Bimbi's Mind

So, we are moving into a new year. The "new year new me" cliques have already started buzzing with resolutions that possibly won't make it into February (we all know you can't change!). The pessimists are saying they don't feel any difference compared to when they were children(we get it, you had a great childhood). And I am here, writing this article in traffic. I mean what is the big deal about new years anyways? I mean the yearly calendar system was created to properly pinpoint and anticipate seasons and to create a sort of chronological sense of orderliness in human history.     Each year stands alone as an independent entity in history but the transition between the years kind of make it anticlimactic for me. A second is all that separates 2014 from 2015 and a second will also separate it from 2016. To increase the hype around new years for me, we would need at least a day of limbo between the years to properly accentuate the transition and its effects(you...

 Since the inception of time, there has always been the debate and the conscious effort to differentiate between the clean and the unclean. As civilization changed, so did the mindsets of the people. People tried to drop things of the old and tried to keep up with the "status quo" of what is generally believed to be clean and unclean.        The difference between this certain dichotomy in morality digs deep and can be compared to the difference between the Yin and the Yang, the right and the wrong, the path on which we set ourselves and the path deemed to be absolute. What is the "clean"? To a hygienist, the clean is the management to the barest minimum, the existence of germs. To a moralist, the clean is the path completely devoid of wrong. To the culturally inclined, the clean is what is done in accordance to what was done by the forefathers.

     So, we are not there yet. Yes, we. Nigeria is still a third world country. We, the masses are still deprived of basic necessities for humans in the 21st century. Considering the fact I had to write this article in total darkness on a battery drained phone, we are certainly deprived of a few luxuries. But the central factor that makes a country third world is actually its stand to human rights.      Human rights is being violated on all axis in Nigeria. Granted... the Twitter heads can have a right to free speech but the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu over "incite fueled rants" violates the free speech in human rights which should be exercised unless it posed a threat to oneself or the environment. But most are too preoccupied with losing the Igbos we did not notice this blatant violation.  You can read my take on Nnamdi Kanu and the biafran dream here .     But before we go that far, take the average military man to civilian relationship in Ni...

The recent arrest of the “proxy freedom fighter” Nnamdi Kanu, who fights for Biafra’s secession in the confines of his home in London while sipping tea and eating crumpets (…yeah, crumpets… I am posh like that) has been followed by an uproar and more importantly, a form of awareness  for my unaware Igbo brothers who have taken to numerous social networks to swear their allegiance to a dream sadly abandoned over 50 years ago. Now, I’m a die-hard fan of freedom fights and I think this little call for secession is adorable and cute but with Boko Haram and an epileptic system within the country, this is just a drama we do not need (besides, we already have Nollywood and afrocandy for entertainment). Nigeria’s ‘Hero’, Yakubu Gowon declared there was no victor and no vanquished in the great Civil War though the facts and figures say otherwise. There might not be a victor in the real sense of purpose because the war had a senseless foundation of tribalism, but the body count and...

First of, why am I writing for mad people you ask, am I mongering for attention? My answer is simple and direct; if you can show me one mad person with a blog, You can close this page and deem me irrelevant. They have to be represented, they are people too.         Before you cast a disgusting look at that insane man who has presidential meetings with himself, laughing hysterically between whispers to himself and out rightly admonishing himself, you have to understand that man might not have offended anyone back at home. He might just be unlucky and YOU MIGHT BE NEXT!!! (That’s quite ominous and depressing… sigh)                  I didn’t mean to start the article with such a paragraph but…..          You see, the human brain which can be regarded as the most complicated computer in a world where 3-D printers and smart phones have become ...

        Have we ever asked the question why we, humans as objects of free will and free thinking have never exercised our freedom? Why we have always been limited and tethered to that tree, to which society has us bound? The human race moves fast and we were born running, never thinking for a second to review the preset rules for this race we have all been accustomed to partake in.      It is a necessity to be accepted in this system to which civilization has brought us. Civilization in Africa came long before Europe "discovered" Africa centuries ago. The black continent in its own self discovered what it meant to be civilized albeit not completely. But was well on its way to discovering that the reliance on intellect as a species seemed more effective than reliance on instinct. It is more befitting of higher animals that thrived on reasoning to dispose of the visceral, and embrace the intellect. So we refuse to be brutes and savages, we fo...

      Following the kidnap and the eventual release of Chief Falae at Ondo state. The whole country has sat up. Every family that considers itself middle class are hell-bent on hiding their middle-classery(Pardon my incorrect grammer). But in the past two weeks we have witnessed the influx of kabu kabu cars on the newly repaired federal road(Sai Baba!!) and the sales of cheap Ankara has gone up.     Everybody wants to look like God hasn't blessed their hustle and so they all cram in little saloon cars like almajiris, sweating like christmas goats, or for a more recent metaphor--- sallah rams while their fully air conditioned Jeeps sit idle at home.     Stop!! You guys are making Nigeria look poor.    But of course you know there is a big problem if you see a sweating couple in a 1998 Volkswagen who have a net worth of 100million. Mind you!! ... This demographic is based solely on the incorruptible and those who earn and spend clean mo...

For how long have I dreamed a dream I have heard of men, who spent their life dreaming a dream for how long will I live in the future afraid of breathing the stale air in the present the air smells and I, cannot accept that which labels me as a peasant afraid of claiming this life as my portion my real life exists somewhere near, in the future it smells like apricot and  freshly cut grass in a field of white roses, where pink pelicans fly so I put my face and my back into my work As I toil to do the very things I hate, as a necessary way of achieving that which I love The days pass and I fail to grasp the essence of life. My youth withers away as I toil on this barren land. But I do not notice, because I have my sights set on Utopia. with every step taken, utopia turns dystopia I have had priests filling my ears with the speech that they preach proclaiming the dream that I dreamed is out of reach, because of the sins that I've sinned I suffer fr...

       You remember the first time you heard that jazz. That obnoxious boy with the big pimple on his nose was playing it repeatedly at the night class you always go to, usually for solace and quiet. Nobody could tell him to stop, everybody minded their own business and that jazz started to creep up on you like a thief in the night.      You leave the class in annoyance in the middle of the night because that jazz snatched your peace and quiet, your golden opportunity to study for that test you have tomorrow but you find yourself humming that jazz. You find yourself craving to hear it once more because if you do not, you would never find peace. You brain convinces your legs to walk back to the class and ask that obnoxious boy with the big pimple on his nose to send you that jazz. You notice the way he lights up when you expressed interest in that jazz, like you understood something only he could understand. That jazz was speaking, and only bo...

"It was a pleasure to burn" was the first sentence that opened Fahrenheit 451. A book set in a dystopian world. I read this book simply because I am going through a dystopian craze and every book of this genre that I have read has given me a new outlook on life. The concept of Dystopia is being afraid of losing something, and painting a world where what you don't want to lose doesn't exist, and the implications of its absence on the world. In this -- books were illegal.       Ray Radbury saw the gradual death of reading in society and he wrote a beautiful book about it. In the eyes of Guy Montag, a fireman, in a world where firemen burned instead of putting out fire. Killing and arresting people who dared to own books He went from taking pleasure in burning in his ignorance to risking his life for what he believed books stood for. All he needed was a catalyst in a 16 year old girl who aroused his curiosity. I won't spoil the experience for anyone that plans on...

     I used to pride myself with the fact that I had never seen a dead body before. The time that I almost saw one was when my father died. He had an accident on his bike, the bike which he used for his business, to ply that Incompleted road the government had been constructing for six years. They said it happened in the middle of the night, his bike was hit head-on by one of those local trucks that didn't have headlights. I could imagine his body mangled up covered with sores and cuts. I didn't go for his burial, I didn't cry for him.      My father drank too much with the little money he made, rather than going for his burial, I chose to go to school. That was 3 years ago, I have since dropped out of school. I dropped out because I hated the place. I hated the teachers telling us we would not make it, I hated it when they called us animals whenever we made noise, maybe we would have been quiet if only they took the chance to teach us well. The...

        Welcome to Nigeria, where class is as important as the food you eat. Welcome to Nigeria, where your class in society determines the quality of air you breathe. Welcome to Nigeria, where your class would determine how you would be treated, and spoken to. Welcome to Nigeria, where the classless do not get jobs, where CVs are just formalities to avoid unnecessary questions. Welcome to Nigeria where traders tag different prices depending on how you are dressed. Welcome to Nigeria.            Mr A once told Bambi about his experience sometime ago in a western state. He parked at the side of the road and tried to open his door when a middle aged man who was walking past was hit by the car door. In a dramatic western fashion as they are known for, the man stops as Mr A tries in futility to beg him. He turns squarely at Mr A as he asks him in rhetoric that "was it illegal for people without cars to walk? Can I ...

In a third world county deeply rooted in culture as nourishment, where we carry our culture on the satchel on our neck the way a freshly harvested tuber of yam carries humus sand. We see culture as what differentiates us from the white man. It does not necessarily make us better because deep inside, we envy them, we envy their progress, their precision in behavior and hygiene, the colour of their skin and even their hair. But we, because of culture, we feel we stand higher than them in the hierarchy of morals. And we revel in it. We revel when they come to our festivals and as a result, we put on more of a show. Our masquerades flog harder. Our women move with more vibrancy. To show we take culture more seriously than them, and to rub it in their faces, that they have no culture to call theirs. The same culture we revere has left us behind the rest of the world in the usual fashion. We have witnessed struggles for human rights over the centuries. We have witnessed the figh...