Adieu Michael Jackson and….Those people!

Death is always a sad affair. This one resonates more because it is that of a household name, one that has come to be known and loved the world over for all his endeavours.

Many of us grew up listening to MJ and cast our mind back to the days like when LWT [Lagos Weekend Television] would air MJ musical videos repeatedly to our delight.

This is when we put our differences aside and pay tribute to a real legend in his own right.

This is also when we give recognition to those people in our communities who die every day as a result , directly or indirectly, of their circumstances, in particular abject poverty. Those people receive minimal recognition for their painstaking endurance and agony in their lifetime. Those people are always on my mind, more so now.

Those people are my heroes.

This is a tribute to all those people who, but for their respective circumstances, may very well be alive today.

Perhaps like many, I find the indefinite strike action disconcerting and disappointing.

The academic year is drawing to a close, with impending exams to round off the year.  Much effort, on the part of students and indeed their lecturers, has gone into preparation for this annual finale – exams.   With an indefinite strike action comes uncertainty for the students which, in itself, is undue pressure that will serve to hinder progress and effectively derail any scheduled plans post academics.

According to the current administrations’ 7 point agenda;

EDUCATION

The two-fold reforms in the educational sector will ensure firstly the minimum acceptable international standards of education for all. With that achieved, a strategic educational development plan will ensure excellence in both the tutoring and learning of skills in science and technology by students who will be seen as the future innovators and industrialists of Nigeria. This reform will be achieved through massive injection into the Education sector.

Though I appreciate this is a high level statement that desires expounding, planning and a roadmap, it does however set the tone for the administrations’ intention for education.  Why the strike action if the government professes the aforesaid approach?  Arguably, the occurrence of this strike is indicative of a significant failing on the part of the government and this particular agenda point is, to date, more or less hot air.

The government spokesperson and Minister for Education, Mr. Egwu, is quoted as expressing surprise that ASUU called an indefinite strike action despite having invited the union to a dialog.  Surely, if the administration is not meeting and has not met its obligations for some time, it should be no surprise rather an expected outcome.

In addition to the 7 point agenda, there is the Vision 20/2020 which professes to place Nigeria among the top 20 economies in the world.  An apparent oversight today – ignoring a fundamental instrument, the student – will be the undoing of any such vision tomorrow.

I hold the opinion that if we continuously, on one hand, proclaim plans and, on the other, disregard the plight of the education system, the victim in all this is the country as a whole.

The strike actions, sub-standard facilities within which we provide education to students and other inadequacies and irregularities will, undoubtedly, have a reverberating effect on our collective future.

If we are serious about “leaders of tomorrow” taking us to where we need to be, we cannot afford to ill-equip them as past leaders have ill-equipped the leaders of today.

Just about boarding a flight from London to Abuja, I asked a crew member welcoming passengers on board what the chances of an upgrade were because I missed the bulkhead / emergency exit seats and standing at 6ft 3” tall, it is a struggle squishing myself in my allocated seat for the night, what with the DVT and I went on.  The steward, who must have heard this before from other passengers or perhaps me,  kindly took my boarding pass stub and told me he will send someone over as soon as all passengers boarded.

Off I went to my seat in the economy class, settled down after much ado with overhead luggage space availability duel championships final and offering assistance to short elderly ladies who otherwise would step on the armrest (your arm) to reach the compartments above.  Within ten minutes a flight steward came over and announced for a passenger VillagerX to make himself known to which I responded “that’s me”.  He did a double take, then looked at the Caucasian men within close proximity of where I was sat all of whom seemed to dismiss him with uninterested looks.  Knowing the steward’s dilemma I said, “You have my boarding pass stub and are perhaps hoping to re-seat me elsewhere but I am sorry if  I confused you by not having an indigenous Nigerian last name, shall we go?” He led me away, red-faced, to the business class cabin.  My former neighbour in economy class , a North American businessman, put in his two cents worth to another crew member and was promptly marched to business class to be re-united with his former neighbour, me.

I am that curious person who wants to know, wherever possible, the intricacies of western businessmen’s dealings in Nigeria.  As such, we got talking and I gathered that he is involved in promoting sustainable economic development in developing countries.  Ah ha, we have something in common, line of business, and the discussion progressed during which I understood that he intended to route from Abuja to Port Harcourt and Warri, by himself.  I took a few minutes to muse over this ludicrous feat and the little I know about the region this man dared to venture on his own.  It transpired that the last time he was in Nigeria was when he spent two weeks in Lagos back in 1990.

Well, why let a fellow man embark on such an endeavour with a placard around his neck that read “I AM FAIR GAME”.  So, I began by highlighting the risks ahead of him and preventative measures that must be taken to ensure he does not wind up on CNN as the latest western hostage in Nigeria, which invariably would have been the case.

By the time we got to Abuja, this man was a bag of nerves though he kept it well under wraps.  I offered him the services of a security escort to the domestic airport and onward to Port Harcourt.  I called his contact in Warri and after some stern words gathered that he would have been in Abuja to meet his guest but for unforeseen circumstances.

Our North American guest met his client, rewarded my security personnel generously and has since returned to his homeland.

Whilst I can understand that in the absence of access to the media, it is highly likely that one might plead ignorance of the current goings-on in the Niger Delta, however we are awash with information pertinent to this particular situation via television, internet and the like.   Sometimes I can’t help thinking that non-black westerners bring misfortune upon themselves when they venture into volatile places such as the Niger Delta with little preparation for what they are about to encounter or indeed little or no knowledge of the potential dangers that await them.

It was a hot and sunny afternoon in Rouen, France and the next intercity train to Paris was not due for over an hour.

What to do, I pondered and looked across the road from the train station at the Hotel De Dieppe.  I crossed the road and entered the lounge of the hotel.  As is typical in most places in France, after 2pm lunch is near non-existent, so I decided to whet the whistle instead. There were two other people in the lounge area.  After asking for a drink in my rudimentary French, I carted my case into the restroom for a long awaited ease.

I returned to the lounge, setup up my laptop and went about my work.  No sooner had I settled, two other people came into the lounge, settled down and went to work on their laptops, 3G internet cards et al.  From where I was sitting I could make out the new arrivals were speaking a mixture of Igbo, Yoruba and pidgin English – my people, I thought, we are everywhere and anywhere.

Three more people joined the new arrivals in the lounge and, of course, the noise levels rose with the raucous and I decided to wedge the ear-phones in and tune in to one of the several playlists on the Ipod.  I had the ear-plugs in my ears and was deliberating over which playlist, smooth jazz, merengue, etc….then I heard one of the folks sitting some way from me say “when that guy go toilet, he go leave that laptop and kpam, we don go be that” .

By now, knowing I was a potential victim of crime, I found it somewhat difficult to concentrate on the paper I was writing.  With the ear-phones still plugged in my ears, playlist abandoned, I focused some attention on their conversation and gathered that they travel across Europe (including Eastern Europe) to little known towns purchasing electronic equipment with credit cards that were obtained from identity thefts.  What happens to the electronic equipment thereafter is conjectural but I will leave that to imagination.

These folks had high specification laptops and other gadgets in their possession but that did not stop them eyeing my one year old hard worn laptop.

Now it’s time to head for my train to go about my business and leave my people to go about their business.  Their business?  Their business is about ripping people off. The victims could be just about anyone with some form of identity or false sense of security.

If caught by the law, these folks could be incarcerated, deported or otherwise, all of which have their own respective ramifications on miscreants and their respective dependants.

Phew, I caught my connecting Eurostar from Paris to London.  Now, what will you have done?