Author: Godstime Ehichoya

quick

Talk About Fifty

Its been fifty years since the civil war in Nigeria, with all honesty i didn’t see anything civil about the massacre of a particular tribe. so long as i am concerned the only way to describe the awful event is Genocide. An esteemed personality who I hold in very high regard shared some very important thoughts that i felt every young Nigerian should see, read and understand.

“The Nigerian Civil war; 50 years on.
For many people in my generation, the Nigerian civil war and the devastation left in its wake can only be imagined. Yes, we’ve heard stories from loved ones who lived through the war, or seen documentaries of the war but our minds cannot begin to fathom the damage that was wreaked on the Igbo people of Nigeria.
Many times, I’ve heard Igbo people refer to the war as a genocide. An attempt by Nigeria and it’s allied forces to completely annihilate the Igbo race. I dare say the experience led to incredibly high levels of paranoia and distrust of the rest of Nigeria. If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard: “my daughter, you can’t trust these people, one day, they will just wake up and decide that they don’t want you here anymore and we will be forced to go back home”, I’d be rich!!! I sometimes feel like a refugee in my own country, in a city where I’ve lived all my life. I feel like I’m living on borrowed time and at any moment I’ll be forced to move back to the east.
I’ve also heard the argument that Igbo people need to get over the victim mentality. After all, all is fair in love and war. But what happens after war? Are we really never going to talk about how Nigeria used starvation as a weapon? Are we not going to talk about the attack on civilians? Are we really going to act like it was a war and the Igbos need to suck it up and move on? How then can we achieve healing and genuinely move forward as a nation?
The 3 Rs of Gowon even today are a joke. Reconstruction? Reconciliation? Rehabilitation? In a nation that has failed to address its bitter past? This to me is like a person suffering from PTSD who is living in denial and refusing to get help, while acting like he’s okay. Nigeria is not okay.
Rwanda did not get where it is today by sweeping issues under the carpet. They took the long road to recovery, the one thing Nigeria has failed to do.
On this day, while we remember our fallen heroes who fought for our unity, let us also keep in that as a nation we have a lot of unfinished business and open wounds that need to be tended to that the labor of our heroes past shall not be in vain.” Barr Chizaram Ruby Iroagunachi.

This for many might just be a point of recollection or maybe not.

COMMUNITY SERVICE.

What’s up with exceptionality, why can’t everybody in the world be exceptional I thought the sky is so wide for the bird to fly. Honestly, I am beginning to think the human race was designed to be ruled its almost like most humans can’t make the right decisions for themselves. How hard is it to identify a problem and then solve I, the world seems to be running away from their basic truth with deep honesty I don’t get what the deal is with third world countries why cant they become great I mean information is always out there of how things work, why cant dysfunctional societies put this information into good use. I have always been a stern advocate of the relativity of life always bearing in mind how different people define different things but this particular topic seems pretty straight forward to me. WHY CAN’T THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES DEVELOP? What’s really holding us back (did you notice that “us” yes us). So many schools of thought seem to agree with the ideology that the colonial masters left the state of affairs intentionally not to grow, wait a minute even if this might be true isn’t long enough for this to have been figured out and then steps be taking into advancing. Or is the neo colonial effect really that strong? I mean the African community aren’t trying hard enough and I say this with my generation in mind. I am a twenty something years old guy and every time I spend time among my peers in large setting, I feel heartbroken we’ve managed to gather in my opinion the highest number of dumb people in history. Don’t get me wrong my generation has broken a lot of boundaries and all but it seems to be that the loftier heights we attain the more a huge chunk of society losses its sense. Ok GT its enough highlighting problem how do we solve this problem, as we all know society has always had it say on what is and what’s not. But how do we influence society that’s the million-dollar question are we powerful enough to influence society, I thought society was supposed to influence us. As a matter of fact, we were practically raised up believing society was supposed to influence us. [Woo, woo, woo slow down you’ve lost me what’s up all the “influencing “and “society” get to the point]. Ok the point is we (and by “we” I mean young adults) are suppose to pick up things by precepts from older people who have been around longer than we have. [ ok continue I think you’re getting there]. How does a generation go about changing mindsets that has been set over a long period of time?

See this as an opportunity to reason or maybe not!

Go Figure

When the purpose of something is not known abuse is inevitable. As simple as this phrase is a lot of people have not seem to get the depth of it. So many things have been abused in our society, I won’t delve in to the business of naming them right now, just call to bare the experiences you’ve encountered about the way power, position or privilege has been abused towards you. 

Allow me take a huge dive outside the scope of purpose, what’s the purpose of this blog honestly I couldn’t tell. Truth is I might not be too sure but the thing is sometimes you get this idea to go on and try something new, meet new people and attempt new ventures and not even knowing where it might lead, but hoping it will be exciting, educating and most of all productive.

Productivity like most things that I have come to learn on earth is relative as a matter of fact everything towards me right now is relative, a total stranger might be rude to me at a bus park and I will somehow justify his or her action because I think he or she has been through far worse than me in life, I mean why would someone be intentionally rude towards other people if life isn’t already giving him a hard time.

Four paragraphs into this post and I still haven’t grasp the purpose of this write up, I will at this point make the executive decision to talk about random issues that may or may not necessarily affect you just read along anyways. Do you think that your life should be somehow better than it is right now? Don’t answer that, of course you do; you are a Nigerian, we’ve subconsciously convinced ourselves that our lives could have been a lot better if someone we know very little of in some politically elected position had been more caring and accountable to a whole bunch of people he knows absolutely nothing about. Are you right? You can go on ahead and answer that for yourself. What does a 20 something years old guy really know about what is or what is not working in a politically messed up country? Nothing actually if I will be honest.

Running another scenario in this fast becoming purposeful post, how do you become a successful business person, like how does someone legit start a business from scratch and then groom it to becoming the business empire, like the type we see in the movies? Again, I couldn’t tell, want to know why, I have not grown a business from scratch and turn it in to an empire, at least not yet. Does that really count; I mean there are some football coach that never played professionally but went on to win pretty much every major trophy as a coach. Having this as a backdrop in our minds I think I can go ahead to tell you how to make your business great. Come to think about it ‘history repeats itself’. So here’s the million-dollar question, HOW DO I TURN MY BUSINESS INTO AN EMPIRE? Do the right and put in the fucking work? Is it that simple? Yes, it is, you see there are concepts that have been working since time even before our grand fathers were born, which is; putting in work.

So has this post been helpful? I mean what’s the ‘purpose’ of it anyways? We just might never find out!.

Peer Pressure Made Me Do It.

Should there be a standard that the world operates by? Who really sets the standard that we have adopted to live by? How do I measure success? How do I know that I am failing? How do I know that I am smart?

From time people have always lived by some certain kind of operating system, in this operating system they have taught themselves how to live, explore, learn and even love, and in doing all this comes with a certain sense of accomplishment and also the unwanted task of measuring accomplishment. Thing is in measuring success you also inadvertently highlight failure, how can a person really tell if he/she is a success.

Society as it has always involuntarily done has set a few standards in measuring this great feet, a few of which are

  1. College degrees
  2.  Being married
  3. Owning a house
  4. Having a fancy car.

But really who can deny that having any or all of these would hurt, I mean think about it, but does not having any of these equates in to being a failure. (let’s put a pin in that).

You see one thing I have noticed in my awesome stay here on earth so far is that, having these so called achievement isn’t really the goal but having them within a specific age limit is. And this ladies and gentlemen is the real form of pressure. And as we all know people react to pressure differently, some people literally have ice in their veins, I mean they are cool under pressure while others (o boy) get really defensive. Nothing says danger more than a “man” who thinks the world is out to get him.

So what’s the point of this post anyway, to be honest I couldn’t tell I was sort of hoping you all can tell me, you see. what’s wrong with just wanting to impact people’s lives I mean not just being that boogey ass clown everybody likes having around, like making legit impact like changing people’s prejudice way of being, enlightening people to see pass tribe, class and ethnicity. These are the things that our moms taught us while we were growing up but you see we’ve manage to lost all of this in transit, and that’s just a shame.

Peer pressure (sighs) we will be real stupid if we think peer pressure only apply to teenage kids doing things they don’t need to do because their mates are doing it, peer pressure translate into every aspect of society. There’s peer pressure in the Civil Service, Military, Politics, Artisans and the easiest to relate with the street, wanting to do things your peers are doing is a universal language.

So here’s the million-dollar question, WHATS WRONG WITH DOING THE THINGS YOUR PEERS ARE DOING? Or as I would put it, WHATS WRONG WITH BEING PRESSURED TO DO THE THINGS YOUR PEERS ARE DOING?

You know what, we just might never find out.

SOCIAL STUDIES 101

As a generation who craves freedom most of all, we seem to blame a lot of our short comings on others. Someone gets the blame when the queue is too long at the ATM, someone gets the blame when there is traffic, someone gets the blame when the internet connection is poor, someone definitely gets the blame when the street is flooded.

In context of this post I will focus on who gets the blame for choosing a wrong sexual partner, I most definitely think society plays a vital role shaping how we think and what we have come to see as normal, we are Africans so I know this topic won’t resonate well with some folks, some people want conversations like this to be centered around religion but this is social post so its exclusive.

For starters being “wrong” as I have come to notice is pretty relative, like what is wrong for W might be fair for X, and what is fair for Y might be good for Z or vice versa, so having this as a back drop in your minds reason this out with me what is the criterion or criteria as the case maybe in getting a sexual partner. Do the little things still count in our society, (are they nice? are they caring? are they selfless? are they “God Fearing”?). questions like these would pop up if we were having this conversation ten years ago, but we’ve evolved socially as a people who are fucked up materialistic and superficial and this in turn as influenced how we think, talk and act in every aspect of our lives most of all in choosing a sexual partner. Being sexually involved with someone is quite complex because it involves a lot of emotions or use to involve a lot of emotions, you see not caring too much about the quality of a human person only begets one thing concentrating on the persons’ finances.  Oh yes I said it we are gold diggers.

 Now circle back to the relativity of being wrong, WHAT IS REALLY WRONG IN HAVING A SEXUAL PARTNER WHO YOU CARE MOSTLY ABOUT THEIR FINANCES? Why can’t someone be involved with another person just because they can provide a life for them that they can’t provide for themselves, back track now to the first paragraph, WHY ARE WE LIKE THIS? HOW DID WE GET THIS WAY? WHO DO WE BLAME FOR BEING LIKE THIS? IS IT EVEN “WRONG” FOR BEING LIKE THIS?                                                     

I guess we’ll never know.

Getting Started.

How would you get ahead in a system that has been rigged against you? I once heard that “not punishing someone for doing the wrong thing, is punishment for the person who did the right thing”.

A lot of institutions in this part of the world has lost what is regarded as core values; check out this scenario, my country (Nigeria) is trying to get its minimum wage to 30,000naria, this is less that a 100 dollars. A state owned university in Nigeria goes as high as 160,000 naria per session for science courses, the housing system does not permit you to pay rent monthly, the best you can get is quarterly payment and this is very rare, rents are normally paid annually or by 6 months. So how would someone have a job that’s pays 30,000 naira monthly train a child through college and have a house? This is practically impossible! And this is the basic standard set by the ‘system’.

This blog post might just be for most people the first attempt to get a clear understanding of the society the function in, or maybe not!

Today’s Naija

   

Everyone who has tried to get ahead in life understands the importance of meeting new people. But what happens when the requirement of getting a good response from new people depends solely on which part of the country you are from. Modern day Nigeria has evolved from a lot of things but tribalism has managed to reinvent itself in many new forms.

    Think of this as an opportunity to rant, or maybe not.