WTH Number 1
One evening I returned home, opened the bathroom door,
turned on the light, looked into the sink and saw a live scorpion with its
stinger raised and ready to strike. I squealed and froze, eyes wide and mouth
open, before rushing back out. I finally mustered up enough courage to
return to the bathroom with a knife. Thankfully the scorpion was small and busy struggling to scamper out of the sink but kept slipping back down
towards the plug hole. I managed to dismember its stinger before using a strategically
held newspaper to scoot it into the toilet and flush it away. WTH? Only in Nigeria.
The uninvited guest in my bathroom
WTH Number 2
A friend of mine, his mother is an adviser to the President
Goodluck Jonathan. She’s been in her role for over two years, goes to the
office every day and has a PA and driver. But she has never met the
President face to face. An adviser to the President that has never even met him?
Only in Nigeria. Maybe she ‘advises’ him by email, or by phone.
WTH Number 3
I was listening to an interesting political debate on radio
when all of a sudden, the voices switched to white noise. NEPA (Nigeria's epileptic electricity company) had struck the station. I was surprised, annoyed and
exasperated. How could a whole mainstream FM radio station be unprepared for a
power outage? Electricity failures happen daily, but they didn’t even have a
UPS in place to counter it? Only in Nigeria.
WTH Number 4
Again an experience with radio. We were on the move so had to
listen to the end of the Man City vs QPR match on a radio sports channel (Nigerians are just
as, if not more passionate about British football than the British). It was the game of the season: Manchester City, long being in the shadow of their better, richer
rivals Manchester United, were now on par with them thanks to a huge cash injection.
So the two Mancunian teams were tied on points and City had to win the match to
win the Premiership. (I bet you didn’t know I liked football too!)
By the 90th
minute, Man City were shockingly 2-1 down to QPR and Man United were winning
their match against Sunderland, meaning Man U will take the title yet again. The commentators (one of whom had a shockingly
bad imitation of a British accent) lamented this shocking result and went on to
passionately discuss, for a full 20 minutes after the match with other sports guests, the consequences
of City coming so close but United winning the cup yet again.
My friends and I joined in mourning Man City’s lost
opportunity, only for the friend whose house we arrived at to innocently
comment on how great Man City’s comeback was. “What comeback?!” we that were
fooled by radio asked in unison. When we finally found out that Man City
actually won 3-2, scoring two goals in stoppage time, and that our radio commentators were wrong (maybe they turned off the live match
prematurely?) we were livid. Man City had won the Premiership
not Man United. The radio had given us the wrong results! Only in Nigeria.
WTH Number 5
I was in the car on my way home from work when a scuffle by
the side of the road caught my attention. Four Nigerians, two in police uniform,
where arguing with a youngish Chinese man (CM) in front of a van. The Nigerians
were shouting aggressively and waving papers in the CM’s face, and as the CM tried to walk away, one of the uniformed men grabbed him by the waist of his trousers and
held him, still shouting at him. Foreigners are usually treated with kid gloves in Nigeria, but here was this CM being harassed and looking flustered and a little scared.
WTH?
WTH Number 6
I was absent-mindedly watching a news item on Abuja
University on TV when the camera showed a lecture in progress: the class was so
full that some students had to sit on the tables. But what actually had me going 'Huh?' Was
the sight of a female student sitting amongst the other students, listening to
the lecturer intently whilst she rocked a baby on her knee. WTH?
Oh well. But another hashtag I’d like to add at this point is #ItscrazybutIloveit
*WTH stands for 'What the Hell.'
*WTH stands for 'What the Hell.'
I will like to commend you so very much for writing on US the Fulani people, however i was a little shocked to see that it was not fully on the fulani but rather more on yourself, any way it's your blog and it's you!!
ReplyDeletesometimes i wonder where we all are that we can easily forget what was meant to be. any way i want to let you know that sometime is really missing in Nigeria, you can see the worst and yet it will be handled with less concern, however i think you should go a little deep and check out the rural area, that is if you want to talk about the Fulani-Nigerian in England or you can start making the making impact on people's live through lobbying and stepping out to protect and convince the young people to make change happen. so that in the next 16years you can look back and be proud of what impact you have make to your community.
cheers
Bekaji