking of day. The air is cold, her grasping fingers steel upon the flesh. A shiver plays along my spine, unsure in purpose, up and down and everywhere with the inexperience of a boy on his first date. There is already a small queue. Two empty buses stand with meals of stacked bags, people and people-things spread out before gaping maw of open doors. I make my way towards the ever lengthening queue and form the tail. My two companions are arrived already and stand ahead of me in the queue embroiled in deep discuss about… whatever it is people discuss pre-dawn. I nod acknowledgement to hands raised in greeting. I wait my turn, alone amidst company, bag heavy on back, anticipation heavy on mind, fingers heavy on blackberry keys. My excitement breathes.

Tickets are bought and I am united with my companions, “hellos and how’ve you beens” swing back and forth like the chronographs on my Casio. The buses have had their fill. I settle in, wearing my seat, the musky smell of travellers clinging like the fingers of a pesky child even before I’ve done mile one. The air conditioning is doubtful, serving only in providing solace from the cold outside. Engines are started, Prayers are said. I make the sign of the cross to glints of discovery and acknowledgement of my Catholicism in the eyes around me. I shrug deeper, tightening the seats around me. “There has been no security check” are my last thoughts as warm fingers pull me under.

I awaken twice during the journey. Once to plug in white ear buds to drown out the intrusive blare of stereotyped Africa coming from the in bus entertainment, the symphonic shrieking of Sharon den Adel of Within Temptation making apt replacement.

The second is to the grating of doors being pulled back. So much for the bad roads. We are arrived.

I clamber down from the bus, breathing in the fiery red air of the nodal town, eyes hungry, ears yearning and my first impressions of Benin after five years of being away are… disappointment. The city is unchanged. The skyline as seen from the bus park remains the same, decrepit buildings, paint peeling, roof falling apart affairs housing unaccredited pharmacies, pirated cd shops and the budget eateries of questionable hygiene that are commonplace in these parts. Cars long abandoned by owners and their mechanics dot the roadsides, the “for sale” signs on their roofs barely discernible through thick layers of dirt and dust. We are now less one; our third deciding to go on to the next stop. My companion and I make our way next door to Omega restaurant to await our host who comes to pick us up.

The nostalgic sameness previewed outside persists. Omega remains omega. Once a place of destination for the rich kid student, it remains as it was, cool, if this was five years ago. The tile topped tables still stand five on each side of the room, flanking an aisle that leads deep into the bowels of the building, unchecked only by a counter and a flurry of activity. They are more a testament of the carpenters craftsmanship than of current trends in modern furnishing. The place is two thirds empty, regardless all ten overhead fans are at full blast, ruffling clothing, snatching cellophanes recently wrapped around food and twirling them high up in the air like a mini hurricane and filling our noses with the stench of ill prepared food. Our appetites already turned away from whatever fares may be offered here, we make to sit, plunking our bags down on tile tops, pulling out five year old chairs and easing unto them, hoping they do not break.

They do not. we are largely ignored so we sit watching, waiting, careful where we put our hands in that cautious way of wary travellers in a foreign town, for to us, in this year, in its sameness Omega and we fear, Benin is foreign to us in its stagnancy, a relic in an age of fast paced development. Wires crisscross walls, connecting fans, lights and TVs to power outlets- trunked cabling clearly a luxury in this gritty town. It is hot, the wonders of air-conditioning absent, the winds raised by dusty fans impotent against stifling august heat. CRT’S are perched precariously on elevated ledges just as memory serves. Out modeled CRT’s that have no doubt been put out of production and support withdrawn by parent companies in the orient. Nothing is changed here, flattened mounds of eba are still carried back and forth by waiters, black and white clad youths with sagging pants and uncultured speak. We sit unattended, Management still stubbornly ignorant of the wonders of a polite reception, still aloof in their enforcement of a courteous stay and as we leave I notice, still horridly unaware of the fact that hamburgers made with fresh vegetables and meat should be refrigerated and not kept in 200 watt heated display cases.

Our host has arrived, and without means of transport too so we are forced to seek one out. He comes to take us to our lodgings…the welcoming home of a dear friend and fellow lagosian. We make our way across the road, a relatively easy task for this is a town to which speed and hurry are “unarrived” strangers and the drivers chug along in petrol engine carts like they were horse drawn. We thumbs up, thumbs down, wave our hands and damn well step into the path of numerous taxis but theres something about our modern presence that breeds rejection and we are largely ignored or swerved around. Darkening skies the color of rain soon lend desperation to our need and in no time we are clambering into the backs of one of the numerous tuke tukes’s that had all the while sought our attention but been blessed with our disdain.

The air in the bus is musty, as of buildings empty yet once lived in. we all three settle into the last row that stands empty and pull up the draw bridge that is the foldable seat of the row in front that has given us entrance. Each row seats four. We are three, My companions and I. The din is unbearable. I look behind the seat and sure enough there it sits. The battered drum the size of which I’ve never seen in open market or put to other use, attached to cheap large speakers playing last years tunes like it was last year. Which would be fine in itself but for the unapologetic brazenness of the amped up volume and the little fact that this, today, is this year. The beats are muffled, the bass is much too deep, treble present but declaring itself in so shrill a manner as to be very subtly annoying initially but finger nail biting hair wrenchingly annoying on prolonged exposure, the overall effect nothing like the producers of said beats would have been familiar with upon completion of their production. We settle down as best we can for what we know could only be an uncomfortable ride. We do not bother with conversation, for like this sentence that would be too much bother. I instead lend my attention to the city outside. Perched high up on our “rattly” steed we are gifted a vantage eye with which to take in the city and as we pass through its veins towards gut, little argument is made by the town to nay my initial impressions. I peer through semitransparent windows, milky plastic long taking the stead of glass. It is a town of red earth and dirt, crashed dreams, piles of dirt and of a people in blissful ignorance cursed. The face of the city is unchanged. Run down buildings with gaping holes revealing an inviting darkness into their roofs, rusted signage’s and broken down cars , all line sides of roads, my favorite potholes call out to me as we pass bye, making hurried introductions to the newcomers that I do not recognize. Hurry is unnecessary for there is time enough to say hello to all as the bus picks its way around, across and through each one. Drivers are honking madly as each tries to best the other at each obstacle like it’s some huge dirt rally, shaking fists and yelling out curses each time there’s a close shave. I hear them cursing in their local language that appears well suited for such purposes for in Benin everyone drives with windows wound down, air conditioning long sacrificed on the altar of ill-conceived economy. We make two or three more stops than is necessary for my testy patience, every time waving intent to our conductor of paying for the last seat which in practicality is already non available, more a negative to the size of the seats than its occupants. At every stop the bus belches and gorges out passengers of the usual ilk. Market women with large dripping baskets of produce, university age boys and girls dressed in a manner that tells that they really can’t afford the blackberry phones they carry, middle aged women with talcum powder applied generously on faces and neck like over the top was the new subtle.

It is a long drive across town to the GRA where we are headed, made even more so by roads once smooth now riddled with potholes, a town offering little yet swelling in population, drains nonexistent- paid for yet stubbornly un-built. We pass by the usual familiars, Kaydees, Kings Medical Laboratory, Parkland Memorial Clinic, all remain as serves memory, caught in a strange limbo of neglect, stubbornly refusing to go into ruin, and yet unable to advance towards the light, a portrait of the decadence, selfishness and greed that has kept them so. The ancient city remains ancient, cursed with all of its old woes, new ones chasing out what few blessings it once possessed. We pass by the local furniture and brass shops, wood and metal a long standing and inherent essence of the city. The brass works displayed outside shops remain compelling, exquisite in their production and finish as far as I can tell peering through plastic; a positive yet on this town though I fear that tosin the carpenter down my street at ajah has out designed the furniture makers here, a long standing heritage effortlessly lost to more enterprising minds.

We get to the ring road, the central district of the town and we alight to a group of scraggy individuals pouring liquid tar from beaten out of shape metal buckets onto a neatly cut out square section of road, a hydraulic driven hand press idling nearby. Like Icarus my spirits are gifted wings at this welcome sight of repair, but only temporarily as I take in the rest of the road, bumpy and undulating, riddled with more potholes than that puny Press can handle. I turn my gaze from the folly of their efforts and we make our way from our Park to another where we will take a cab into town, sun screaming down, beating head, melting wings and making sweat.

Walking the short distance between parks is a real hassle. Freed from the voodoo of slow drivers and their cars, the people relish in a newly gifted speed to their heels, walking with a sense of purpose keener than rick warrens, not looking where they are going nor caring. We pick our way gently through throng made one in mindlessness, dodging the motorbikes persistent in their struggle to take back the makeshift sidewalks, skirting the outstretched arms of beggars and immigrant children, pushing away the calculator grasping greed of black-market vendors looking to trade you currency.

We arrive at the park and argue fare with a ratty fellow; small sharp teeth, slim eyes, pointy nose. we do the back and forth that I hate so much because it always ends up with one party getting cheated (which Is why I shop at ShopRite because those tags represent costs, expenses and profit percentages, and numbers do not lie). We settle for a thousand bucks. We get cheated but we don’t mind. It’s far less than we’re accustomed to paying in Lagos. Once again we clamber into a vehicle of questionable road worthiness. My head hurts. First thing I do is look in the boot. It’s a hatchback, hatch long gone, presenting untrammelled vision into the boot. Rags, a couple of Total engine oil gallons and a broom. God is merciful. No drum. Homo Rodentia reaches below the wheel and starts the engine , striking two wires and pumping his clutch vigorously in an orchestra of sparkly sound, dull thudding and exhaustive breathing that crescendos in the epileptic sputtering to life of engines in a puff of milky white smoke and soft groan of metal.

The taxi is a mess. Yawning holes where stereo once rested, steering bleeding wires and circuits like someone had taken a knife and slit its throat, the doors and seats long stripped of upholstery straight down to chip wood and foam. All considered luxuries thrown overboard like a ship on the brink of ruin.

We push off, across the heart of the city and towards the GRA. In retrospect we realize that The Ring Road is the only well maintained road in the town, smooth and free of potholes.

We go past the museum and with difficulty my excitement is reborn. I make a note to not forget to visit and store it in mental slot three. Right behind

1. Get home and take a pill.
2. Not that many pills Chukky.

We make our way past the Obas palace with its red mud walls and the uncommon- in- any- other- town sight of bats migrating in midday and into the GRA. It’s not much better here. The airport road is riddled with potholes the size of which a pedestrian would have to trapeze across, PREST hotel once the highlight of the city passing unnoticed, as do the Glass house and ST PAULS. Otopec is noticed though, more from the sheer size of its estate than from its profoundness. There’s noting to tell it remains Otopec for the orange signboard engraved in the mind of me as a child is long fallen, its proprietors seeing no need for replacement. With popularity matching and almost exceeding the contour shape of a coca cola bottle who cares about a new masthead.

We progress further inland, spine all rattled, sweat pores working overtime, eyes still voraciously feeding on the scenes of death and destruction of a city once loved, unable to look away as if from human remains at the scene of an accident.

It is quieter in the GRA far away from the soaring roars of hardship in the central area. We travel on, past the airport control tower and the Benson Idahosa hospital, winding down bumpy roads and signboards propped up by calabashes of sacrifice, all rotted and maggoty, the freshest of which stand apart from the others gleaming an oily red reestablishing the continued existence of the towns fetish beliefs. There is construction going on in this part of town. Was. Red earth is upturned, cement tiles lie in neat stacks at intermittent breaks along uncompleted road work creeping vines slowly inching their way to the top, large concrete water pipes lie abandoned, expending natural lives above ground. Weeping willows line the streets in the GRA, much cause given them to bear such names and exist.

A couple of hours into the decay and a few hundred yards from our destination we are stopped by a local band of police who casually ask us to dismount the vehicle. Hastily unwrapped eko bravado is just as hastily put away to the casual swing of the conversation end of Soviet made, government issued AK-47’S and we dismount, standing broken but unhurt by the side of the road, a band of not so merry travelers and watch as corporal 648732 nonchalantly confiscates the keys of our mount from hamster guy and drives away like they were old friends. We soon realize that our journey with the ferret is done and a half price later we continue on down the road on feet, urged on by the mtn transmitted goading of our would be host that we do not have far to travel. We trudge on, along oddly dirt tracks, odd for they are flanked on both sides by affluence. Vulgar overbuilt mansions erected in unapologetic cock measuring displays of wealth, left now to rot and decay, brick and stone showing more resistance to time than wealth and affluence, leaving in its wake peeling paint, overgrown lawns, and twenty eight rooms occupied only by diabetic mum, arthritic dad and serving maid. Even in the lair of the wealthy Benin is apparent. Perhaps it’s the red earth that makes it look so retro in a non-sexy way, its airborne children coated on everything painting perfectly with broad brushstrokes a compelling picture of a town, old, abandoned and rusted. A dusty red on its buildings, its trees, its people. They are none of the latter on the road, we are alone as we walk the rest of the distance to a green roof under which we suspect we will be spending the night, our feetfalls along with rustlings in the bush and unseen chirps in the air creating an eeriness reminiscent of a ghost town, for ghost town Benin is, except the electricity still carries charge, the water still flows and the people still breathe.

Even the skies haven’t changed. Still dark and overcast on a Friday. Rain never falling, impotent in its rage, a thrusting man never attaining fulfillment, and remaining so till I left.

We are eventually rendezvoused with our host and ushered into his green roofed home. It is warm and cozy, a stark contrast to the realities of outdoors, almost paradoxical like the cosy smiles and the beaming hugs that accompany an already appreciated welcome. We are barely settled into warm accommodations with exquisite trappings when we are summoned downstairs for dinner. Pounded yam and huge chunks of fresh fish…with a little egusi to go with. We eat briskly and spend the rest of the evening chatting and catching up. We are content.

We were under strict supervision, men though we are, by the well-meaning parents of our host and so were unable to sample the cities nighttime offerings and as such my comments on that remain as a pregnancy in a man. Undiscovered. However in the cities aesthetics, that surreal invitation looked towards by strangers in a new town, in that initial welcoming promise for excitement… the city fails.

Like me you might not get to see the museum, but any and everything you do see will be a delight to the connoisseur of all things ancient. . Benin is known for its wizardry and its occult, for it is rumored that Its red earth is derived from numerous blood sacrifices made in years past, a renown commonly passed off as explanation for why it never rains on the weekends. It leaves one to wonder; if they can hold rain, how is it they cannot master a task as mundane as laying new brick.

The rest of our stay in Benin is glorious…but only when we are indoors. Snuggled beneath pink sheets, surrounded by pink drapery, with access to pink utilities; Away from rusty red, potholly crashing dreams.

Benin is an eyesore. A town once great many moons ago, a status seemingly elusive in more modern periods. It is a town set in its ways, stout and stubbornly resistant to change. A beast riddled with sores, pus dripping, flies buzzing, turning around in an impotent circle of frustration, unable to get at where it stings to lick itself. As a city of destination this town is a double “no”. As one of transit, set out early and push it on to the next town- Asaba. If you must, spend the night on the other end, arise early and as you set out- like the disciples in biblical times shake the dust off your feet but whatever you do, do not curse, for that would be as kicking a fallen man. Like its religious and commercial programming television stations, this city is failed. There is no joy to be had here.

"sai Buhari, sai chanchi"

2011-07-08T09:15:00.000-07:00

There was blood in his eyes. The world was swirling and from a distance he could hear the soft patter of running feet he knew were his own playing a soft upbeat tune that mingled subtly with the distant wail of sirens and the urgent screams of people in an almost perfect symphony of chaos music. He was running at a controlled pace now, his left arm hanging limply at his side, swinging independently from the rest of his body, no longer able to execute the commands it received from his brain to be still. He looked down at it numbly. He was sure it was broken but he couldn’t feel a thing. Which was funny for he’d always thought a broken arm would hurt. But it didn’t. It just hung there, limp, broken … not hurting. He was breathing normally again, a couple of minutes ago his chest had been heaving so violently that he’d had to slow down to catch his breath. The northern sun was almost directly overhead now as he picked his way in the searing heat , between hastily put together mud huts and semi-brick affairs, over open drains and past small animal pens as he made his way across town towards the military barracks he knew was just up ahead. Even though his lungs had stopped screaming it still hurt to breathe. The air around him was a visible haze, an “eye smarting” mix of the dust clouds typical of the north and wisps of smoke that hung lazily in the air, fed by the thick column that rose strong and black behind him, in the direction from which he’d come, together forming a cloud that hung in midair, taunting, teasing, daring you to breath.

The blood in his eyes was coming from a deep gash in his forehead, smack in the middle of, like it’d been measured out with the set of calipers he used in engineering drawing. He tried to get the blood out, swinging his right arm upwards in a wiping motion, but it kept flowing. He tried again, but it continued, unhindered, un-stemmed and then he looked down and saw why; for where his right hand used to be now rested only a stump. his forearm had been severed just below his elbow and all that was left was a mass of red mangled flesh with about an inch or two of clean cut stark white bone jutting out, little red tendrils of blood running down its sides, off the tip and spattering wildly on his face and clothes as it moved in an impotent effort to get the blood out of his eyes. He remembered now why he had been running and picked up his pace again. His body was in shock and he knew that very soon he would lose consciousness and if that happened here in the middle of the street then surely that would be the end of it. He was still dressed in his green and white “Corpers” uniform and he eventually managed to wipe his eyes with his sleeve, staining the now dust covered white with a vivid red as he gathered the last ounces of his waning will and plodded on towards the barracks. He ran with slow measured steps; the world was happening in slow motion now as his thoughts fought a losing battle to keep up with his actions…

…out of the corner of his eyes he caught a flash of movement, felt a thud and then the blinding sunlight was shining straight down into his face, hurting his eyes and for the first time that day he was glad for the blood that was caking them half shut. There were voices around him now, far off and removed as he slowly realized that he’d been knocked to the ground and was lying on his back, red dust swirling around him, settling on his clothes and on his wounds. He worried about the dust. He wondered how much time it would be before an infection set in. Shadowy voices were slowly joined by shadowy figures. five or six of them and he wondered if it was the same group that had pulled him out of the car in which he’d been travelling this morning and set upon him with machetes and sticks. There was no way to tell for they all looked alike; tall and illiterate with dark sun burnt skin, dust caked lips and eyes that were bloodshot from drinking too much burukutu, the gin brewed locally in terracotta pots and animal skins from the sap of hybrid palm trees. They all dressed in paradoxically western jeans and t-shirts that were worn out and dirty, with fading logos of companies and rock groups that he doubted they knew the meanings of, all chanting the same four words “sai Buhari, sai Chanchi, sai Buhari, sai Chanchi”. We want Buhari, not an unbeliever. Everything was a blur now as he struggled with his consciousness, his eyes, his mind searching for something, anything other than this bigoted drone to latch unto and pull him back. “sai Buhari, sai Chanchi, sai Buhari, sai Chanchi” it continued, the only permanent fixture in his fluctuating consciousness, a steady drone, sometimes loud and filling his ears, other times subdued, almost whispered… but at all times present like a throbbing headache. Then as quickly as they’d appeared, the shadows retreated, save for one that stepped more visibly in front of him, blocking out the sunlight and shedding its shadow for form. It stood there for a minute, a second, he wasn’t sure now for time was a dream, and then there was a flash of light as steel caught sunlight for a moment and disappeared…and came back again. He felt a warm wetness start to spread around his neck, slowly spilling down his neck, his chest, and as the light disappeared a second time, the world began to get cold, and he searched his heart for some sort of emotion. And found none. No anger, no fear, no hate. All he could think of was how quiet the world had become; no chanting, no sirens, no screams; just a palpable unearthly calm that was a stark contrast to how he’d woken up that morning……

He’d woken that morning to the loud cawing of the plantain-eaters that had built their nest in the crevice between the top of the mud walls of his hut and its thatch roof. He’d thought it strange that there were plantain eaters here in the north where there were scarcely any plantain trees. And there was no doubt they were plantain eaters for he was an agricultural major fresh out of the centre for agricultural studies nsukka, a fact that should have only served to stoke his embarrassment for he realized that though the birds bore a certain name, their diet varied widely beyond the naming specifics of their genus…

LIBERATION SQUARE (one of my older stories)

2011-07-07T03:50:00.000-07:00

Ngozi tore through the forest at breakneck speed, his nostrils flared, his lips parched, his heart thumping wildly in his ears as the adrenaline coursed through his body increasing his heart rate and blocking out every other sound save the smack of his running feet as it hit the jungle floor, though there was little to be heard around him for the forest had held its breath the minute he had broken into his wild desperate dash for survival.

“Run”, Ahmed had told him as he came face to face with the tall northerner on the path that led to the town square.

It was the second time he’d ordered him to do something since they first met outside his fathers barn that morning but the first had been punctuated with a kick to the stomach. The thought had barely played out in his head before Ahmed had stepped quickly towards him and for the second time that day planted a green booted kick in his stomach, sending him sprawling into the earth. He raised his automatic rifle, pointed it squarely in his face and re-issued the order. “run” use the forest path and go home to your mother.”

He’d picked himself up from the earth, using his hands to beat the red dust from his fathers white akwa ocha he had put on barely an hour ago in preparation for the dance. “What about Papa…” he said, continuing on towards towards the square and attempting to push Ahmed who cut him off by swinging the butt off his rifle in an upward arc that ended with a thud on the bottom of his jaw sending him staggering backwards and leaving his mouth flooded with the salty taste of blood. “You have to go now” Ahmed said again. Coldly, deathly, threateningly.

He’d made his way towards the edge of the forest, breaking into a run as soon as he entered it, his mind swirling as he recalled the events of that morning, and those of the last few weeks that had led up to it.

It began with the retreat of the Biafran soldiers. His father had become noticeably uneasy the day they started loading their large black cooking pots onto the backs of their trucks and started moving out of town. He remembered thinking it odd, for he had thought his father would be glad to see them leave; the way he complained about them. When he cleaned his teeth in the morning he complained, over the evening meals he complained, and he complained to his sons when they were alone in the farm.

The movement had been gradual, with one or two trucks trundling under the weight of army paraphernalia down the dusty path that led out of the town. The first of the trucks to leave were carrying mostly supplies; pots, pans, broken down equipment , all heaped together on the backs of the trucks, huge mobile junkyards covered with the dusty green tarpaulin sheets the soldier sometimes used to make tents in rainy weather. His father would come muttering into the house wielding one of the yams he’d just retrieved from the barn. “Cowards” he would say spitting in their direction as he stood outside watching the trucks leave. “Why will they not stand and fight? they’ve made it worse for us” he would tell mama as she stirred the morning’s porridge over the kerosene stove.

They had come marching through the town on their way to Benin three weeks ago, looking smart in their deep brown khaki uniforms, the bright yellow image of the rising sun stitched on their shoulders moving in perfect unison as they passed through, an unbroken line of liberation chanting victory songs in guttural voices, their stomping feet raising tiny plumes of red harmattan dust. The whole town had come out to watch them, the women whipping out their white handkerchiefs and dancing merrily around the soldiers, singing songs of praises, blessing them and wishing them success on their mission. The men stood in front of the houses looking on approvingly, the children huddled close around their feet, their expressions somewhere between puzzlement and excitement, at this strange train of curiosity that passed through their town in a cloud of red earth, exciting their mothers and pleasing their fathers.

The tales of the brave ndi Igbo who had gone to conquer Benin had hardly been absorbed into the mud walls and the gray earth of the kitchens where it was avidly discussed, when they started to return.

He remembered the night when the first of the trucks came back into town. He’d lain awake listening to the rumblings in the air, the rumblings His father had sworn seemed to be coming closer each passing night. “Liars” he called them, spitting on the kitchen earth, earth made grey by numerous mornings of clearing the previous nights fire from the mud hearth fashioned in the corner. “Coming here with their megaphones and their two page publications telling moonlight tales like they thought them simpletons; tales of the bravery and invincibility of the biafran soldiers, tales of great victories and sweeping conquests. Yet the gunfire came closer, Night after night. Liars!!!

Lying awake in the darkness he noticed that they indeed seemed to be much louder and appeared to be coming more frequently than previous nights. He’d been unable to sleep and had decided instead to count the different bangs and booms. He couldn’t remember how many he had counted when he realized that each count was now punctuated with a slight shudder of the mud walls around him, very subtle like the building had a slight fever. With each bang the ground pulsed until it became one continuous rumble and he got up from the bed, opened the door and stepped outside.

It was bright out. It was almost midnight and the moon hung clear and unobstructed, bright and glowing in a pride that emanated from the conscious knowledge of ones beauty. He shivered violently. The night was alive, grasping and pulling at his wrapper, weaving through his hair violently as if in protest of the flatulence of man in its bosom. From outside the hut he could see straight down across five family compounds to mazi oka, the towns resident dissident’s newly built hut, its red gleaming radiantly, the new earth catching and holding the moons light, standing out like a new shirt in a washing of older ones. The land undulated and flowed as a whole as far as the eye could carry, hut melded into hut, compound flowed into compound in a seamless composite of communal existence. The boundaries existed only in the minds of the owners and were known and understood as was passed down by ancestors long dead, most recent of whom lay buried under rectangles of hastily slapped together concrete that dotted the compounds, together with the water wells and the animal houses where the coos and feathered breathing of sleeping birds gave essence to the night of asaba town in the same unique way that the fresh uhunnu gourds in which they stored their wine gave it its unique taste which was known and enjoyed far and wide in igbo land.

The height of the moon shortened the lengths’ of the shadows around the huts, shadows that even as he watched shimmered and came to life with the shapes of men, a birthing of men from the underbrush and into the shower of moonlight, its liquid beams reflecting off helmets and daggers tied sturdily with eke vines to the snouts of their Russian issued rifles. They broke from the cover of darkness walking through the fenceless compounds like landlords, first one, then the other, and then they came in pairs , pairs with pallets in between, pallets bearing fathers, brothers and cousins, pallets bearing the children of the rumblings that had kept him awake all night.

The advance had not gone according to plan. They had gone as far as Benin , before the superior British assisted Nigerian army had stopped their advance and beaten them backwards, losing the grounds they’d gained faster than it had taken them to conquer it. And so they’d come back to Asaba, setting up tents and makeshift hospitals in the open compounds of the town to treat the heavy casualties they had sustained. For the next couple of weeks he’d spent time among the soldiers along with the other young boys his age, bringing them food and linens, sitting around the fires and listening to them swap stories of victories and losses, funny stories of life and the most horrifying stories of war. He watched them trade mementoes, heard of untold wealth looted from conquered towns and stashed away, saw them shudder in fear as rumors of the approaching Nigerian army swept through the town.

The day the rumours became truth began like every other day. He’d gone out to the barn at the back of the house to retrieve the yams mama would be cooking for breakfast. He’d gotten dressed quickly, tying his wrapper the way the men of the town were known for; once in a tight twist and then a double fold to the side, and taken down his chewing stick from the rafters of the hut taking care not to wake his brothers sprawled across the floor in sleepy disarray. He stepped into the morning working the piece of wood vigorously around his mouth, shivering from the cold gusts of harmattan and knew immediately that something was wrong. The sun was just breaking in the east, a cool sphere in early birth just warm and low enough in the sky to be confused for the exiting moon when he realized what it was. He could see the sunrise. He could see it because the large truck that had been stationed in front of their compound was gone. So were the makeshift tents that had been set up around it, and so was Nnamdi, the Biafran soldier who in spite of having both feet taken off by a homemade grenade, told the funniest jokes and carried a smile like the rest of the world were the freaks with their two hideous limbs sticking out of their torsos.

He stepped into the barn out from the intensifying sunlight, holding the door open and waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the dark. The barn was cool, its earth walls and thatch roof creating the perfect temperature needed to keep the yams fresh. His father had spoken with pride as they had worked together latching the fronds for the roof together, their hands and feet caked with the red earth that still oozed down the sides of the newly built barn. “building a barn is an art” he said, twisting the palm fronds tightly to ensure that they were no gaps between the weave, his back glistening from the effort. He was right, storing yams wasn’t a simple matter of building a barn. It went beyond that. If it got too hot the tubers would start to decompose. If it got too cool the yams would start to germinate, sprouting thick spiky vines that fed off the nutrients in the tubers even as they produced a fresh tuber around the exhausted carcass of the old.

He adorned the coat of cool air in the barn as dark shapes loomed before him like phantom figures melding out of the walls of some haunted house. There were several walls of yams, walls made up of a network of bamboo shoots latched horizontally across wooden uprights that had been planted in the earth, each yam tied securely at a junction where bamboo met upright. The air had a musky fresh airy taste and sharp beams of light cut through it in several places where the weave of the roof had come loose, little dust particles caught in them, swirling in gleeful pleasure like children in the monsoon. He stepped lightly in the room, taking care not to upset any of the traps placed strategically around the room. Rats weren’t really a problem, they preferred to feed from the source, many times unearthing the tubers while they still lay underground but occasionally his father would put out a couple of traps and little clumps of poisoned bread for the stragglers that sometimes managed to find their way in.

He walked to the end of the barn where the large tubers were stored , breaking beams of light as he made his way through the semi darkness. He untied two of the largest yams, hooked one under the armpits of his left arm and made his way out. It was only after he slid the rusted bolt back into place with a resounding clang that he noticed the silence. The plantain eaters that had been wheeling and diving, calling out to each other only moments before were gone. The crickets had stopped their tch tcching, even the cold wind that swooshed from the Niger River was still. And then…

crack crack crack. It was a sound he’d heard before. He turned around slowly and stood regarding the dusty brown snout of one of the large locally made Dane guns that were popular in the town. It was the hunting rifle of choice for the men of Asaba town; his father had one which he kept in a box in the rafters of his room. Though he rarely did any hunting now he brought it down every weekend to clean it, taking it apart in the living room and oiling all the individual parts lovingly, making sure the bolt worked properly. His was one of the originals that had been brought by the colonialists and it’d been given him by his father. Most of what was sold in the market now were copies made by crafty local carpenters turned gunsmiths who had caught up with the elementary workings of the rifle and started making near accurate imitations of them.

The gun muzzle loomed large in his face and beyond it he could only make out a tall green haze. Dan sa lun, the haze barked in unfamiliar speak waving the rifle towards the front of the compound and stepping back, giving him room to follow the gestured instructions. He raised him arms slowly, the yam caught under his armpits dropping with a thud to the earth no doubt splitting in two from the force. He didn’t look down to check. He walked sideways towards the front of the compound, hands held high the second yam still in his right hand causing the muscles in his arm to stand out. As the distance between him and the haze grew he had time to take his eyes off the muzzle and regard his accoster.

The barrel of the rifle was pointed in his face at an angle that spoke favourably of its wielders height. He looked up the barrel of the gun and into a face that was young and unbelievably handsome, the skin on it smooth and unworried. He was unmistakably northern, every feature on his face slim and delicately rugged, tiny slit eyes above a delicately shaped nose, thin lips set in a perfectly angled face. Lips that were perfectly shut, not tightly or lightly, just perfectly shut robbing its owners face of any discernible emotion. It was a pretty face, in spite of the visible layer of dirt and what appeared at this distance to be a dark spattering of blood evenly across the left side of it, not the face of someone who pointed rifles at 14 year old boys as they exited their fathers barns… save for the eyes. It was the eyes that made him obey without hesitation, dropping his fathers prized yam in the dust, sure without a doubt that if he did otherwise he’d be shot, no question. The eyes were slits in his face, what little eyeballs that were visible regarding him with a cold deathly stare, like those of the large ashia fish from the Niger after they had been dead awhile. They were eyes that told of murder, eyes that spoke of rapes, eyes that had heard the cries of innocents in the night. They circled each other in cautious symphony until he got to the front of the compound and then the soldier lowered the hunting rifle, stepped briskly towards him and planted a dusty green booted foot firmly into his stomach in one fluid movement, sending him sprawling to the earth, the dust rising up around his pain wracked body clogging his nostrils and making him retch in the sand.

Ke maka nnei na nnai? A voice asked in familiar speak and he peered through his pain at the person asking about his parents. Mazi Oka stepped out from behind the soldier where he’d stood unnoticed like a child playing hide and seek. “Wah na laheeli ula?” He spoke loudly and forcefully, like a child trying to impress his parents. Mazi oka the sniveling conniving dissident finally had a voice. It would have been amusing had the entire Nigerian army not shimmered out of the bushes and into the clearing where he lay curled up in the floor trying to give back the long digested supper of last night. They walked with a swagger that told of recent victory, a conquering group of soldiers who carried the responsibility of keeping a whole country exactly that. Whole.

The leader of the men walked up to Mazi Oka and shoved the red and white megaphone swinging from a strap across his shoulders into his hands and with playful intensity pushed him forward towards the last row of buildings that formed the borders dwellings of Asaba. Mazi oka looked with uncertainty at the thing in his hands and with confused enthusiasm raised it to his lips and spoke in rapid ibo. “People of asaba, the Nigerian soldiers have come and they have promised that if we co operate nobody will get hurt. They have asked me to ask all of you to come out immediately and assemble outside for an important announcement. Anybody found inside the house will be punished. Please people of asaba, let us co operate with them” He lowered the megaphone slowly till it hung loosely from his fingers bumping lightly against his knee and they waited. Army, Captain, Soldier, Town Elder and Boy. Standing in the sun, waiting expectantly for some sign that the amplified request had been heard. Slowly doors across the compounds creaked open, spewing its frightened residents into the morning. Husbands holding wives, mothers clutching infants, children grasping the legs of their parents. Soon the yard was full and the soldiers herded them into a tight group held down by the threatening muzzles of automatic rifles. The Captain leaned forward and nudged Mazi Oka a second time causing him to break from his stand and walk slowly along the rows of houses passing theirs hut and stopping at the next one. It was Mazi Chiadika’s building. It consisted of a large primary hut which doubled as living and sleeping quarters, two adjoining huts and a barn. He stopped in front of it and turned around, skimming his eyes swiftly over the crowd of his people assembled outside their homes, taking care not to hold their gaze, looked at the captain and pointed. Slowly, deliberately, almost satisfactorily. The captain thundered something out in hausa “Ahmed dan kiaria” and the haze walked forward threw the hunting rifle at mazi oka who scrambled to catch it and step aside at the same time. Ahmed unslung his rifle and called out in a voice so heavily accented he might have been speaking the northern dialect. “in the name of one Nigeria all enemies of the state come out now for justi….” He ended the sentence with a short burst of automatic fire almost as if he really didn’t expect a response from within. The bullets tore through the cheap wooden door, sending bits of veneer and a fine spray of wood dust into the air and he charged into the building. Seconds later there were muffled reports from within and Ahmed returned, eyes still slanted, lips still shut, face still pretty.

Mazi Oka moved towards the next building and then the next and then the next, the little group of town and liberators gravitating slowly along with him. At each building he pointed to the same scripted actions would take place. The barked instructions, the warning shot, the spray of dust and veneer and the cough of murder from within. Occasionally there were screams, but rarely. Ngozi realized now what was happening. Each of the houses pointed at were those whose spare rooms had been used to house badly wounded biafran soldiers who had been unable to camp outside with the rest of the group. In their hurry to flee from the advancing Nigerian army, they had been forgotten by their comrades, left behind limbless and broken, suffering in body and in mind.

Gradually they came to the end of the settlement and Oka stood before the last house down the line. It was Okafor’s house, the largest in the square and Ngozi knew, from bringing water and clean linens there that they were at least eleven Biafran soldiers within.

With a gesture of reluctance Mazi Oka extended his arm like the weight of his actions had suddenly dawned heavily on him. Ahmed went in for the last time. And stayed in. Muffled reports rang out, cries for mercy punctuating the bark of automatic fire. Dull thuds as pallets were overturned, loud clanging of makeshift medical tools and then silence. The morning had come to an end. The captain held his gun loosely, no longer feeling threatened by the people. They were broken. He could smell their fear. Even the goats feeding nearby stood still, heads to the side, dark brown brush sticking out from their mouths knowing on some level that their town had changed.

The door to the hut creaked open and Ahmed stood before them. The dried spatter had now liquefied and ran red down his face like he himself had suffered some injury. He walked slowly towards them, each step that brought him closer making them cower into themselves. He nodded to the captain and they lowered their rifles and peeled away from the crowd walking back the way they had come. The crowd remained as they were even now when they were no longer captives to the rifles of the Nigerian army, unsure of everything, watching the soldiers departing and wondering if life could ever be the same. The soldiers trotted along raising the dust on the path to the chiefs compound when as if in afterthought , Ahmed turned back towards the cowering crowd and there was a last burst of automatic fire picking Mazi Oka and throwing him against the Okafor residence in a fine spray of blood and pink flesh. He hit the walls with a thud and slid down to the floor, leaving his stains behind. He sat where he fell, a surprised look on his face, his body bleeding life, his soul leaking betrayal.

“Ewoo nuuuooo” a woman shrieked and the crowd snapped out of their fear induced daze darting in frenzied haste for any semblance of shelter like african termites when a bit of their nest was broken off and they were exposed to the sun. “Ewoo” the woman continued, “e mma nife wah ne gee kpokpu uzo na one gbu mmadu” punctuating her sentence by throwing herself to the ground and rolling around in the dirt, but there was no one to help her up or confirm her realization that the door opener held by the Nigerian soldiers did indeed kill people. They had all run indoors, some to sights that led them to run out out again as the magnitude of what they had witnessed was explained to them, in bright pink and mangled red.
They had cowered indoors watching, waiting, all the bothers of domesticity gone, their minds focused on one thing; survival. Fathers brought down Dane guns, mothers wept for the sons that helped them. The town was steeped in fear, a fear you could touch, taste, feel. Mothers pushed through it preparing food for the men, their heartbeats matching the bubbling cooking on the fire, fathers molded it and turned it to desperation, a desperation their wives feared would get them killed.

Shortly before noon the clanking sounds of the palace town criers were heard calling into town, gboom gboom gboom, telling of the mercy of the liberators who had decided that the people of Asaba were not a part of Biafra and as such were not a threat to “One Nigeria” even though they spoke the same language. The great captain had said to show their loyalty, all the men in the town of age and strength enough to wield a cutlass were to come out and clear the bushes around their houses, to rid it of all possible ambush sites after which they were to put on their best white and proceed to the square, not the one located in the middle of the town that was used to settle farm disputes but the large one on the borders of the village, with the best of the produce from their barns and their poultry and their farms as an appeal to the mercy of the great captain, to spare their beloved town from his wrath.
As the metal cries faded in the distance taking with them half the fears and uncertainties of the town, they emerged slowly from their homes, cautiously, fathers eager to take the safer route to protecting their families, mothers letting out sighs as the guns were put away and cutlasses were brought out instead.

And so shortly after midday, when the brushes were cleared and Asaba rid of hiding places, the men of Asaba had come out in numbers, their freshly pounded akwa ocha clothes tied around their waist, first in a tight twist and then a double fold to the side, dancing in simulated joy waving their white handkerchiefs and chanting “one Nigeria oh oh, one Nigeria oh!.” in childish glee, the sun catching the brilliant white native clothes and dancing from man to man like a cautious sparrow.

His father and three brothers had gone on ahead, his mother discovering the true proportion of his growth that harmattan season and having to outfit him with one of papas older wrappers after the proper modifications on the Siemens DT7000 sewing machine he had gotten her from the market at Aba.

“Abule mi” she said as she fitted the wrapper around his waist, tying it tightly, first in a twist, then in a double fold to the side. “Run straight to your father, he’s waiting for you at the village square, close to mazi Ihennacho’s compound, just by the cashew trees next to the fence. Go” she said giving him a small nudge towards the door “and don’t stop to play on the road, remember its your fathers wrapper you are wearing”.

And so he had hurried along toward the town square, the large one where his father waited close to Ihennacho’s compound, at the place where the cashew trees grew close to the fence.

He cut across compounds, going in between homes and barns and outdoor toilets, jumping over open drainages and circling around the Okafor residence taking care not to look at Mazi Oka who still lay against the wall, his rifle held loosely in his fingers, the local dogs already sniffing at the dark red earth that surrounded him. He hurried as quickly as he could until finally he came out on the path leading to the town square and came face to face with Ahmed who was heading back into town from the direction of the square.

Ahmed who’d told him to run.

And so he’d run.

His lungs were bursting and he knew he had to take a break. To keep on going he had to stop. He tore through a thick piece of underbrush and emerged suddenly into a clearing in the forest and tried to come to a halt, doing it too suddenly, his momentum propelling his body further than he allowed his legs to go, sending him tumbling face first in the dark brown earth. He rolled several times on the ground and came to a stop deftly on his knees, throwing his face in the air and taking a deep breath, his lungs screaming as they filled with the fresh air it had craved so desperately for the last thirty minutes. He blinked rapidly digging his fingers into the earth, trying to steady himself as the jungle spun around him. With the blood receding from his ears, he could gradually hear the sharp bark of automatic gunfire in the distance. He shook his head trying to figure out where it was coming from. As the jungle stopped spinning, He stopped short. It was coming from the direction of the town square. Not the one located in the middle of the town that was used to settle farm disputes but the one on the borders of the village. The large one that was encircled with the mango trees that produced the large ripe fruit he loved so much. The one he had seen his father and three brothers walking towards less than an hour ago. The gunfire rang loud and consistent, each report striking his heart as he thought of his father and brothers in their brilliant white akwa ocha, and knowing what the large metal rifles could do.

He took a deep breath and rose to his feet.

He had to go back.

Rock fans only---Rediscovering beauty

2008-07-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

someone kill me now because i have just discovered the ultimate in singing delights. if the angels in heaven sing even a fraction of how this girl sings then we're in for a blast. that’s those of us who actually make it and for those that don’t , well at least you’d have experienced a little slice of heaven here on earth.

Every once in awhile they comes along a rock band that changes everything you felt about rock music. That raises the bar a notch or two higher and displaces with ease your current rock idol and leaves you thinking, is that even possible?

I met my best friend when I was in the university of benin and to make ends meet, no that’s not true, our ends met just fine, but to provide the extra income for our nocturnal lifestyle we got into downloading albums for the budding rock community at uniben. We'd both fallen in love with rock music from the early ages of the cranberries, and we’d drive around school, the enchanting lyrics of zombie blaring out of his fathers vw golf speakers anytime we manage to steal it into school. We were the cool weird guys who loved demon music.

At the time Dolores O Riordan the female vocalist for the Cranberries was our rock god. Nothing could compare with her powerful lyrics and a divine voice that could easily send a T1000 to sleep. Come with me if you want to live. There was no way to select the best of, every song on every album was in itself a classic so we just carried the five albums and stars in mp3 format on a datalife cd everywhere we went. In hip swagger language the cranberries were the ish. Period.

Until we were coming home from reading 1am one Friday night, nah must have been Thursday night for we did anything but read Friday nights. Anyways we chatting loudly, strolling down from uniben basement after more hours of chasing jambites than actually reading, discussing loudly our current loves, our hearts intent on d bread, suya and cold coke we'd be getting at the pharmacy exit from school when we heard it. The haunting beginning notes of the song we’d later get to know as 'bring me to life'. It was like a dream, Here we were laughing and talking loudly in the middle of the night and at the same exact moment we both fall quiet as we hit the brick wall of excellently produced gothic sound. It was heaven. Even before the bass guitars kicked in we knew that this was the one group that could displace the cranberries.

We looked around trying to trace the origin of the sounds and we see two guys huddled around the boot of their open car six cd loader blinking active, an empty cd case in one of the guys hands and sonys xplode belting out “wake me up inside”.

We walked up to the guys and stood right beside them peering into their boot, lost in a trance. They looked up at us. Saw the expressions on our faces and knew why we were there.

It was love at first auditory experience. These guys didnt know us from adam, eve or the apple but there we stood ,four guys in the moonlight, 'rock heads brought together, friendships forged from the purity of sound'.

That was how we got introduced to the musical marvel that is evanescence. Turns out the one of guys brother had just gotten in from the US and had brought him a bunch of rocks cds which they were trying out. We didn’t let them out of our sights. We drove out of school at 3am every minute spent in that car making us more and more inextricably addicted to the rich gothic sound of evanescence. We got to our room off campus, booted up my agonizingly slow Pentium 2 clone, burnt the cd at an agonizingly slow 2x and bid these poor unfortunate souls goodnight.

From that point onwards we lived and breathed evanescence. We tracked down origin their previously unknown album, noticed a lot of song repetition from the fallen album or the other way round and loved it all the same. The cranberries datalife cd was lovingly retired to our archive with the rest of the rock cds, it was the time of Amy lee and she wasn’t evanescing anywhere.

For two years we rocked evanescence in all forms of media, songs , videos , printed out lyrics , insignia on all our notebooks, posters, t shirts, the work. For two years we walked and drove around school still in the trance from the first night, high off the opiate that was evanescence. We followed their progress ardently, mourning the loss of Ben Moody, not so much the exit of the other two band members and we were beside ourselves with joy when they announced the release of The Open Door. We had it pre-ordered thanks to a ten percent credit card payment shark and were practically foaming at mouth when we finally got it. Album was great, not as great as fallen but it was Amy lee, she could read out her shopping list and it’d still sound good.

Cut to one year later, I’m working now and he's serving in Warri but I still rely on him to keep me updated on who’s hot and who’s not in the rock music scene. Bands come and go, linkin park, 3 doors down , staind….we love staind…. and they’re all good , but nothing compares to the high we get off the dark haunting and enchanting lyrics and grating guitar riffs of evanescence.

And then he comes to visit me mid term at the school he's teaching and he brings his pack of data cds and dumps a whole shitload of albums on my almost empty 160gig hp dv6536, many he hasn’t even listened to , the magic that is torrent downloads and hi speed wireless internet access. He says to me 'i googled. Some of its hot, most of its not' and then we proceeded to spend the entire weekend of his stay watching the entire four seasons of Boston Legal back to back. Denny Crane!!!!

I go about for almost two months after his visit, a poor ignorant soul unaware of the pearls sitting on my desktop, like those Texas farmers who’ve been toiling hard all their life and a few seconds to their deaths oil is discovered less than a mile under their feet.

And then two weeks ago, I come home after work and decided to put in two hours into editing this novel for my cousin at the University of Newcastle whose studying creative writing. I need mood music right? So I go to my music folder, Enya five albums, Loreena Mckennit 2 albums, Yanni like seven albums, Kitaro ok, Enigma ok, Sarah MacLachlan, Cranberries, Evanescence yes, all great artistes to inspire but God I’m tired of listening to the same old songs over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over …ok you get it……again. So I close the folder and something jumps out at me. it’s a folder among the clutter on my desktop “rcok albumz dump”. Just like that, “wrong” spellings and all. Two clicks later I’m looking at a lot of album art, there are 40 albums sitting on my desktop, each a promise of something new, forty virgins just waiting to get fcuked. SIA, RED JUMPSUIT APPARATUS, DAUGHTRY, GIRLS ALOUD, EYES OPEN, GYM CLASS HEROES, MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE , PANIC AT THE DISCO, RADIOHEAD….the list is endless. And then one name strikes me. “THE HEART OF EVERYTHING”. As in truly I fell in love with the name at first sight. It sounded so original, so creative, four simple words put together to create a phrase with infinite depth. Of all the albums in that folder it alone had a single label. The rest had name of artist-name of album but this folder was just those four words. I had no way of knowing if it was name of the album or name of artist.

Open folder, CTRL A, RIGHT CLICK, PLAY ALL and hello……, where have you guys been all my life? I should just end this article here because there are no words in my vast vocabulary that can do justice to describe the purity of the sounds that came out of the altec lansing speakers of my pavilion. No words to explain the goosebumps on my arm, the tingling of my spine, the swelling of my head and the dots dancing around my eyes.

Oh my!!! God hath sent us an angel. Seriously u need to hear it to believe it. It was nothing short of divine. I was in shock. I’d loved The Cranberries, been crazy about evanescence, but this, this was impossible. Nothing mattered in life anymore. Amongst all the ugliness in the world. The wars the diseases the starvation, if something like this existed then it was all good.

I was enthralled. I couldn’t look away from my screen even though all i could see were the jumping spikes of the windows media player visualization as the riffing guitars tore seamlessly and beautifully through the haunting lyrics of the angels voice. My steaming plate of rice my sister had brought for me just minutes before forgotten by my side, I had been jolted out of my eveanescence induced trance and thrown right back into another. I was in that trance for the next 83 minutes, the full length to the last note of the album and then I started to cry. Metaphorically.

Straight to Google. Typed in The Heart of Everything and there they were. A five man band and the angels name is Sharon Den Adel, and together they were known as Within Temptation and they had three previous albums. Straight to limewire, i needed to find more from this band and i discovered even greater pearls in their past works. Great ballads and awesome epics, this band is simply awesome.

On the Heart of Everything the thumping beats and guitar riffs of the harder tracks like the howling, what have you done now , the cross to the haunting and tear jerking ballads like frozen a song about domestic violence, all i need and forgiven all make for excellent nonstop listening. From their older albums please please look for songs like it’s the fear, deceiver of fools, jillian, bittersweet, see who I am, stand my ground, angels, memories.

Several comparisons have been made to evanescence alluding that WT are an evanescence wannabe but bear in mind that this band has been around way longer than evanescence or rather as one blogger put it “Amy lee and her rotating cast of extras”. I never thot I’d live to see the day that- I’d say this but Sharon Den Adel completely floors Amy Lee.

If u like gothic symphonic rock like evanescence, nightwish, lacuna coil, amaranth, you’ll definitely thank me for this. And if you a skeptic, this is definitely the band that will get you addicted to this genre.

It saddens me to have discovered this group. It was like watching the lord of the rings trilogy. You know that its very possible that you'll never again experience the feeling you felt when you watched it. Possible there would never be a movie as epic and cinematic as it. That u had just maybe witnessed the peak of cinematic perfection. And so i feel saddened that in my natural life i might never come across a band so pure and melodic and in the same vein intensely dark and richly gothic.

So please kill me now for i have discovered the ultimate in singing delights. There’s nothing else to live for.

Giving it a shot

2006-10-17T17:18:00.000-07:00

I feel so alone. Now I know I said I was giving up on love but I miss being in a relationship. For the last six months or so all i've had are flash in the pan affiliations and i'm really tired of the meaningless sex. so i'm going to give it a shot again. Not love, no, never again, but there are so many reasons to be in a relationship. so i'm gonna do it.
Theres this girl.....

Enough already!!! Its written in english

2006-10-16T16:37:00.000-07:00

okay enough with the childish comments and shit. sometimes i think am i the only person on this fucking planet.

FACT : sept 11 was carried out by muslims.

FACT: i really did have an annoying conversation with a muslim extremist at sagamu

FACT: if all the extremists are quoting the quran , then there must be something in there that needs to be revisited.

FACT: I never mentioned in my piece that all muslims are extremists.can anyone be that naive?

that is the summary of my post. for all you lesser mortals that i ahve to explain myself to.

I never mentioned in my piece that all muslims are extremists.
if thats what you guys inferred then i really dont know what to say to y'all than i think its y'all that should do some growing up and next time try to understand the post before running of to post your uninformed comments just cos your left mouse button works.
NUFF SAID!!!

Dont kill me man, its just a fucking joke!!!

2006-10-11T21:41:00.000-07:00

---WARNING---
The following post contains strong language , opinions and a few instances of severe religious intolerance and do not necesarily reflect the opinions of the author of this blog who by the way is not the guy whose pic you see on the right . Just so we're clear on that. (Phew!!!)

Now I think it was about Ryan Phillipes character that was said, “you think you know yourself, but you have no idea.” From the 2005 movie of the year Crash. Now if you haven’t seen that movie then dude, you do really need to get a life. Terence Howard made a killing with his role. But I digress. Well R.P’s character was a cop that ratted out on his racist partner after the said partner practically fist fucked Terence Howard’s wife cos he got mad that she (a white woman) was blowing a black man (duh!! Terence Howard. Pay attention!!!). Newayz at the end of the film R.P discovers that his racist bone was just a tad bigger than he imagined.

The point: seeing that film i appreciated it strictly for its entertainment value but basically I forgot the true message of the movie. I thot it was all hype. But today those nine words came back , bit me in the ass and made me pay attention.

Coming back from an interview at the IT firm where I plan to spend the last months of this annoyingly long youth service, I dropped from a bike, walked into the estate where I live and was confronted with the sight of a bunch of elementary school Muslim kids complete with their little fedora’s and flowing dashikis returning back to school from an excursion to a nearby mosque.

My mind fully concentrated on the blasphemous lyrics of Coheed and Cambria blaring into my ears via Apples greatest invention, I was only mildly distracted by this sight when all of a sudden the random least expected thought popped into my head. “Now aint that cute, a bunch of mini terrorists casing the joint”.

You gotta believe me when I say I was just as appalled as you are at myself . I’d always regarded myself as one of the more enlightened, non-tribalistic and politically correct Nigerians so believe me when I say I was quite horrified.

It however set off a train of thought that I’d love to explore a bit. I mean how’d I get this way? Pre 9/11 I had nothing against the Muslims. Absolutely nothing. Hell I didn’t even know the Muslims were sore at "us"(I’m still living under the impression that my school of thought is more yankee’d than naija’d. it’s a phase, I hope it passes soon). Anyway I had about as much enmity against the Muslims as I did against Christ embassy members. And I love those guys pretty much. As a matter of fact pre 9/11 I felt more animosity towards the universally annoying, Saturday morning peace disturbing, watchtower selling and Catholics criticizing Jehovah’s witnesses than I did towards the Muslims. But the minute the second plane hit the second tower and it was a confirmed Islamic fundamentalist attack all that changed. And I'm guessing I’m not alone in this.

So despite his 'good intentions' for his people, you gotta ask; ultimately did the osama bin laden masterminded attack on the US do more harm than good for the Muslim cause? Hell before 9/11 most people didn’t even know that the Muslims had a cause. The events of that day has made us all sit back and reexamine our understanding of the Muslims and this religion called Islam.

Now I’m not going to sit here from the relative safety of my blog and sling accusations at the Muslims, because individual religion and personal beliefs systems are primarily no more than a simple matter of incidence of birth. Just ask yourself this 'If you were born into a Muslim home whose side you think you be on'. Nor will i accuse their religious text because really the quran like the bible is a delicate but concise mixture of contradictory verses which can be interpreted to fit the mindset or disposition of the reader.

What bothers me really is the fact that a greater proportion of Muslims are so inherently violent. Ask yourself this “why has the clichéd concept of a Muslim male and his dagger become socially acceptable? ” yet find a Christian or any other sectarian packing a carving knife and he’d automatically become a murder suspect.

Ok you’ll probably say it stems from their ancestral heritage as warriors and hunters, fine. I’ll accept that. But can you also explain to me why it is that they are so fucking touchy about all things relating to their religion and its prophet. Seriously we all know that if it were Jesus Christ that was portrayed in a non flattering caricature, the average Christian would simply mutter a prayer for your lost soul and beg the good Lord for your forgiveness. But our dear Muslim brethren? No!!! Standard reaction to a prophet caricature is a couple thousand shish kebabed Christians, a few Molotov cocktails lobbed at Christian churches and if you got them really ticked a couple of free passport to heaven wanting, cant wait to get my hands on (or in as the case may be) my seven virgins reward tiny dicked recruits with nothing to live for are always willing to blow themselves to smithereens for what? Cos a sketch artist got a bit ahead of himself? It all makes you imagine what kind of sick reasoning motivates these people. What sort of hatred drives them and what can your average westerner do against such reckless hate. In how many movies and comedies and programmes have we heard the Christian blasphemy “jesus fucking christ”? (Lord forgive me). Al pacino still lives and breathes despite the barrage of insults he slung at our Christian God in the line of duty of his movie the devils advocate. Now a script with Muslim equivalent of such blasphemies (I’m even scared to type them here) would never ever get made, let alone have al pacino as the leading male .

You might be asking yourself why is Chukky stirring the hornets nest trying to ride a controversial topic to cheap popularity, it’s the westerners they’re ticked at so let them handle the problem. I can safely assure you that the problem is larger than any of us could imagine or how would anyone explain the spillover of the caricature problem in to our shores. It would be pretty naïve for us to stay in our comfort zones and imagine that it’s a western problem so let the americans deal with it. You cannot imagine the amount of propaganda from the Muslims thats actually going on in our backyards continually feeding this hate and ensuring a steady supply of western world hating Islamic fundamentalists.

Peep this. I was chilling at the nysc camp at sagamu last Thursday clutching the Time magazine that sheltered my clearance letter for the month of august. One of twelve such letters which together would buy my freedom from this government sanctioned version of slavery. Anyway as usual the Time magazine had on its cover a couple of Islamic youths doing their thing; lobbing petrol bombs and burning western flags but there was this particular guy that the photo was centered, his pretty face distorted by a mask of hatred and anger so intense that it was simply unsettling. So here we are kicking back and generally chewing the fat with my fellow corps members (male, female, Christians, Muslims, straight, gay and a couple who still making up their minds on which group to belong to.). We discussing what else, premiership and how to get paid when one of the Muslims in the group spots my magazine, picks it up , smiles and hands it back to me. Did Chukky leave it at that? No. I had to ask. What? Men!!! was I unprepared for the answer I got. He cocks his head as if preparing for the fallout that he knew was going to come afterwards and says in the calmest most serious tone ever “if to say I de jand ehn!! hmmmm.... na me be that guy now”. Needless to say this cracks us up and we burst into peals of laughter and keep on laughing until we sadly realize that this guys is sitting there with the calmest expression on his face and looking more serious than atiku facing embezzlement charges(okay that was a cheap shot but i just couldnt resist). And then it hits us. Dude, this cat is serious. Needless to say, what followed next was he launches into a barrage of conspiracy theories to justify his support for the bunch of mass murdering sand niggers. Theories ranging from the absurd (a whole lot of bullshit about the Jews and freemasons and western world domination) to the deliriously insane (how it was bush that masterminded the attack on the two towers to justify the war on Iraq and the middle east as well as to get the senate to increase defense allocations). The theories in themselves were just shocking. What was really alarming was that yo, this cat believes this shit.

Now I know its really easy to love America, after all they brought us sliced bread, remote controls, the internet, mini skirts, Playboy(oh glorious playboy), the ipod, viagra, eminem , ecstasy and so many other stuff we kinda wonder how we lived without. But come on, any country or religion that justifies and celebrates the incinerating of 3000 innocents, even if not guilty of the crime, has got to be wrong.

Now concerning the backlash towards my infallible Pope about some recents comments he made, now i dont know if he didnt realize the kind of stir that would cause, but considering the comment i'm guessing he knew but decided to say it anyway. now the only part of the whole drama i didnt really like was the pope recanting his statements and issuing an apology. We should be brave enough to call a spade a spade (pardon the cliche). lets call islam what it is. a religion that with its current belief systems and doctrines has no place in the modern world. The pope was right the first time. no apologies needed.

My word of advice is that the Muslims should revisit this religion that is called Islam and bring it up to date with the times and I urge the young Muslims who by incidence of birth have found themselves in Muslim homes to for the Love of God review their belief systems objectively with common sense as their place marker and practice their religion sensibly instead of practicing blind fanatism which is really only being propagated for the selfish interests of a few of their leaders.

2006-08-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

Dis Love thang sef

Now i had initially taken this post down and revised it to reduce its shock value because of all the backlash i'd been getting, but after reading a particularly hateful mail, i realised that its so funny that people hate to hear the truth about themselves. Revising a post doesnt make it any less true. My intention in writing this post has never been vindictiveness and it isnt a personal aasault on any particular person. Its intention is to prove a point and it wasnt designed to hurt anyone and if it does do that i deeply apologise. it wasnt my intention. But the post remains what it is. And yeah i can take what i dish out so if you feel the need do start a blog of your own and do whatever you want with it, i can take it , as long as its all true. Nuff said. I aint even commenting on this no more.

Now this post contains some strong language and intimate details about me and might be annoying to a number of people who might be conceited enough to actually believe i am referring to them.you can leave now cos I really dont give a flying fuck.its my blog and i'll write what i want. Kappish!!

Love. love is biologically no different from eating large quantities of chocolate. Its overrated. Those lines were spoken by the devil himself. That is the devil as portrayed by Al Pacino in the legal thriller "the devils advocate". Now while i feel that comparism might be just a tad extreme, i do agree that it is overrated. Now having only dated 2 women in my 26 years on planet earth(yes 26 and yes only 2), i may not exactly be qualified to comment on love, but these are my thoughts and this is my blog. so i do what the fuck i want.

Now i know that its possible for two people to meet and think that they are in love while all is rosy and going according to plan, but soon as you throw in a couple of obstacles in their way you'll be shocked at how quickly love turns sour and fades.

In my 26 years on planet earth i have fallen in love with a total of four girls but somehow managed to date only two of them. now i'm going to go through their individual scenarios so if the love life and interests of Chukky Eboka is not exactly your taste in browsing entertainment, then by all means go back to the porn stash in your windows media player folder where you thot no one would find it, but i promise theres a lesson to be learnt if you have the wit to be able to extract it.

All initials used in this entry are real and so if you know me really well you are bound to recognize a couple of names,hell it might even be you,but you'll never really know. so good luck guessing.

M.C. I met M.C at high school. we both attended udss benin. she was and still remains the coolest girl i ever met. she was my first love but alas she was one of the two that got away. she was all that and more. she was smart, intelligent, great wit and sense of humour, had an incredibly cheery disposition, a set of jewelled eyes that flashed fire when she got angry or excited and the cutest meg ryan like smile. I bet you've guessed it by now. yeah, i really am still in love with her, have always been and i guess i always will be. should i get married tomorrow and she comes to me the day after my wedding and says she is willing to give us a shot, i'd leave my bride. maybe i'm pathetic, maybe i'm just plain fucking nuts, i dont know and i dont care. it is what it is. she was the one. the flipside though was that as charming as she was M.C had some really nasty qualities as well. She was domineering, false, deceptively cunning and seriously most unsure of what it is she really wants in life. Now she was every bit in love with me as i was with her, matter of fact i think my love for her actually started in reaction to her feelings towards me (aside to her"dont even deny it, you know its true"). but by the time we both were aware that our feelings were mutual , she already had a colonels son in hot pursuit. now i guess girls that age or any age for that matter are quite the fickle minded people that they are and so i guess the prospect of dating a colonels son was simply too irresistible. now whats a little thing like love to come between that.

P.A what P.A and i had was the single most beautiful thing that i've ever experienced in my life. it wasnt so much grounded on love as it was on trust, dependability, uncompromising care and belief in each other. Its one of the advantages of dating an older girl. i was in my 100 level when we met. she was in her final year. a spillover on her part meant we spent two glorious years together. now sounds like the age difference is really much but it wasnt like that. she was only about 3 years older that me but she was so petite and cute that she could have easily passed for my junior. My bro had part ownership of ne of the pioneering cafes in school (those good old days of 600 naira an hour browsing) so you know i spent a lot of my spare time there and that was where we met. we eventually both started working there and what began as a gentle friendship gradually spun out of control until we could no longer bear to be away from each other for even a couple of minutes.She was a perfect angel A darling then and always. Flipside...None, though she was really sensitive(emotionally i mean, you twisted sicko), overtly so, and overendearing, which wasnt really because of the age thing, she just loved the mother role. We were toghether till she graduated, kept in touch for a bit till probably the whole "getting old and need to get married" thing kicked in and she outgrew me. Funny thing though is that four years later, i'm graduated but she remains unmarried. now aint that a bitch.

A.O oh how i rue the day i met A.O. If i could turn bak the hands of time i'd go back to that day and for breakfast i'd drink a couple of valium tablets with a swig of squaddy. not to kill myself, but to ensure i'd spend the next 24 hours in the hospital and reduce my chances of ever meeting her. A.O is the singular reason why i have only dated 2 women. because i spent the better part of my time in school and the best part of my youth loving her. It was so sad and pathetic that at a point my friends just wanted to drag me outside and put a bullet in my head. not because it annoyed them, but as an act of mercy, to put me out of my misery. It was that bad. looking back i really dont understand how and why i let it get that far and that bad. Falling in love with A.O is definitely the biggest mistake i've made in my life till date. and believe me i've made some really huge ones.From the first day we met at my brothers cafe , which was sadly towards the end of what i had with P.A, (perhaps it was the thought of not wanting to miss P.A too badly that made me vulnerable,) but from the day A.O walked into my brothers cafe as a jambite, it was downhill for me for the next three years. Loving A.O is much like loving a stone wall in winter, cold, uncaring and unyielding. she had a rich mum, took trips abroad mid semester and was a major tease. she'd flirt with guys all week and all month and then act surprised when they said they'd fallen in love with her. It wasnt just me. the entire male population in uniben at one point or the other had a thing for A.O. it was either you loved her pathetically , or you hated her and usually the hate mostly had to do with having first loved her and getting turned down. there was no middle ground with her. Seriously. funny thing though was, as it always is with drawn out choices, she spent her entire first three years in school trying to decide who to date that she eventually chose the rascal that she so rightly deserved. He broke her heart and nobody cared. her time was up. she was history as such girls usually become after the shine is gone and they've been demystified and "de-otherthings that i cannot mention here". Pity. she could have been someones queen but she chose to be someones bitch.

E.O . Now i had the most fun with E.O. i loved her least of the four but it was fun being with her. You've never met a more fairweather, golddigging but intelligent and smart girl ever. in my final year i delved into some not too legal way of making money, (i was young so dont blame me). well i kinda blew up and became the guy in class. i had more money than i could possibly spend , she was the hottest girl in class . it was only natural for us to be drawn to each other. we knew what it was all about, there was no bullshit. thats why it was a thing of beaut. it was what it was. no bullshit. and we both had fun. definitely one of my best moments in school.

So thats it. the story of chukky's loves and interests over the last decade. so you really cant be surprised that i aint wearing an "I believe in love T.shirt". I really do believe in love, i have been there, i know it exists. i just believe that it really is overrated and that there are so many more reasons why two people should be toghether. Money, security, companionship, trust , dependability and yes great sex.

love! schlove!!! bah humbug!!!

but thats just me . and what the fuck do i know right. well go ahead and fall in love, knock yourselves out, but i assure you there will be a bitter aftertaste. Believe me, i know.

My thots on the law of Karma

2006-08-16T17:55:00.000-07:00

Our constant bandying of certain terms and concepts and the acceptance thereof of these concepts do not sadly despite how desperately we’d like to believe otherwise make them irrevocably true. In life we struggle to live by certain codes and beliefs for the ultimate goal of justifying our existence on earth, in order to divert attention from the insignificance of man as just another species which like the dinosaur are at the mercy of whatever our volatile planet and solar system decides to throw at us. To feed our huge egos and our vain bones, we struggle desperately and innovatively to conjure and believe anything that gives us the least bit of security regardless of the extremities of these beliefs.

Lets take the clichéd what goes around comes around “law of karma” that has become an everyday belief all around the world and has endured centuries of usage. The false level of security that emanates from these five simple words is the only explanation needed for an insight into why this belief has endured over the years. What would a world where good goes un rewarded and evil goes unpunished be like.

Its scary, yes but does it justify the conversion of this fright to a perpetual state of mass delusion? Lets take the world we live in today as it is. You tune into CNN or your local news channel and you hear the reports of a passenger plane bearing children to holiday locations colliding with a DHL cargo plane in mid air. You hear of crimes, serial murders, criminal fiends like the night stalker and Ted Bundy, you hear of hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes and volcanoes. Are these acts of nature and chance or evidence of a greater meaning to life? What role does the law of karma play in these tragedies in life? What goes around comes around? Are the victims of these events, human inflicted or otherwise secret perpetrators of some unknown evil for which they are justly being punished by these misfortunes? Does this therefore elevate these serial killers and murderers to some twisted position of divine enforcers of this great law of karma?

Humans when confronted with our mortality and insignificance, even the bravest of us trembles with fear. Who then gives these serial killers and murderers their own share of justice? The law? It statistically shows that only a small fraction of murders and similar crimes are ever really solved. And so what the said killer is walking down the street on a bright day and is plowed into by an oncoming SUV? Doesn’t that happen to the best of us? How do we connect his being a killer with the fulfillment of the law of karma? How about the teenage boy the van swiped off of his skateboard before pinning the killer to the grocery store wall? What great crime is he guilty of? Kissing his girlfriend in the back of a car, or swiping cigarettes from his mothers purse?

So what! man crossed into the realm of intelligence? Big deal. Dolphins exhibit high levels of intelligence in communication and understanding. I mean come on; we have dolphins swimming in synchrony for crying out loud. What does that tell us? Give those buggers a couple more million years and we’d be having a revised meaning of the United Nations. The ego of man is so huge that we take responsibility for shaping our lives, we praise ourselves for fire, electricity , technology and cloning but when we are confronted with the harsh realities of our frail natures and the inevitability of death and nothingness we are quick to relinquish responsibility, scramble for our bibles and run to church.

Ladies and gentlemen, we live in a world where good sometimes goes unrewarded and evil often goes unpunished. Good things happen to both good and bad people and yes bad things too. Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations. We finally understand what it means to be human. That alone should serve as the greatest comfort we have. We should come to terms with the fact that we are imperfect and the sooner we come to realize that , the sooner we understand that we as a people must work hard to make our global society a better place for all of us. We have to confront our fears in order to become better people. Is it so difficult to accept that after our crazy lifestyles here on earth, we just die and become worm food? Are we really that conceited to believe otherwise? What a great pride we have that has caused us to reject all that is logical and become inhabitants of a planet of conjured fantasies.Lets face it.

There are really only two explanations.

We are basically Homo sapiens, with an average lifespan of 70 years, possessed of an comparatively advanced brain and structurally adapted digits for grasping
Or For us religious buffs, come on lets face it, both teams say their payers at half time, so maybe the Supreme being of our beliefs isn’t as involved as we’d like Him to be. Either way we’re pretty much screwed