Gerontocracy

“You tell me what rights I’ve got and haven’t got and what I owe you, but I owe you nothing. If you carried that bag a million miles you only did what you were supposed to do—what I would do for my own son. You are 30 years older than me. You and your whole lousy generation believe that the way it was for you is the way it’s got to be and not until you have all lain down and died will the dead weight of you get off my back. You’ve got to get off my back … Dad, I love you, but you think of yourself as a coloured man and I think of myself as a man.”

---Dr. John Prentice, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, 1967

Oria began his career as a columnist with an excellent article titled Balkanisation. You can read it here at NEXT's website. In the article, he talks about one of the many problems we face as a people, the proliferation of functional illiterates. You see, he is actually drawing us back to something that we discussed on these 'ere pages back in 2007, and the Igbo 'leader' he referred to in his article is Ralph Uwazuruike who has been quiet lately. I wonder why..?

I spoke to a friend of very mine recently, and was quite disappointed to find that he had broken off his engagement to his girlfriend of a few years. The reasons that he gave me initially were less than flawed, so I pressed him further and finally he cracked and told me the truth. A is a Yoruba chap you see, and happens to be his dad's first child. The girl involved here is Efik, and A's parents made it quite clear to him that they would rather die than let their first child get married to a non-Yoruba. The reason given is that they want their kid(s) to be happy, and that for a happy union of man and woman, you should marry someone that is "the same" as you. The irony of the whole scenario here is that A's mother has an Igbo lady as her closest friend. Rain check: so Mrs. O, your closest friend is not the same as you? Why continue such a flawed relationship then?

I do not know who to feel angry with in this whole (sordid) scenario. Is it A for throwing away the love of his life over some artificial concern, or is it A's parents for being so insular?

The truth is that I have heard even my parents express similar reservations in the past, and as I think about it the more, I have to face the awful realisation that it is a thing with their generation. In my own ancestral home-town, it is very difficult to find people of my parents' generation getting married to people further afield from our village. Even if the villages are separated by a creek, something suddenly becomes wrong with those people. Each time I hear such sentiments expressed, I wonder whether the people of Mbaise were so cursed by the Almighty that all the thieves, crooks and murderers on the planet somehow found their way there. What of the thieves, crooks and murderers who originate from our own neck of the woods? Then I understand that unless the girl that I bring home comes from within a very small radius, someone somewhere will look at her askance. That though is not my problem.

What is my problem however, is the effect that this insular attitude is having on my own generation. Granted, there has been a far greater number of inter-ethnic marriages among my age group than any other before me, but I still think that the majority of people my age are all too unwilling to challenge the words of their parents, no matter how wrong those words may be. Routinely in Nigeria, parents make life defining decisions for their adult children almost as if these adults have no reasoning abilities of their own. And when those children attempt to make a stand, they are met with phrases such as, 'Did I not give birth to you?' Then in most cases, they back down.

The question that comes to mind here is this: our parents' generation, and generations before them have been doing things in a particular manner with no effort at change. The lack of change is the case simply because across the board in almost all (if not all) Nigerian cultures, gerontocracy is the order of the day. There is this belief that the older you get, the wiser you are, and as a result there should be no challenge from anyone younger. Whilst I accept that there is a certain wisdom that comes with age and experience, I refuse to accept that that wisdom is infallible, and as a result I will pass if I do not think that such a person's advice is the best decision for me. I would rather assume responsibility for my own failure based on a decision that I made myself, than resent someone else because I was too much of a coward to take the leap based on my own judgement.

To the members of my own generation, until we stop accepting orders hook, line and sinker and learn to think for ourselves and assume our own responsibilities instead of shirking them under the blanket of being respectful, we run the clear risk of having our own children in the precise same position we are in now. And that position is not good.

Chxta goes home

"Find a job you enjoy, and you will never have to work a day in your life."

---Confucius

The great sage was dead right. That I have discovered ever since I decided to take up Jeremy's challenge and explore my other side. You see for a few days now, I have been at 234Next, a news organisation that was set up to challenge the way the media is run in my country. Remember The Fourth Estate? That is what NEXT is trying to be, and God knows that Nigeria needs it.

I have started out here and to be honest, I have not worked at all. As someone who is naturally an amebo, this access to what is happening almost as soon as it happens is nothing short of orgasmic. It has just been fun all the way, and I remember sitting down at a point during the Ekiti Election re-run coverage yesterday and having the thought, "I could actually stay in this organisation forever!" That is how much I am enjoying what I have been up to these past few days.

My responsibilities at NEXT at the moment are in no way restricted to journalism since there is a niche to be filled in the technical side of their multimedia end, and yours truly wrote a dissertation titled, The Security of Compressed Multimedia. Also, yours truly writes a whole lot of rubbish which has apparently been identified as volatile enough to cause just the kind of trouble that the Nigerian media needs to cause but has traditionally failed to do.

Take for example yesterday's Ekiti coverage. We had people on the ground closely following the happenings, and we were posting their reports live and in real time to the web. Something that has not quite happened in the Nigerian media space ever before. There were problems for example as a lack of internet access in Ekiti meant that the pictures of the bedlam that occurred did not find their way to the newsroom. There was also the issue of one of the reporters being 'arrested' by thugs loyal to the national ruling party at a point. Then there was the strange issue of mobile phone service suddenly dying in the Ekiti area at around 1400 hours. Service was not restored for about 2 hours.

I found it rather funny (and sad too) that the NTA claimed last night that the elections in Ekiti were peaceful! Flipping heck! If those elections were peaceful, then Joseph Ratzinger is an adherent of Chris Oyakhilome's Christ Embassy!

We are still providing updates on what is happening in Ekiti (flash animation on homepage), and the prognosis for Nigeria's 'democracy' is not good as Ekiti in all honesty is a good test case for the 2011 elections...

In any event on a personal note, yesterday was one of the most fulfilling days I have had since God talked to Moses, and I would want to do it over and over again. This though would mean that Chxta's World would have to suffer as there would be a major conflict of interest. Let's see how it goes.

Recommended:
NEXT's coverage of the Ekiti Elections
NEXT's audio page with clips of interviews and analysis
NEXT's video page with regularly updated news

Was Moses a war criminal?

I saw this somewhere and it set me thinking because it is quite true. So my dear people, what do y'all think?

Background: In Exodus Chapter 2, Moses flees Egypt because he has killed an Egyptian. He passes through the land of the Midianites, who befriend him. Moses lived among them for a while and “took to wife” a Midianite woman, Zipporah. Moses and Zipporah have a son, Gershom.

Sometime later, about the same time Moses develops in-law problems, a significant number of Israelites start cohabiting with Midianite girls and worshipping Midianite gods.

Moses orders the beheading of the Israelites who are encouraging the mix. For good measure, a plague — presumably sent by God — kills 24,000 of the offending Israelites. Chapter 25 ends with God urging his people to “vex” and “smite” or “harass” the Midianites. Why? What wrong did the Midianites do? No one forced the God’s Chosen People to party with the Midianite girls and worship their gods. Whatever . . .

Time passes. God and Moses spend Chapter 26 of Numbers organizing a huge census and Chapters 27, 28, 29 and 30 laying down various laws for the Israelites.

But by Numbers Chapter 31 — for reasons not explained — God’s attention becomes fastened once more on the Midianites. He orders Moses to kill them. Why? For what happened in Chapter 25.

Thus God orders an unprovoked attack on Moses’ in-laws. Not a problem. Moses sends off thousands of his troops to slay them.

The Israelites kill the five Midianite kings and all the other Midianite adult males. They loot the cities and burn them, and take the women and children in captivity.

But when they return, Moses is furious. “Have you kept all the women alive? These women caused the children of Israel to trespass against the Lord . . .” (New King James translation, Verses 15, 16).

Moses then orders:

1) all the non-virgin women captives to be killed

2) all the boy children captives to be killed

3) all the virgin girl captives to be saved for the use of the Israelite men.

Check out Numbers, Chapter 31, King James Version

(13) And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.

(14) And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.

(15) And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?

(16) Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.

(17) Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

( 18 ) But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Numbers Chapter 31, New Living Translation

(13) Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. (14) But Moses was furious with all the generals and captains [a] who had returned from the battle.

(15) “Why have you let all the women live?” he demanded.

(16) “These are the very ones who followed Balaam’s advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the Lord at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the Lord’s people.

(17) So kill all the boys and all the women who have had intercourse with a man.

( 18 ) Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.

So, shall we talk? Or is this kind of topic out of bounds?

Locked in

"But as in all good movies, the heroes lose in the beginning but have an epic victory in the end anyhow. That's the only thing hollywood ever taught us."

---Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström

In the early 1980s, the film companies in the USA fought to prevent the newly invented Video Cassette Recorder from entering the consumer market. They were concerned about copyright violations. In the landmark case Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., the US Supreme Court ruled that the device was acceptable for private use. This ruling changed the face of home entertainment as we know it because from then on people were able to watch their favourite movies from the comfort of their homes even when such movies were no longer being shown in cinemas. Following that ruling, the film companies themselves found that videorecordings of their products had become a major income source. In other words, their initial resistance to the proliferation of the new device was not only unnecessary, but it was short sighted as well.

Some hours ago a court in Stockholm found the good guys at The Pirate Bay guilty of file-sharing and sentenced them to a year in prison each. Speaking as someone who has benefited from their largesse on more than one occasion, I am appalled at the fact that the Swedish government and legal system caved in so easily to the demands of the American entertainment establishment.

People always make random noises about how software, or music, or video piracy is a crime. Sorry, I beg to differ. And yes, I am guilty of downloading movies and music for free. Software is something I have not done for yeas since I got introduced to the wonderful world of Ubuntu, but that is a story for another time and place.

When the Internet first became ubiquitous, file sharing was not popular until Napster came along. With the advent of Napster, people found that they did not even have to leave home to get their hands on their favourite movies, or music, or software. Despite the repeated attacks on file sharing networks, each time one is forced to close down, many more rise up to take its place. Laws are being passed to strangle people's ability to share files, but people are coming up with more and more ingenious methods to circumvent those laws. When will the governments and entertainment industry learn that Pandora's box has been opened and that there is nothing they can do about this technologies to make them go away?

As access to the net becomes more widespread and download speeds become faster, people will as a matter of course download more and more material, from their favourite applications, to their favourite artiste's songs, to pornography, to their favourite movies. It cannot be stopped, but it can probably be controlled. Ever since the invention of the mp3 file format, people no longer saw the need to store large amounts of disks in their living rooms. With the constantly falling costs of electronic storage, there is no need to keep large numbers of DVDs in your movie cabinet. It will never stop.

The entertainment industry has to be creative (is that not what they are supposed to be?). In 2007, the rock band Radiohead released their album In Rainbows as a digital download. Fans could download some of the music for free and if you liked what you heard, you could get some more for a token fee, and of course come and see the band when next they came on tour close to you. They made a killing from that model. Some other music groups have done that since then and all have met with moderate success. The lesson that can be picked from that exercise is simple: if your art is good, people will still pay to come and see it. Hell, Chxta got to watch Slumdog Millionaire and The Reader but still went to the cinema to see them. They were that good. Why can the movie industry not find a model that is more in line with today's market place instead of pushing everyone to criminality? As for the software industry, a solution has been in place for donkey years now, it is called Open Source.

For the sake of clarity, it is the belief of this writer that the entertainment industry is fighting a loosing battle on this matter. Today's pirates would become tomorrow's heroes.

Recommended reading: File Sharing on Wikipedia

Running in circles

News of the Halliburton scandal has been making the waves in the past few weeks and are once again showing us just the kind of criminals we have running up and down in our political space. It would be very interesting to see what the Minister of Justice comes up with if and when the American Judicial System officially reveals the names of the people who were involved in the whole affair. Who wants to bet with me that he would come up with a lot of hot air and not one bit of action. All motion, no movement. But then again, why should we be surprised?

In the last few days, the EFCC have quietly dropped the name of James Ibori from the list of those ex-governors being prosecuted for emptying their state treasuries. This news actually vindicates Sahara Reporters who first broke the story.

Back in January when I expressed reservations about what was happening to Ribadu, more than one person argued that it was about institutions, not about persons. We are beginning to see the result of what happens when you don't allow the institutions to grow under proper guidance. On the same day that we are getting the confirmation that Ibori is being let to go scot free, we are also getting confirmation from the new head of the EFCC that Nigeria is going to be requesting for the extradition of Nasir El-Rufai. Just great news is it not?

For the records Madam Waziri, El Rufai is studying in the United States, not in the UK. So you can get him easier if you want. I'm sick of the likes of you...

In less depressing news, Chxta was forced to eat his words large time yesternight as Manchester United went through to the semi finals of the Champions League. The Premiership buffs have been buzzing all over my Facebook account as to how the Premiership is the best thing since sliced bread.

Err, guys no one said that the top four English teams are not amongst the very best in Europe, but let's be rational here. They are only four out of twenty teams in the league, and time and again, year in year out, it has been shown that the remaining sixteen teams in that league can't hack it with their counterparts from other leagues. A friend sent me this well written article yesterday. Eight pages of pure unbiased analysis. And he is not even a football fan. In other football news, Manchester City would be kicked out of the UEFA Cup this evening...

Back to Naija news...

We all know that in most Nigerian cultures it is rather impolite to talk about the death of a still living person, hence I got into trouble a few weeks back for asking someone who appears indispensable to some people what those people would do if he were hit by a bus. However, I think this 'impracticality' on our part is rather sad if not silly. Certain questions do need to be asked, and in the current context of Nigeria as a country appearing to be a ship without a captain, the question needs to be asked in all seriousness: what happens to Nigeria if Mr. U Yar'Adua drops dead today?

He is the president of the country, supposed to be the chief executive. But try as I may not to, I cannot help comparing his sluggishness to the vibrancy brought to the job by Mr. Obama in the United States, or the iron determination brought to the job by Mr. Brown in the United Kingdom. Our president on the other hand reminds me of a tortoise that is reluctant to come out of its shell. Then you hear news that the PDP want to adopt him as a candidate for 2011? Gott in himmel!

Constitutionally, if something happens to Yar'Adua, then the vice president Mr. Goodluck J should become president. Will that happen?

My answer to that is no. Not with the set of criminals (both top men included) that we have parading our political landscape. You see, because of sectional interests, which sadly are still very paramount as a ready tool in the minds of our politicians, the fact that the constitution says one thing means jack shit to them. Based on the 'gentleman's' agreement that was reached back in 1999, the elite in the northern part of the country in 2007 rightly felt that it was their turn to rule the roost, i.e have a direct contact with the loot. The problem was that there was a lack of communication as to how long this hand-in-the-till thing would last. Four years or eight years...

Let's cut out all the bullshit analysis here. What I'm trying to say is this: Mr. Yar'Adua cannot (and for the sake of his own health should not) be allowed a second term in office. If that happens, then it is quite likely that another person from the Northern part of the country will be President from 2011 to 2015. Then in 2015, the Southern part will want to get 'their plum' back. The interesting question at that time would be if the new president will be willing to step down after just one term. And there will be the wahala.

The best league in the world

"At least we are top of our league"

---Sam Allardyce

So I was watching that rather interesting game at Old Trafford last night and the argument resurfaced as to which is the best league in the world. As is usual, majority of the crowd (who happen to be English speaking) claimed that it is the English Premiership. Myself and two other good fellows in the yard took a differing view. For the most part, proponents of this the EPL is the best league in the world theory are always quick to point to the fact that all four English based participants in the UEFA Champions League made it to the last sixteen. I think that this argument is one fraught with fallacies and dangers to football and fans everywhere.

Please note that the following is my opinion, and unlike in a lot of other issues, this opinion is being delivered not with humility, but with the knowledge that despite its unpopularity, it is fact. The English Premier League is not the best in the world. The vast majority of the people who sprout that opinion just happen to be victims of that supremely fabulous marketing machine that is Sky Sports.

In the UK (and this includes Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), there is the lip service paid to Spain's La Liga in programmes such as Revista la Liga. Of course Sky lets us know what is happening in the Scottish Premier League, but truth be told, aside from the Old Firm derbies, the coverage leaves so much to be desired. But how many Welshmen for example get to watch Bangor vs Cardiff in their highlight programmes? Now compare all that with the all-pervading English Premier League, and you will begin to understand why some people actually think that the Premiership is the only league on planet Universe. In Nigeria, well, DSTv only began to show something else after they were forced to share the rights with Hi-Tv.

Let us begin by looking at that so often repeated mantra that the four English representatives have always made the Champions League quarter finals. That is quite wrong. They have only made the quarter finals of said competition on the regular in recent seasons, and it can easily be argued that these guys play this competition so often (note that in the last five seasons it is the same clubs that have always represented England) that they now know just how to play the competition.

The fact that it is the same teams that get to represent England in the Champions League year in year out is a testament to one very important aspect of football that has gone AWOL in the EPL, competition. Within the EPL, it has become customary for the opposition to lie down and die whenever any on of the 'big four' of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United take to the pitch. Of course occasionally you see one of the lesser teams such as Aston Villa this season make an effort to slug it out, but as I predicted back then when Arsenal seemed to be struggling, Aston Villa have fallen out and will finish fifth, at the top of their league as Sam Allardyce so eloquently put it all those years ago when he took Bolton to fifth place in the league.

The argument can easily be made, and is indeed often made that the same teams regularly represent Spain and Italy in the Champions League. That is true. But let us look at this argument more closely. In sport, there is always a team or a group that are the best. The guys that everyone else aspires to be. Notice Egypt in African football, Brazil in World football, the New York Yankees in baseball. This has nothing to do with the others not being competitive enough.

In Spain as an example, you find that anyone of Sevilla, Valencia, Villareal, Deportivo de la Coruna and Atletico Madrid always challenge the dominance of Barcelona and Real Madrid. More often than not, they push one of those two out of the top two positions. In the years since big money began to flow into football (generally accepted as around 1992), five different teams have won the La Liga, twelve have shared the runner-up spots. In Italy, any one of Roma, Fiorentina, Napoli, Genoa, Udinese or Palermo on a regular basis give the 'big three' of AC Milan, Inter Milan and Juventus. For crying out loud, AC Milan did not even make this season's Champions League. Compare that with the situation in England where both Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger have had cause to complain about the opposition parking the bus in front of the goal in every sense of the word. Robinho a few weeks after joining Manchester City openly criticised his team-mates for having a 'small club mentality' when to his chagrin he found that their aspiration was to finish fifth.

The problem of the Premiership in my opinion is the Sky money. It is the opinion of this writer that the UEFA Cup, not the Champions League is a fairer reflection of the relative strengths of each league. Like the EPL, the Champions League has been so monetised, and in such an unfair manner, that it is the same pool of about 18 teams that always appear in the last 16. While the winners get an unduly large amount of money from revenue based on the rather silly sharing formula that exists, the losers get next to nothing, hence you see clubs such as Tottenham fielding weakened sides for competitions like the FA Cup so they would do well in the Premiership. It is all about the cheddar. The money that the big clubs get (loads of it) is used to 'oppress' the smaller clubs. A good example is the John Bostock saga from earlier this season. It's also pertinent to point to the Dimitar Berbatov tale. Spurs are a bigger (and richer club) than Crystal Palace, and they used that financial clout to oppress Palace. Man U are a bigger (and richer) club than Spurs, and we all know what happened. Personally, I would recommend a more American method of wealth distribution. All moneys is paid into a central pool and shared more equitably amongst all the clubs. That way there will be not too much of an incentive for the best players to congregate in one place and tip the scales, the big clubs will not wait around like hawks to snatch the best young players as soon as the emerge (Arsene Wenger is particularly guilty of this), and most importantly, we will soon return to a period where at the beginning of the season, anyone had a fair shot at the title.

As for the claims that the EPL is the most exciting league in the world, my favourite example remains one that was given by no less a personality than Martin Tyler when he slagged of Match of the Day, "that programme can make a dull 0-0 game between Hull and Portsmouth look like a plethora of missed chances and end to end action." (Not in those words).

Honest word of advice, if you are looking for football excitement in the closing games of this season, I strongly recommend looking to France where Lyon's unfortunate dominance looks like it might finally be coming to an end. I strongly recommend keeping an eye on the following games as the season comes to a very interesting conclusion: Bordeaux vs Lyon on 19 April, Lyon vs PSG on 24 April and Lyon vs Marseille on 16 May. Whereas in France, the 'smaller boys' are stepping up to the plate, in England it looks like the big four are gradually pushing the league to the kind of thing that obtains in Scotland where at the beginning of the season, it is pencilled down that both Celtic and Rangers are slugging it out for the top two spots, and the rest have to fight for the scraps.

Best league in the world? I would say every league has its season, and for me the best league this season is Le Championnat.

Lagos to train 250 commercial sex workers

The government functionary comes into Governor Fashola's office in Alausa and declares, "Oga governor, those girls can't do anything else but have sex, so let us train them to have sex properly."

Fashola being a progressive governor agrees with the idea. Promptly, emissaries are dispatched to Amsterdam's Reguliersdwarsstraat, fees are negotiated, and (***) are brought back to Lagos to set up a sex school. KAI vans are dispatched to Sanusi Fafunwa and Allen Avenue on one night and 250 girls are picked up and whisked away to the newly set up sex school.

In their Dutch accented English, the new teachers begin classes having practical demonstrations with some hand-picked Area Boys who can't believe their luck: "This is how to wear the condom so he feels maximum pleasure from the experience." "This is how to get up astride him for best entry." Und zo weiter...

Then Chxta's imagination stops running wild and Chxta reads the This Day article properly. What they actually meant is that Lagos is going to retrain 250 prostitutes. A lot of Nigerian hacks need to be trained on the use of English...

On that rebranding thing

"The problem with Scotland is that it is full of Scots."

---statement credited to Edward I in the movie Braveheart

So I was on my way to Timbuktu Media this morning. As a star (people who don't have dreams don't have much) I could afford to be late, so I took a detour and decided to pop into the event that was organised on Facebook. The event was titled Rebuild, Not Rebrand. A mantra I totally agree with. However, there was a 'little' problem. Said event was billed to start at 1000. Due to some recalcitrance on my part (I chose to go through Alausa and thus got caught up in traffic), I arrived at 1030. Event had not started. I finally left by 1100 in order to be on the island for my noon appointment with TM, so up I got up and left. Event had still not started. In all honesty, am I expected to take them seriously?

Lesson: Even those who want to rebuild Nigeria need to learn the most basic of lessons, punctuality.

In the meanwhile, am I the only one who thinks that the Minister of Information is only succeeding in rebranding herself. Negatively that is?...

...Back in the days of the Soviet Union, there was this cute award that was given only to deserving individuals who brought glory to the Rodina through their day to day actions. This award was titled Geroy Sovyetskovo Soyuza, Hero of the Soviet Union. Of course like most other awards of this nature, the political class also used it to massage their dicks, hence a brother like Iosef Jugashvili could claim the award not once but twice. However, some more deserving recipients included Vasily Zaitssev, Yuri Gagarin and Mikhail Minin. These were by any stretch of the imagination people from the lower class of the classless state that was the Soviet Union.

In Naija, we have our own equivalents of such awards, but they are many and numerous. One thing that our awards possess is that like the old Soviet, they are used to masturbate the egos of the high and mighty. That is where the similarities end. I cannot immediately recall the child of Okoro Abayomi being given an MON for collecting the Booker Prize except he be a sports star. Sad isn't it?

If I were to give an award for Hero of the Nigerian Federation to anyone, in all honesty my first port of call would be the average Effiong Magaji in PHCN. Let us face facts, those guys face impossible odds each day in trying to do their daily jobs. From being grossly underpaid, to lack of safety equipment, to working with stuff that were installed in the First Republic, then updated during the Second Republic. That we get some power in some parts of Naija is frankly a major miracle. Then throw in the fact that the big geezers at the top of PHCN/NEPA go out of their way to make sure that the whole NEPA thing doesn't work...

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Kwara State has had constant power since mid-January. I also noted that someone may try to fuck it up. Was I right or was I right? Only recently the National Control Centre of the PHCN in Osogbo directed that the Ganmo Sub Station in Ilorin, should not transmit more than 40MW of power in a day. How does this affect Kwara?

Kwara as we now know has been operating its own independent power generation and supply plant since January 12. This supply needs to get to the people of the state somehow, and it only makes sense to use existing infrastructure, that is the Ganmo Sub Station. Unfortunately this station is owned by PHCN. Kwara needs 80MW per day to ensure the constant power which the people have been enjoying, so PHCN instructing Ganmo not to transmit more than 80MW per day is surely sabotage. What the fuck is the matter with our people?

We are our own worst enemies.

Recommended reading: Wallowing in ignorance
P.S: I miss how blogging was before the proliferation of Facebook...