This is Lagos: Tales From Daily Bus Ride II

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

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CONDUCTOR: Sand field, Law School, CMS! Sand field, Law School, CMS!!

DRIVER: **shouts at the conductor** Weyrey awon LASTMA wà leyin wà o, instead ko watch, o n pe ero weyrey (Mad man! LASTMA officers are behind us o. Instead of you to "watch", you're calling mad passengers)

CONDUCTOR: Weyrey lawon people yen sha. Your side! your side! (Those people are mad sha. Your side, your side - which colloquially means "zoom off, zoom off")

**Few minutes later**

CONDUCTOR: Yes sir, your money.

PASSENGER 1: Conductor I'm not comfortable here. Please tell them to shift.

CONDUCTOR: Abeg help am shift for there. Na four four.

PASSENGER 1: Please help me shift

"Die by Fire": A Mentality of Nigerian Christians

(By Adesegun Damazio) - Die by fire. 

No, no one has to die by anything, not especially when death is invoked through a religion that promotes peace.

Save for a few times when I've had to attend other churches either out of compulsion or eventful engagements, I've been a Catholic all my life and owe my religious views to the teachings I've imbibed from Catholicism.

This belief, is one which triggers boredom when I come across people who pray for an unhealthily long period of time. As our faces are different, so are our needs. But on closer inspection, it's quite easy to tell that these prolonged prayers are often a repetition of litanies, with only the wordings changing. If I had my way, the Nigerian version of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal will be reformed to a point where members begin to pray more peacefully.

This belief, is one which triggers discomfort when I hear people pray death and destruction over people they consider "enemies". But then, have you ever bothered to ask why you alone might have so many enemies to start with? Could it be because you're one heck of a troublemaker yourself who can't help but offend "them" or do these "enemies" just pick on easygoing people because they can?

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: 

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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.

Becoming A Pastor in Nigeria

(By Adesegun Damazio) - PASTOR.

The cheapest and most easily attainable title on the African continent. So rudimentary has it become that you only need to do so little in order to attain so much, albeit without having any valuable influence on your followers.

To become a pastor in these parts, all you need is a bible, fancy suits, studio pictures in which your appearance must have been doctored to make you look immaculate, a well-dressed or good-looking wife, consistent outdoor advertising/marketing materials (flyers, pamphlets, billboards) and most importantly, you need to be brilliant at word play, not because you intend to say anything new but because you need to say old things in more fanciful ways.

You just need to look up a verse in the bible and think of how best to exaggerate its meaning in order to appeal to your audience. And yes, as a pastor in these parts, you must preach nothing but prosperity. Anything short of that and you might lose lucrative audience. Pay attention to that word, lucrative.

Without word play, there will be no mouthwatering offertory, donations, tithes, seed-sowing and the whole nine yards. Most times, you mightn't even need a wealthy congregation, just preach prosperity and the poorest members of the audience would gullibly donate their life savings to the "house of God".

In these parts, the pastoral journey has become more theatrical and less spiritual.