Nigeria and the Sin of Poverty

(By Joy Isi Bewaji) - The only sin you commit in Nigeria is poverty.  

If this 70 year old woman was having consensual sex with a younger adult male in her three-bedroom apartment in ParkView estate, Ikoyi...

The hand of culture, religion or any idiotic rule made for homo-habilis will not be able to pass through tight security at the gates... how much more knock on her door and drag her out of her right to be pleasured.

Living amongst poverty and its attendant cousins allow for intrusion. When you are poor, your life is not yours. It belongs to the people who pray for you to find food. These people control your life and everything that happens to the holes in your body - what you eat (when you eventually find food made possible by their prayers), and what is inserted in your vagina.

The sin of poverty is the only crime in Nigeria. 

This is why Crime, placed side-by-side an unintelligent, unenlightened, ill-equipped Police force, seems to be an unending unquenchable and achievable alternative for many. What they are really fighting for is dignity. 

Parents Teach Your Daughters Dignity

(By Joy Isi Bewaji) 

Parents, teach your daughters dignity.

From wives fighting side-chicks to desperate young women dragging the hem of one bloke, to women giving up dreams and ambitions just to be with just about any man, to women dying in marriages; this sad and filthy objective of becoming a leech under the façade of culture; having children without income. This nonsense of a man telling a grown ass woman, sometimes highly educated, not to have a job, has to stop! The idea that a woman can sit and make no money under the pretext of motherhood and marriage is frightening to even consider, especially in a society where alimony is a pipe that holds no water.

We are still promoting the position of a housewife as an honourable thing. How can that be when all you have is determined by the disposition of another human – a man? How can being a housewife and NOT making money be a good thing when you can lose everything the minute a husband finds you less attractive, old, fat? How?

A man and his brother killed his wife because he had to be with another woman. Women are treated as disposable items because women will not stop being dependent on men and the silly patriarchal ideals of dependency/entitlement wrapped around religion, culture and society.

Mathematical Solution For Fear of Witchcraft

(By Joy Isi Bewaji) 

I have a mathematical solution to the trepidation of witchcraft propagated and promoted by religion.

So, the church across the street has a screaming pastor (like most others)…

“They say you will not get married. They say you will not have children. They say you will not buy a car. They don’t know your God.”

Every Sunday and Wednesday, it’s the same proliferation of fear and concern about a spirit world interested in stealing children, husbands and automobiles.

OK.

Let’s ignore the hundreds of birth that occur every day. Let’s also disregard over-population, and all the fucks that should not be bringing forth any form of being.

So you want a husband and children and a car; and your religion takes a large chunk of the time praying that you get them; disturbing my peace…

How about I draw up a solution so y’all can move on with your lives? Check this out:

African witchcraft doesn’t last for more than 10 years (Sometimes even less. But you are not a patient sufferer). So let’s imagine for 10 years you cannot get a husband, have kids and drive a car. But you can do other things while the devil and the old woman in the village hold down your womb.

Praise God By Using Your Damn Brain, Nigerians!

(By Joy Isi Bewaji) 

I think you all need to be angrier than you have been. I’m referring to those who have managed to lose heads over my post on religion. Your hair needs to catch fire too. Until then, I am still ranting.

I assume the kind of praise that will make God very happy could be something of these sorts:

The praise of Community Development and National Growth, which starts from the details of your lifestyle and your choices.

Praise God by ensuring your worship centres do not cause agonizing traffic. How do you reconcile road distress with a perfect God? How?

Praise God by being efficient employees at your place of work. Give more than is required. Ensure the company grows. Do not hold back your ideas for when you want to start your own business. Care greatly about where your salary comes from. If you don’t contribute to its growth, how do you justify praising a God of progress?

Praise God by NOT praising God when it is time to work. Let those hands you point to heaven come down and work. Work, damn it.

My Grouse With Religion

(By Joy Isi Bewaji)

I don’t know anything about Islam. I’m not sure I have had any conversation about the Quran. I don’t know Buddhism. African traditional religions are largely ignored. Nigerians engage traditionalists secretly, by the corner of their depravities. This transaction occurs only in whispers; and applied derogatorily in conversations.

But what I know is Christianity. I pray to the God who came down as Jesus to die on the cross. That is the religion I believe in… and that is the only religion I can authoritatively speak for or against. And I speak bigly. My mouth is big. My opinions are large. And people get so frustrated they bake cake to show their contempt. It is called influence. Thank you very much.
It is every writer’s joy to be read. But more importantly, it is every writer’s delight to cause a reaction. And as always, I have caused a massive reaction recently. It started with a Facebook rant about #HalleluyahChallenge and my thoughts about Nigeria, Religion and Under-development. And I stand with every word on my trending article – We have too many spiritual revolutions; what we need is a mental one.

If I Didn't Have Kids...

(By Joy Isi Bewaji) - If I didn’t have kids, I wouldn’t keep a job. 

I would travel the world, have a lover in every city I visit, stay for a year, maybe two… then move to another destination. I’ll make trifling sums enough to buy my food, pay for the space I occupy and keep an uninterrupted Clarins tradition. I’ll read many books. I will write many screenplays. I will criticize everything from religion to politics to the receptionist at my favourite hotel, which would be somewhere in Paris. I will eat good food. Flirt shamelessly and make magic from conversations. I will spend carelessly on all my little pleasures.

I realize I have no deep desire to be wealthy; I have only been pushed into the habit of money-making because children have to live well. I find that denying children of things leave me extremely tortured. I begin to break out in sweat. I am tormented by a child’s lack.

Why No One Can Pray Nigeria To Greatness

(By Joy Isi Bewaji) -

#HallelujahChallenge will succeed bigly in Nigeria. That’s a given. Not a miracle.

Religion is the bedrock of our confidences and convictions.

Reinhard Bonnke succeeded in the 90s with his exaggerated revivals in Nigeria.

Adeboye succeeds every first Friday of the month, leaving travelers along Ibadan-expressway pulling out their hair (the irony of that situation: a god worshiping mission that makes people swear and curse in god’s name for hours of traffic they have to suffer just so a few can practice a religion).

Christ Embassy succeeded on Television. No ministry is yet to beat the hours dedicated to Oyakhilome’s theatrics.

Religion succeeds in Nigeria.

If I start a church today, it will succeed. Calling or no calling.

Nigerian Christians and Unmeritted Favors

(By Joy Isi Bewaji) - We say this everyday...but we are not pastors. 

One small time "woke" pastor (not Adeyemi, of course) has used half my rants as sermon in his church. I get the feedback.

You pipu will give them tithes... but you will come and be talking shit on social media about my audacities. 

Apparently, I need to first wield "spiritual influence" in a third world society obsessed with religion before I can form any sensible words from my mouth.

Keep waiting for a man of god to tell you simple A-B-C about life. You'll find an entire family waiting on a pastor to show them the way to living averagely. 

The shame.

The fact that you don't know these things is, by itself, a disgrace. 

Please keep your kids at home tomorrow, Sunday, and get them to READ instead. 

With our profound spirituality, our country is dying for lack of knowledge still. And your religion is a big problem and accomplice to the sham/mess Nigeria has become.

Nollywood Romantic Movie Monochrome

(By Joy Isi Bewaji) - Nollywood Romantic movie... 

Man: Hey beautiful lady, why are you out here by 8pm? Where can I drop you?

Lady: I'm going to Mafoluku, sir. 

Man: Eish! That's far from my area. But hop in let me give you a ride.

Lady: Thank you, sir. God bless you (slightly bends her knees three times)

She enters. He drives off. 

Man: So what do you do for a living?

Lady: I'm looking for work, sir. You see, my mother is sick, sir. No money to train my younger brother, sir ('folds the edges of her dress continuously)

Man: Come to my office tomorrow. I think I can get you a good job at my company.

Lady: Your company?

Man: As the CEO of "Yakata and Bros", I can get you sorted. 

For The Nigeria Christian, Jesus Is An Alibi

(By Temidayo Ahanmisi) - In my society, Jesus is an alibi. All the family lowlife has to do is "embrace Christ" and he gets to usurp the social order.

Know this criminal dude who in a space of 3 months of slipping through the lax Nigerian judicial cracks on charges of rape, became a pastor. Says he "got the call".

He's shopping for money to set up his church. I literarily spat in his hand when he asked for a contribution.

He brags about becoming the chief cornerstone in his late polygamous father's compound.

Don't shake your heads yet. This rank Pentecostal tragedy is replicated in a million and one Nigerian homes.

Christ is the emerging crutch of all ne'er do wells in this country. 

Their Muslim counterparts are busy "kewu-ing" or growing a raggedy lice infested thatch on their chins in readiness for the . mental assault they will unleash on society as "Alfa's" and "Muslim scholars".

Just Before You Say Biafra

(By Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo) - Just before you say Biafra, know and remember that the ideals of Nigeria have not been tried and found wanting. Instead, they have been found difficult and left untried.

Remember that Nigeria is a failed state that works for those who failed it. And these people who failed Nigeria can be found across every ethnic group in the country – and so are the casualties of this failed state.

Remember that Olusegun Obasanjo, who should have known better, failed to reform Nigeria structurally and permanently and as such set the stage for the failure of other leaders that followed.

Remember that the APC with its intellectual base in the South West again missed an opportunity to restructure Nigeria, so set the stage for many more wasted years of a nation in limbo.

Nollywood and Misrepresentation of Traditions

(By Immanuel James Ibe-Anyanwu)

There was that billboard of a certain West-African president who was dressed in an Igbo traditional attire. A loud caption gave meaning:"Igwe!" It was easy to locate the source of that cultural benefaction, credit rightfully placed at the feet of Nollywood, Nigeria's largest exporter of culture and values. Books and the social media can tell the Nigerian story, but none can boast the compelling, even hypnotic power of the movie.

Which is why we should worry about the competence of movie makers—their cultural intelligence and sense of sensational restraint. Their products speak to millions, most of whom are illiterate and poor, but powerful. Powerful in their sheer number, in their capacity to spread a social or religious poison. They are the very agencies often punctual at lynching scenes, consumers of wild superstitions on whom depends the fate of that fellow accused of manhood theft in the local market. 

Of Priesthood, Discipline, and Nigerian Youth

(By Immanuel James Ibe-Anyanwu) - Yet another young man is soon to become a priest. A beckoning masculinity, his looks are bested only by his brilliance. You joined the seminary as a teenager, I say to him—perhaps age has now brought clarity upon the enormity of this vow—do you sometimes fear you may regret? 

Not all all, he emphasizes. 

You mean you don't get...tantalized by...you know, sex, money...and other famous vanities of the human experience? 

Discipline is all you need, my brother. All you need to live just as happy as anyone else, comes the paraphrased response.

There was that lady I once saw in a friend's compound. Modest dressing, yet her beauty just couldn't keep itself in one place, helpless in its capacity for decent invitation. Seeing my lip-sucking smile betray interest in romantic, if not erotic pursuit, my friend cut in quickly: She be Sister o!

Wait, you mean this cuuute lady went to the convent by herself, with her own two legs? 

No, she carried her legs on her head and went.

I was to learn that, every year, there are actually more applications than there are spaces in both celibate vocations in the Catholic Church. They are 'oversubscribed', which means that while the world is wildly obsessed with sex, there are people lacking the relish for a more total existence.

Day My Father Asked Me to Join the Priesthood

(By Adesegun Damazio) - I remember the day my Father mysteriously asked me, "why don't you become a Reverend Father?"

He was driving at about the time he popped the question and I must confess, I became constipated afterwards. The silence that followed the question was at the very least deafening. This was a man whom only few minutes earlier, had advised me to be careful with the kind of girls I associated with but there he was speaking another language entirely.

I was 15 or thereabout but my whole life began to flash before my eyes. I started thinking about the children I never had. Then came the thoughts of an imaginary wife, though I was still as single as a needle. I looked at my Father again as though I meant to say "how could you do this to me?" He knew he'd punctured a vein but he pushed further.

"I've been thinking about it.......maybe next weekend.......so that we'll go and make enquiries about seminaries and......"

I Miss The Old Nollywood

(By Adesegun Damazio) - I miss the old Nollywood. 

Those were days when you literally looked forward to seeing movies just because of the attractiveness of their posters.

Those days when movie adverts were narrated by voice over artistes who spoke as though they had hot dodo in their mouths. 🙊

Those days of GRAB YOUR COPY NOW!!

Those days when movie installations were carefully churned out.

Those days of Kanayo O Kanayo and compulsory blood money.

Those days of Ramsey Nouah the lover boy who never had sex on camera for us to see 😑.

Those days when Hank Anuku and Gentle Jack were synonymous with death and hired assassination.

Those days when Zack Orji always suffered one mishap or another.

Those days when Charles Okafor and Saint Obi always quarreled with their family members because of their wives.

This is Lagos: Tales From Daily Bus Ride 1

(By Adesegun Damazio) - Tales from the early morning bus: 

********************

CONDUCTOR: CMS Two Hundred CMS! Abeg enter with your change o, I just dey comot. Abeg enter with your 200 naira change.

*passengers troop in*

*few minutes into the journey*

CONDUCTOR: Yes, your money there...

PASSENGER 1: Hands him 500 naira

CONDUCTOR: You no hear word abi?

PASSENGER 1: Eti iya e lo di (it's your mother that is deaf)

CONDUCTOR: *fires the middle-aged Yórùbà woman a hostile look and curses under his breath* Yezzz, your money...

PASSENGER 2: Hands him 1000 naira

CONDUCTOR: Oda pe gbogbo ti fe ya were laaro yii (It's like all of you want to run mad this morning)

PASSENGER 2: Na you sabi the nonsense wey you dey talk. Just gimme my change

CONDUCTOR: Ori iya yín ma pe wa nisin sin (You people's mothers' heads will be correct now now)

The Nigerian Christian Abuse the Holy Ghose Fire

(By Adesegun Damazio)

There's somethin about us Nigerian Christians that you can't help but ponder.
We represent a rare breed of hypocritical piety, spiritual respite and most of all, stellar reliance on God. Some have been conditioned to believe that everything good and bad could only have been from God. You hear stories of blood, corruption, violence, kidnapping, wars and still hear some Christians tell you it's the "will of God".

My goodness!

Yes! God asked some people to sell off millions of tonnes of dates (dabino) given to Nigeria by the Saudi Arabian government for the purpose of feeding the IDPs, God triggered armed robbers to shoot down the Zenith Bank branch in Owerri, God motivates ISIS and Boko Haram, it's God's will that you marry a man that beats and squeezes life out of you like tie and dye material.

Yes! God this and God that.

Sometimes, I just wonder what God thinks of us Nigerian Christians, especially when we beseech Him for the silliest and most unintelligent requests.

Things Fall Apart - Another Look

Be Wary of Pack Leaders

(By Jude Idada) - ... I once had a friend, who my father never liked....

He had met him once when he came with my other friends, for a Christmas party my father had thrown.

At the time I couldn't understand his dislike, because we all loved this friend and would do anything for him.

He was our world.

I never knew my father had been watching us that day as we sat in a group, with this friend standing, having our own party while the older and even oldest ones partied in the bigger party that surrounded us.

My friend had promptly left when something someone had said rubbed him wrongly.

The others followed.

I attempted to also follow, but my father called me back at the gate.

"Where are you going to?"