PG Fiction: The Money is the Motive II: Moni

My mother is going to enjoy this. I thought to myself as I sat reading This Day newspaper in my study. I wasn’t surprised that This Day was the only newspaper that had printed a story about this entire issue. It was the only credible newspaper Nigeria that I didn’t have ties with. But even they feared my power in the media world enough to make it a tiny fraction of an article rather than a full-blown headline. My mother, Lara Balogun, would be ecstatic. Just another day when she’d be right and I’d be wrong. She was against Efe going into politics from day one. Efe had left the house at about midday after getting a phone call and hadn’t said a word to me about anything. It was wise of him too, knowing that my reaction to such a situation was definitely one to be feared.

I found out through my younger sister Seyi, who had called me after he’d left to tell me that a colleague of hers had thrown the infamous article on her desk this morning. Not a very pleasant gesture to a woman who was six months pregnant. But she wasn’t the most popular person in her office ever since she’d gotten promoted to Deputy Manager at the consulting firm she worked at.
“He said it’ll be all over the news by Tuesday, at least” she said to me worriedly.
The news. I AM the fucking news, I thought. How on earth was I supposed to deal with these sort of allegations in a discreet manner, when I run the biggest broadcasting network in Africa?
“Is there anything I can do, Moni?”
“No darling, I’m afraid there isn’t.” I sighed. “Just give me the name of that amebo in your office so that I can get my henchmen to kidnap him.”
“Moni!!” She squeaked “This is not the time to be joking e jòwó”
“I know, I know. But don’t worry about it okay? I have it all under control. You just focus on making sure little Jacque and Julia come out as beautiful as their mummy”
“Little who?” Seyi laughed. “I see you’ve decided to name my unborn children yourself abi?”
“Its not as if you had any better ideas!”
“We were going to go with Taiwo and Kehinde actually.”
“My point exactly!”
“Bye Moni” Seyi laughed and hung up. I examined the newspaper once more. Seyi thought it was all a complete fabrication by one of my “enemies” as she put it, which was typical as she had always been a bit paranoid. However, I knew these kinds of allegations didn’t just come from nowhere. I began to think of my options. I imagined I could call an emergency board meeting and have the entire network completely ignore the story and threaten the important people at This Day till the story dies. But then I considered the possibility of this making me look like I was privy to the entire embezzlement.
Alternatively, I thought I could play the “distressed, unsuspecting wife”, weeping dramatically on a talk show segment on my network, while my husband takes the rap. But I built my entire reputation on being Moni the African TV Mogul, not Mrs. Odesiri, the wife of Efe Odesiri. I wasn’t about to change all that because of that fool’s mess.
Just when I’d begun to wonder why I hadn’t seen an ounce of this money in our joint account nor in his private ones, the doorbell rang. I adjusted the tea green bubu I was wearing and glanced at my  Chaumet watch, it was 10.30pm. It was too late. No chance of that being Efe then. He’s probably really gone. I thought as I walked through the corridors and down the stairs to the front door.
“That should be Kesena” I said to the maid as we both approached the door.
“Mummy!”
“Darling!”
The tall, pretty girl ran in to hug me. A struggling Dipo was behind her helping the driver with Kesena’s numerous suitcases.
“Good evening, Auntie” He bowed slightly in greeting.
“Hello Dipo, I see Kesena has made you her lackey” I remarked.
“Something like that” He laughed. “Kesena owes me for this anyway.”
“Dipo is just grumpy ‘cause I dragged him away from a romantic weekend with Desola.” Kesena teased, rolling her eyes while helping herself to mint from the bowl that we kept near the entrance.
“Is that so?” I smirked while examining Dipo. I’d always suspected that he liked Kesena more than in a friendly way. There was something about the way he looked at her. But of course my daughter was entirely oblivious to this, even as the boy practically obeyed her every command.
“Don’t mind her Auntie” He said breathlessly after heaving the last of the suitcases into the house. He looked around, presumably searching for my husband. “Is the Oga around, Auntie?”
“You’re looking at her.” I smiled.
“Oh wow. Kesena, what was I telling you about your mum being THE boss?” Dipo laughed.
“Please where is my son?” I suddenly noticed Tanure wasn’t in the room.
“Oh, he said something about some party somewhere.” Kesena turned to look at me. “He said he won’t be back too late.”
“Hm”
“Where is your husband anyway?” She asked giving me a cold stare. Everyone said she got it from her mother, but honestly sometimes her icy stares and cutting comments scared even me. But of course I’d never admit that.
“Excuse me?” I said matching her stare. While Dipo quietly slipped out of the room as the mood suddenly changed. “Is it your father that you’re referring to in that tone? The same father who has fed you, nurtured you, put clothes on your back and given you stellar education?”
“Mum.” Kesena’s eyes suddenly widened. “Did you know about this?”
“No, I did not. Not that it concerns you.”
“I think it does actually concern me. Considering the fact that he is the same father who fed me, nurtured me, put clothes on my back and gave me stellar education with STOLEN money. Money that was meant to be for the improvement of quality of life of people in Delta State who have been affected by the militant violence, oil spills and destruction of basic infrastructure!”
“I know it’s not me that you’re raising your voice for.” I said calmly. “If you must know your father’s people told me that he left the country this afternoon.”
Kesena’s cold expression suddenly changed to a state of shock, then her face crumpled and she began to weep.
“Oh my God!” She whimpered. “My dad has become one of these men that flee the country after being caught stripping it of its wealth.”
For God’s sake, I thought. She should be the one to go on a talk show segment if she’s going to be this dramatic.
“Christ, Kesena, have some composure” I snapped. “Ah-ah! You needn’t worry about wearing stolen clothes or whatever it was you were going on about. I know every transaction that goes through for you and your brothers upbringing, school fees, allowances and all, like the back of my hand and no money from any extraneous source has funded any of them. It’s all been from my company, your father’s rightful salary from before and now, returns from shares, et cetera.”
“So its all a lie?” She said, wiping her eyes and looking up to me hopefully.
“I’m not sure to be honest.” I said more gently. “But don’t worry about it okay? It will all be cleared up soon.”
“Okay…I’m glad he’s not here anyway. I’d have had to stay in a hotel I’d booked with Dipo, rather than at home.” She sighed. Then noticing my expression she quickly added. “Oh ew! Not like that mummy! Separate rooms! Haba!”
“No need to be so firm about it” I laughed. “I’m sure Dipo wouldn’t have minded”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing! The both of you get settled. I’m off to my study to make some calls.”
“Um…mummy…one last thing, will you follow me to church tomorrow morning….please?” Kesena asked as I turned to climb the stairs.
“Honey, you know I’m terribly busy at the moment. But you go ahead and say a few prayers for me when you do okay?” I smiled, while she sighed in anticipated disappointment. Kesena had always been weirdly pious. It was probably the influence of Seyi on her, as it definitely wasn’t from me. As if I had time for church at a time like this.
Just when I’d felt like I’d had enough mother-daughter discussions for the evening, I was subjected to another round just as I sat at my desk.
“Good evening, mummy” I said as I answered my phone.
“Evening? Speak for yourself!” My mother laughed.
“Oh sorry, I forgot you were in Sydney.”
“Its fine jo. And your stepfather and I are having a grand time, thanks for asking”
“I was just about to-”
“I hear your husband has added ‘petty thieving’ to his list of disreputable skills.” She interrupted. Right under ‘jack of all trades, master of none’.”
I drew my breath. She knew. Who on earth was evil enough to have called my mother on holiday in Australia to tell her about a rumour about her son-in-law?
“Mother. That is not fair.”
“How? Is he not a common thief? Moni did you know about this?”
“Of course I didn’t!”
“Well your moron of a husband has finally dragged you into the mud with him. And I just called to say I told you so. How do you plan to keep this away from ‘The Intellectual Elite of Africa’?” She said, acidly mocking the slogan of one of the global development programs on my network.
“I have it under control.” I said slowly, closing my eyes and trying to remain calm.
“No, you don’t.” She said simply. “Here’s my advice. Divorce the ole.”
“Mum! I am NOT going to do that”
“Why not? Has Kesena finally influenced you with her stringent morals?”
“He is my husband, I love him, and I don’t even know if these allegations are true. And what about my children? How can you even suggest that?”
“You love him. Really?”
“Yes mum, that’s what what twenty-seven years of marriage is! It’s love! You, of course, with your three marriages wouldn’t know much about that.”
There was a pause.
“Suit yourself. I’ve said my own. Your reputation and business shall go down the drain because of your foolish choices.” She said, almost like a witch pronouncing a death hex. “Such a shame for a child with your potential.”
I was about to reply that being forty-eight years old means I stopped being a child about twenty-seven years ago but she had already hung up. And like every time I just finish talking to my mother, I regretted picking up the phone, even though part of me wondered whether she was right.
She’d always disapproved that I’d married so young and to someone “below” me. I agreed that twenty-one was definitely far too early to be getting married, as I would never allow Kesena rush into anything like that. But I despised my mother’s snobbish attitude towards Efe. Its one thing to have standards, but it’s entirely different when you’re just stuck up. When I married Efe, he was a hard-working man who came from a very poor family but was destined for great things. Firms were throwing themselves at him from all over. I was still working for DSTV then but my plans for my broadcasting network were just about to take off. In my eyes, we were going to be the power couple I’d always dreamed of being part of. Two attractive, intelligent, and accomplished Africans headed to the top paving the way for the rest. So he (at twenty-eight) and I (at twenty-one) got married after dating for a year and a half. It was a small ceremony, despite my mother’s best efforts to make it a full-on owambe moment (my better judgement told me it was not because she was happy about the marriage, but more so because she wanted to show Efe’s family just how inferior she thought them to be). And our marriage produced Kesena three years into it, and Tanure two years after. Everything was ideal. My children, the joys of my life. And my marriage, on its way to being exactly what I wanted it to be, perfect in power. I’d always thought we wanted the same things, which is why we were so good together. We were both incredibly driven people. Efe may have had some setbacks here and there with his main goal of being made a SAN, but I made up for it with the bounding success my company had over a short period of time. With the woman being more successful, people thought it would be an issue in our marriage but they were entirely wrong. Efe and I were a unit as fas as I was concerned and his shortcomings were mine, and my successes were his and I made this clear to anyone who thought otherwise. Besides, Efe was not like all the other silly Nigerian men I’d dated before him, who were intimidated by the fact that I had attended an Ivy League school and was earning more than most of them by twenty-one without a Master’s degree. Unlike them, this was one of the things Efe loved about me and he never understood the dominance that men demanded to have in their households. This just made us the epitome of what I thought the Modern African couple should be, an ever-improving partnership, reinforced by love and common values, between a man and woman. I was skeptical about the Ministerial appointment but Efe seemed eager, and well, with one foot in politics and the other in the media, our partnership was going to be more powerful than ever.
We had everything. Which was why this scandal confused me so much. I wondered whether it was greed, influence or some unknown debt that had made him do something like this. Even back in 2008 when we were all hit hard from the recession nothing like this had ever come up. I was confused but more so I was angry. Even if it had been imperative that he stole, couldn’t he at least have been discreet about it? Knowing very well that I, his wife, owned a broadcasting network with major news channels under it he went ahead to get caught in a defamatory scandal about money of all things as if there were anything more vulgar.
Even an affair would have been easier to swallow, I thought to myself as I stared at a happy picture of us at Kesena’s secondary school graduation on my Brazilian rosewood office desk. I knew what I had to do to resolve the issue, but it was going to take great skill and expert discretion. I was confident I’d be able to get away with it. I was going to make it impossible for me to be found out, after all I wasn’t given all that power in the media world for nothing. For the sake of my children and my reputation, it had to be done. I’d decide on a way to deal with Efe himself later. I picked up my phone to start a conference call with my PA and my accountant, ignoring the fact that it was nearly midnight.
It’s just going to be another situation, displaying just how much more capable I am than Efe is. I thought to myself, regretting the condescending thought almost immediately.

PG Fiction: The Money is the Motive I : Kesena.

I could hear strains of the song “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay coming from somewhere. My phone was ringing. I had just gotten out of the office and was about to start heading towards the little restaurant Dipo and I had formed a ritual of having lunch at while interning this summer. I looked at the screen. It was him. I took a deep breath and answered.
“Daddy?”
“Kesena? Hello darling, how are you?”
Silence.
“I’m guessing you’ve heard something”
“You could say that.” I replied icily, while searching in my new handbag for my car keys.
“Well, listen, I can’t talk much right now, I just called to tell you not to talk to any journalists okay? In fact, don’t discuss the issue with anyone at all. Have you heard me? Thank God it’s almost the weekend, you can come home to Abuja and stay here for a bit till things calm down. I’ll call Jide and let him know you’ll be taking sometime off.”
Jide was Chief Adeyemi to the rest of us who weren’t golf buddies with him. He was a senior partner at the law firm I had been working at for most of the summer holidays.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna happen” I snapped.
“Pardon?”
“Are you with mum?”
“Yes, I-”
“Tell her I’ll call her later” I interrupted, and then hung up. On any ordinary day, that would not have happened. He would have had my head for daring to be so rude to him. But today was no ordinary day. I stared at my blackberry for about 10 seconds half-expecting him to ring back ready to give me a bollocking. But he didn’t. I hissed and shoved the phone into my blazer pocket and stormed towards my 3-series in the middle of the company parking lot.

There was not much traffic surprisingly for Lagos, and I arrived at the restaurant about ten minutes later. Upon walking in I spotted Dipo sitting in the corner by a window, but not by the window we usually sat at. I turned to look at our regular table and saw some semi-important looking businessmen, two in suits and one in an agbada. I rolled my eyes and began strolling over to Dipo who I noticed was not alone. When we were about six, Dipo was the noisy boy who’s mum was friends with mine. I didn’t think too much of him as I was very prissy and proper as a child and he was as obnoxious as little boys could get really. One day he forced me to race him round our compound. When I ended up beating him in the race he begged me not to tell anyone. I agreed and we’ve been best friends ever since. He was a lot taller than me now though even though I was 5”9. He was quite built too, while I was just skinny. Plus, while I had a “deep caramel” complexion according to some tactful makeup sales assistants Selfridges, Dipo was more like Lance Gross. These days, girls couldn’t get enough of him, as he was as good-looking and as charming twenty-two year old guys could get these days. Which, if you think about it, isn’t saying much.
I peered at Dipo’s table as I got closer and recognized the girl sitting next to him as Jadesola, Dipo’s breezy number umpteen who we’d known since secondary school. I wondered why he’d chosen today of all days to bring her along. Back in SS1, she came to school and announced that from then on everyone should call her “Jade” like the colour. I insisted on calling her what we’d always had, which was Desola, so it was safe to say she wasn’t particularly fond of me. It didn’t help that I was Dipo’s best friend either.

“K-pop!” Dipo stood up and gave me a kiss on the cheek. He never tired of calling me that ridiculous nickname.
“Hey hun” I replied and turned to the dainty, pretty girl beside him. “Desola love, how now?”
“I’m good, Kesena o. Haven’t seen you in a bit”
“I know!” I said and sat down, plonking my Alexander Wang bag down beside me. “It’s work, really”
Turning back to Dipo, I complained about not being in our usual spot. He shrugged and beckoned a waiter over to take our orders. Desola and I chit-chatted while we waited for our meals, Dipo was unusually quiet and spent most of the time fiddling with his iPad with a little frown on his face.
“Kesena” He suddenly blurted, just as I was about to dig in to my caesar salad.
“Yeah?”
“Um…. Abeg what do you know about this whole Delta State Redevelopment Fund thingie?” He tried to say casually, pointing at his iPad screen.
I froze.
“Because I’m the Minister’s right hand man abi?”. I replied cooly, glaring at him.
“No but-”
“Oh wow, Desola, I love those shoes! Are they new? Where are they from?” I said to Desola gushingly. I knew very well where they were from, as I’d ordered the same pair in four different colours from the Charlotte Olympia website about a month earlier. But it would keep her talking for at least another ten minutes, and it was enough to shut Dipo up for a bit. I avoided Dipo’s gaze and nodded eagerly at Desola as she went on. I found myself slowly tuning out of what she was saying and into the conversation going on between the men at our regular table. Their voices were raised, so I figured it could be interesting.

“I knew it!” One in a grey suit said as he flung a newspaper down onto the table. “There’s no hope for this country, I tell you!”
“My friend, you don’t even know the half of it. That newspaper is just giving baby figures. From what I’ve heard it was a downright obscene amount. People are even saying it can accumulate to around Dimeji’s figure, if not more than sef.” This was the black suit man talking, from what I could see in the corner of my eye.
“EHN? Olorun!!” Grey suit guy was in shock.
“Nothing is hidden under the sun anyway. It will all soon be common knowledge. By God’s grace the EFCC will bring justice”
“To his own people” The man in a dark blue agbada muttered while shaking his head. “That bastard”
I stole a glance in their direction to decipher what newspaper they’d been reading. Squinting, I saw the name and suddenly felt sick. It was This Day. Fuck. They’d seen it. They knew. I turned back to find Dipo still looking at me worriedly. He’d heard them. He knew too.

“Well, Desola, all I can say is you have great taste in shoes.” I smiled at her. “Can’t say the same about your taste in guys though.” Or weaves, I thought to myself while eyeing her Nicki Minaj-esque black bangs that were far too severe for her pixie-cute looks.
“Haha. Ode.” grinned Dipo, his eyes still full of concern.

I spent about twenty more minutes with them, then quickly paid for my meal and hurriedly went back to the office. On my way, I recited all the prayers I had ever learnt at Catechism class, especially for the ones asking for Divine Mercy. We were going to need it.
Back at the law firm, I met a message from Chief Adeyemi with the receptionist (who gave me a suspicious look) saying I’d been granted my leave. Not that I’d wanted one in the first place. So I gathered some case studies I wanted to look over during my time off and headed to my apartment in Ikoyi. I was livid. My father could force me to stay away from work but he couldn’t make me get on a plane to Abuja.
I had always been proud. Proud of myself, proud of my beliefs, proud of my family. Our lifestyle was more than comfortable. My mother’s family was rich enough for my grandchildren to never have to work a day in their lives. My mother herself owned an incredibly large television company with her own television network broadcasted in all of Africa and parts of India. They called her the Nigerian Oprah, but without the talk show, and Dipo called her Mrs. Money Ain’t a Thing, when she was out of an earshot anyway. My father was a very successful lawyer for one of the top Trans-African banks and made more than a good living. But after not being made a SAN (Senior Advocate of Nigeria) after 30 years, he was fed up. So when he was offered the position of Minster of Finance, he jumped at the chance. And I had been proud. For me, expensive clothes and cars were a way of life. I just thought of it all as normal. I didn’t even realise that regular little girls didn’t wear Armani Junior shoes and sweaters with their school uniform until I was about fifteen. It was then that I understood that I had things other people didn’t. I had never flaunted our wealth, my mother would have been appalled if I did. But I was proud and always made it clear that I had standards. As I drove through the gates of the apartment building, I thought of all my big expenses in the past few months: the trips to Milan and Nice, the goat hair embroidered leather Balmain vest that I had actually had to save up for, the two Burberry Prorsum trench coats, my 21st birthday cruise weekend, to name a few. I shuddered to think of how many of those those I had paid for with money from my dad. I got all my pocket money from my parents’ joint account, so I had no idea who paid for what.
As I shut my apartment door behind me, I let out a little scream of frustration. James, the housekeeper ran into the hall looking slightly alarmed.
“I’m fine o, James” I laughed. “Just a bit thirsty, could you bring me that bottle of white wine in the fridge abeg.” He nodded and quickly brought it to the study where I had settled in.
I brought out the day’s This Day newspaper and flipped to the article I had been reading at work. It was a relatively short one, in the middle of the paper. Not a very big headline, easily missable. But I could tell it was one of those stories that started off small, with only discreet, moderately significant details mixed with some rumors but eventually grew into a front page, top headline story in a matter of days.

…A source has confirmed that he misappropriated 10 billion Naira, which is the same amount as the budget set aside for redevelopment of Delta state, and has been paying 250 million of this amount monthly into a private account over the past few months…more details are to follow…

I took a huge gulp of my wine and quickly shut the newspaper. Hot tears sprang to my eyes. How could he do this to us? Did he even think about his family when he was doing this? Our reputation? We’d had shitloads of money WAY before he became Minister. We didn’t need any more, we could even do with a lot less. How could he do this? And why?
What would my friends think? What would my lecturers think? I thought of Mr. Harrison, my first year Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa lecturer at LSE. I was in my third year now and had only taken his class once, but he and I were friends and would always get together for coffee and discuss Nigerian politics whenever we had the chance. He was very intelligent, and had the best kind of dry humor that always had me in stitches. I remembered when he found out my dad was being appointed Minister of Finance. He wrote a long letter to my father and gave it to me to give him. It was all about how “elated” he was that someone as “discerning”, “astute”, “competent” and “incorruptible” as my father was in an influential position. He went on to discuss how he was “assured” that my father would make an “tremendous” affect on the nation.
I flipped open my laptop and decided to check my email to distract myself somehow. Only a few new messages. One was from Remi, my dad’s PA. It was the confirmation for my flight to Abuja the following evening. I noticed she’d booked me in first class. It reminded me of when I was little and the later my parents would send a driver to pick me up from school the bigger the car they’d send. As if them pulling up in a big expensive car was important to a six year old girl who’d been waiting outside the school for hours. I wondered why he hadn’t chartered a private flight for me seeing as his offence this time was much bigger than being late. But I suppose it wouldn’t have been wise given the current situation. I got out my phone and keyed in Dipo’s speed dial.
“Good Evening, this is Dipo Obayomi’s line, Jade speaking” a chirpy voice greeted.
“Desola? Hey….um is Dipo there? It’s Kesena” I said a bit thrown off by the formal greeting.
“Oh hey dear, he’s in the shower actually, do you want to leave a message?”
“Um. Could you just ask him if he’d like to come with me to visit my family in Abuja for the weekend? There’s a bit of an issue. And I’m leaving tomorrow evening.”
“Well, I don’t know, its completely short notice, he likes to be told about these things in advance, you know.” Desola said affectedly.
I had to control my giggles. What, was she his secretary now or something?
“AND we had planned to go to the beach this weekend and-”
“Look,” I cut her off.  “Just give him the message and tell him to call me okay? I have to go now. Bye!!”
I placed my head on the table and breathed heavily. I would go to Abuja, but only because I wanted to see my mum and my younger brother, Tanure. As for Minister Odesiri, I hissed while looking a picture of him and my mother on the wall.
I thought about seeing if I could book a room at the Transcorp Hilton or the Sheraton. But at the same time I couldn’t decide on which was worse, paying for a hotel room with what could be stolen money, or sleeping in the same house as my father. After about five minutes, I sat up and picked up my phone to dial Mr. Chetanna who did all our family’s hotel bookings. The last place I wanted to be was anywhere near that thief.

New Story!!

So I’m back with a three part story!! I don’t write fiction much but decided to give it a shot this time around. I’ve written the first part and I’m about to post it. Let me know what you think by leaving your comments!!

The Sun Goes Down…

RIP to a legend.

So earlier today I had been engaging in my now regular summer activity of watching romantic comedies on my laptop and while waiting for a video to load, I decided to play some Amy Winehouse. I was in a soulful mood,  playing the “Frank” album, singing along to “I Heard Love Is Blind”, “You Sent Me Flying/Cherry” and “In My Bed” having a great time and wishing that Amy would put out a new album.

Creepily, about 3 hours later, I check my BBM (now a very reliable news source along with Twitter and Facebook) and see my friend’s status saying something about Amy being dead. I wished it was a joke, but it wasn’t.

She was talented, that’s a given, but the soul and rawness of her music were really what made her such a star. It is a rarity to find a musician in this day and age that can incorporate sounds from a different era and still make the music a new experience through her lyrics and vocals. Its painful especially when you think of all the things she could have achieved, and when you think of all the noise people create these days and call music. The best ones are always the first to go. Please pray for the repose of her soul.

I’ve posted are some of my favourite songs by her. Some are original songs, others are covers she did.

 

No offence, or anything……

(Okay so I know I promised a really controversial piece next and I promise you its in the works and will be up sooner than you think! PROMISE! But for now…enjoy…)

One can always find me at the MAC or Bobbi Brown counter at Heathrow Terminal 5 every time I’m going on a trip. Buying duty free makeup is a great way to waste time before a flight. Recently after I’d purchased a very cute shade of Bobbi Brown shimmer blush (Flame 4 in case any of you ladies were wondering)  I found myself in a discussion with my sister about the different brands that produce foundation and other forms of makeup for people of colour.

Apply lightly.

A friend had once told me about how a friend of hers had gone to a makeup counter for a brand (which one it was I’d forgotten) and was told  by the sales assistant that the brand did not carry any foundation for her skin colour. Needless to say this girl happened to be black. Honestly, I can understand the initial slighted feeling one may have at that particular moment, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t believe there’s any reason to be offended in that situation.

Business is business. If no reputable brands produced makeup for people of colour then I would be concerned be cause this would mean that it is assumed that people of colour don’t wear makeup. But MAC, Bobbi Brown, NARS, BareMinerals, Makeup For ever, and several other brands all have a wide range of shades of foundation and the rest. So one miniscule makeup house not carrying any dark shades really shouldn’t be an issue. As far as I’m concerned as a business owner I am entitled to produce whatever I want.  People don’t get offended because Kurt Geiger doesn’t make trainers, or when Nike doesn’t produce high heels. You don’t see Serena Williams protesting that “The athletic woman is underrepresented or not catered for” because she cant get a pair of tennis shoes from Christian Louboutin. Why should this situation be any different?

When I was having this discussion with my sister she likened the situation to the lack of colour we see every year on the runways during the numerous fashion weeks in Europe. This is very much an important and relevant issue worth our attention but ONLY for the right reasons. Saying that we feel slighted because we don’t feel that we are being represented as consumers because we only see Caucasian men and women on the runways is not a valid reason to be concerned. Why? Because the fact that YOU are concerned with and bothered about the colour of the models proves that you cannot see past colour and therefore are just like the person hiring the models who discriminates based on race. You should be looking at the clothes, shoes and jewellery not the models themselves. Rather, WHAT should concern us is the situation in the modelling labour market. There are several young models of colour who are extremely beautiful and talented who find it difficult to find work because of the racial discrimination there still is in hiring. If there’s anything to be riled up about it is the fact that a plain-looking, less talented Caucasian model can walk on 50 different runways over and over again, while a more talented, interestingly featured Asian or Black model might only walk on 4 or 5.

However it becomes entirely different when  high end designers tend to assume that people of colour don’t purchase their clothing due to differences in culture and style*. This can be seen as is borderline ignorant and offensive as several people of all races attend all the fashion shows in Paris and Milan and purchase several pieces from the new collections every season, every year, (just ask all the Asian women I see lining up outside the LV section at Selfridges, the numerous wives of top dog Nigerians who frequent Paris with their personal shoppers in tow, or the glamorous Arab women I find enjoying the rare English sun seated outside of Hummingbird Bakery in South Kensington with their limited edition Birkins on their laps).

But back to the topic, a lot of the time we might find ourselves getting upset about simply the wrong things or the right things for the wrong reasons. Why is that? And Why do people search high and low for things to be offended about? Most of the time if something is offensive to us we notice it right away, other times we need someone to explain the situation from a different perspective**.  These are really just my thoughts and little opinions that could end up changing in future and God knows if I had all the answers I’d be off happily on some beach somewhere without a care in the world, but in reality I don’t have all the answers and could possibly sit and debate and write about this for hours so I’ll just stop there. But let me know what your opinions on this topic are! Enlighten me through the comment box ↓!

*An interesting interview debate below between Noemie Lenoir (who I think is just sooo cool) and Karl Lagerfeld about race and fashion. (It’s in french so dust up your old french exercise books and listen carefully)……(or you could just go here)

*I remember that show that used to be on Nickelodeon or Ktv or one of those channels called “The Journey of Allen Strange”, it wasn’t one of my favourites but I would watch it when nothing else was on. And throughout ALL my years of watching it as a child, I never ONCE thought it may have had some racist undertones until I was about 14 and one of my older friends brought it up in a conversation. I once was blind but now I definitely see. The creators of that show have some explaining to do.

 

 

“You made it a hot line, I made it a hot song”

Everyone who knows me personally will know that I’m a certified old school R&B and soul junkie. This is a fact. Give me some Smokey Robinson, Zapp & Roger, Patti Labelle and the likes, and I’ll be in my element. And so recently as I’ve been listening to music from the 70s and 80s, I’ve discovered several songs that have been sampled or interpolated for new ones and each time I do I get extremely excited and listen to both songs repeatedly until I’ve figured out roughly what was done to switch it up. And so roughly related to this I decided to do a fun blog post about songs that have kind of interpolated or used lines from other songs to make new ones. I have a really serious blog post in the works right now and so I thought this could kind of ease up things before I post that one. Also I’ve been told to add more media (pictures, videos etc) to the blog to make it more enticing to read, and initially I refused to sell out because I wanted people to focus more on the words, but I’m selling out a little bit for the purpose of this post.

So the first song that I realised this Jay-Z’s taking a hot line and making it a hot song process was not in the song that he referred to when he said that line. It was in “Why U Wanna” at the peak of my T.I. phase.

The “Why you wanna go and do that, love huh?” line came from the old Janet Jackson and Q-tip collaboration “Got til’ it’s Gone” which is a certified jam.

The next song I discovered this in was the infamous “Roman’s Revenge”. Shady and Nicki Minaj. (don’t ask why bitch ask why not?).

The catchy and aggressive “Rah-Rah Like a dungeon dragon” came from Busta Rhymes line in A Tribe Called Quest’s “Scenario”. Here we go yo.

The next song is Jay-Z’s classic “Dead Presidents”. The beat of this song is crazy.

The line “I’m out for dead presidents to represent me” came from Nas’s song “The World is Yours”. And from what I gather it was Nas’s refusal to rap the chorus on “Dead Presidents” that started the big Nas-Jay-Z beef. Thank God that’s over anyway.

The last song in the post is “In the Morning” by J. Cole and it’s one of his most popular to date.

The line “Can I hit it in the morning” is also the first line in Jay-Z’s “Can I Get A…” featuring Ja Rule and Amil, which was my solid jam back in those Hard Knock Life days.

Okay so that concludes this post. Lesson learned: Listen carefully. A lot of my friends make fun of me for obsessing over which song was sampled for what or the meanings of song lyrics and so on but it can’t be helped. I love music and all it’s dimensions. Fact.

Sidenote: On a sampling level, Kanye is pretty much a King. And a genius. Press play.

“No matter how I hate flashbacks and rewinds, can’t escape the pain that be trapped in my mind”

“Accept my emotion, do not take it as an offensive gesture, it’s just the impediment of my soul” (Lil Wayne)

I’ve stared at this screen for about 20 minutes and I cannot think of a word to describe the cause of the rotting in the core of our society. I know a lot of my peers who have plans to start up their lives anywhere but home. I can’t blame them. With the increasing corruption and violence, and few signs of redemption, it would be wise to do the same. But in my case, my demons would just follow me wherever I go. If I want to be rid of them, then I have to return.

Even the days that I consider moving to Norway or Switzerland or somewhere else with a high standard of living, its a thought I can’t entertain for long. I’ve had to many intimate scenes in this tragedy called “Nigeria” for me to not seek salvation for us. Five years ago, I thought I knew and understood everything (I was a pretty bossy kid), which was why the plane crash was not only sorrowful but also immensely inexplicable…..I just didn’t understand it. I now know enough to know that I don’t know much.

“Something has to be done” that’s what we said when we lost our friends. Promises were made, Oaths were sworn. But just by looking at the Nigerian headlines today, it is evident that not much has changed. “Senators Blame Airport Woes On Poor Management”, “Nigeria election equipment stolen”, “Nigerians among highest bribe payers in the world”, it would be laughable if it wasn’t so disgusting.

Since the crash I’ve seen people lose their loved ones due to substandard health and transport services. Political, social and religious violence has only elevated, people have been robbed, kidnapped, and killed. And maybe the people in power have never had to live in fear, or lose anyone, so they find it easy to watch other people go through these. So maybe it is up to us, we that have suffered, to strive to change the situation. At thirteen years old, I didn’t deserve to lose so many friends all at once. No parent should ever have to bury their child. I’ve never seen pain like their parents’ pain. No child should have to spend every night and day tormented because they have no idea whether their parents are safe. The situation in Nigeria has affected me as a person far too directly for me to just sit back and want nothing to do with it. I’ve struggled for five years without some of the people that I loved the most, and not a a day goes by when I don’t wish I could just wake up with them still here.

But the cold harsh reality is, they aren’t. All I can do to honour them is work hard to deal with the situation. For as long as I live, I will use every success and every achievement I strive for to prove that they didn’t die in vain. I doubt sleep will come easily if I decided to sit back and watch our airports run without efficient emergency services. So I’ve decided to embrace the heartache I feel, it makes me more resilient, it makes me patient, it makes me work much harder. Put that together with my faith in God, and “invincible” would be an apt description.

I use my pain as fuel.

In loving memory of Ibiso, Owanari, Hadiza, Ibra, Nkem, Whitney and all our 60 Angels that died on 10/12/05. “To live in the hearts of those you love is not to die”

No One MAN should have all that Power

The Influential Women: The Spice Girls: Scary, Baby, Posh, Sporty and Ginger. Coco Chanel. Mother Teresa. Princess Diana.

I was introduced to the concept of Girl Power in 1997; we had just bought the One Hour of Girl Power videocassette, which was a documentary of the Spice Girls of their experiences from the previous year, with music videos, and clips of the group on tour. I cannot say that I fully understood what it meant, but I was in full support of this new mantra that I had come across. After all, I was a girl, and if Girl Power meant that girls were ‘better’ than boys, then I was down with that. Other girl groups like TLC and Destiny’s Child also planted the idea of girls coming together to achieve greatness in my brain and provided the soundtrack to my childhood (“No Scrubs” and “Say My Name” come to mind). Disney helped out with the movies Mulan and The Cheetah Girls which subsequently caused me to dream about using a sword to cut off my hair so I could fight the war or teaming up with my best friends to sing, dance and become international superstars. However this ideology was really reinforced within my mind as I discovered a TV show that was based on the strength, intelligence and charisma of the female race. I watched it all the time and knew all the words to the theme song (and still do).  This show was female empowerment at it’s finest. This show was The Power Puff Girls. Amongst many other influences here and there, the roots of this ideology in my mind really lie in my love for Spice and Power Puff.

The Leaders: Queen Amina of Zaria. Queen Elizabeth I. Margaret Thatcher. Indira Ghandi. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Benazir Bhutto.

I got older, and Girl Power stuck at the back of my mind in everything that I did. I lashed out at anyone implying any form of degradation, or belittlement of the female. I read up about powerful females in history, especially Nigerian history and Queen Amina of Zaria (Nigeria’s most famous female leader and warrior) became a particular favourite. In Literature class, we began learning about feminism (while reading Buchi Emecheta’s “The Joys Of Motherhood”) and I realised that Girl Power was a part of something way bigger that I was interested in being a part of.  I began to understand that Girl Power wasn’t just singing, or saving the world before bedtime, it was way more than that. For centuries women had been denied rights and opportunities, they had been denied credit for any contributions to the development of our world and had fought and suffered to change all that. I could not just sit idly and waste what the strong women before me had devoted their lives to providing me with.  I realised that Girl Power meant pursuing knowledge, voting wisely, developing skills and using my talents as well as many other things. I became determined to do everything I did to the best of my abilities instead of dumbing myself down to let a man step in and “save” the day. And every time I saw another woman being elected President or Prime Minister or running a multinational corporation I saw myself and all the other strong-willed girls I knew work even harder to achieve the same.

The Divas: Cindy Lauper. Nina Simone. Diana Ross. Kate Bush. Ella Fitzgerald. Chaka Khan. Whitney Houston. Madonna. Lauryn Hill. Beyonce.

In school, I’ve been in charge of quite a few societies and held a number of leadership positions. And anytime I decided to go for another position or head another society I often found myself being asked by my friends (mostly boys) “Paula, why do you always want to be in charge of everything? Why can’t you let someone else do it for a change?”. A certain song line always comes to me when I am asked this question, it says:

“To whom it may concern/I refuse to be another being on this earth/ I’m breathing for a purpose/I want to be the centrepiece of my entire culture”

This line is one that really summarises how I feel about achieving great things as a woman, yet this line was written by a man. So when it came to music, I often found myself frustrated that a lot of the empowering or motivating songs I listened to were often made by men, and I always had to adapt the meanings to suit my life and the situations I found myself in everyday. So I delved deeper into listening to music by Lauryn Hill, Beyonce, Eve, Erykah Badu, Gwen Stefani and others which gave me motivation.  Can’t Hold Us Down by Christina Aguilera was a particular favourite. I don’t know if it’s only me that feels this way, but listening to inspirational music by females definitely brings on another dimension of ambition from within me, simply because it’s another woman singing or rapping or playing the violin (Remember Miri Ben-Ari, anyone?). Today, I listen to a lot of music by Nicki Minaj, which has an abundance of positive energy for women and I can tell you that motivation way easier to come by when you are listening to another woman’s words instead of a man’s. And there’s a sense of unity about it as well.

A Few Other Heroines: Harriet Tubman. Emily Dickinson.Rosa Parks. Marie Curie. Venus and Serena Williams. Chimamanda Adichie. J.K. Rowling. Blair Waldorf.

Don’t get me wrong though, I am not a bra burner. My main concerns when it comes to Girl Power are empowerment, fighting gender discrimination and most importantly support and encouragement from other females. I hate to see a girl trying to bring another girl down simply because she’s making a name for herself. You might not particularly like her, or support what she supports but girls need to understand how to respect the hustle of other females trying to be the best they can be. And then do the same for yourself. Don’t shrink away. Work hard, accept competition, and focus. Women today need to know that they have power, and it is with that power that we can break down walls and build up legacies that will have our names engraved in history.

The Legends: *Insert Name Here*

Homecoming

It was when I landed in Lagos that I realised that I had been ill. Severely ill. For the past year I’ve been suffering from ENDD (Excessive Negritudinal Delusion Disorder).

Okay fine, I made that up. But I have strong suspicions that the disease exists. I’m cured of it now, but let me explain to you, its symptoms, treatment, how I came up with the name and how to prevent it (prevention is better than cure after all).

Symptoms

1. Missing home (home being Nigeria). Now this could just easily mean that you genuinely miss home but this is not to be confused with common homesickness. The difference is that you miss Nigeria but you also blank out on all the faults the country has. You only remember the palm trees, the sun rays, the pounded yam and the Wande Coal songs. You forget all about NEPA, traffic, kidnappers, and corruption. You begin to think of home as utopia, nothing more and nothing less.

2. You find yourself  searching for Basketmouth videos on Youtube and proceed to roll on the floor of your dorm room crying with laughter at every joke he cracks. This stirs up more wistful thoughts and dreams of home.

3. You read headlines about the constant corruption, kidnapping and religious violence going on back home and yet instead of saying the Prayer for Nigeria in Distress, you just check out gidilive.com for any new jams and continue to dream about home as though nothing is wrong.

4. By this time, you’ve sunk in deep to the realms of ENDD and  you find yourself writing little Negritude poems like the ones you learnt about in Mrs. Smith’s  SS1 Literature class, “I Will Pronounce Your Name” and such. You are even reciting the ones you had to learn as if its a few minutes before your WAEC Literature Exam all over again

5. The last and most definite of all signs that you are critically ill with ENDD: you watched BBC’s three part documentary “Welcome to Lagos” * that caused so much scandal and was received either with disgust, rage or apathy by Nigerians because of heavy focus on the raw and graphic images of Nigeria’s poor rather than balancing these images with scenes about advancement in socioeconomic growth and development in the city, and you smiled and said “I miss home”.

Thus proving that you have now lost ALL connection with reality and you are almost thinking of home as a place where all is well and good even when some aproko news reporter goes out of their way to tell you that it isn’t (on BBC two by the way, watched by almost all 61 million UK citizens daily).

So now we’ve concluded that you have contracted ENDD (which may or may not be contagious, we haven’t quite figured that out yet.)

Now onto the treatment:

Its very simple really, just do exactly what you’ve been longing to do, go home. Once you reach that airport the disease reaches its peak. You spend the time before your flight in a little wonderland in your mind, tastes, smells, and sounds all feel so real and your delusion builds up….but you think it’s excitement. You practically float onto the plane and  then you settle down in your seat and drift off into a deep, deep sleep.

“Ladies and Gentlemen we have now landed in Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos. The time is 6:11pm and it is 28 degrees celsius.” Those words wake you up and once the fasten seatbelt sign has been switched off you practically leap off your seat and rush to the front of the plane so that you can be the first to soak up all the magic.

The airport is stuffy, there are air conditioners but they don’t seem to be making a difference. An unpleasant odour wafts around the airport. You begin to feel the excitement you  felt wearing off and being replaced with irritation. Only two desks are available at immigration, so the line is ridiculously long. You catch a glimpse of the airport officials who could be  making the line go faster, but instead they are cracking jokes and engaging in idle chitchat. More irritation. (Oh and randomly you hear this English woman speaking pidgin english better than you can as she pushes her way to the Non-Nigerian Passports counter. Weird.) Once you’ve got to the baggage claim and you’ve rented an unwieldy trolley which you are pretty sure is not safe for use, you begin the long wait for your luggage. Two hours later, you’ve managed to resist pulling out your hair in frustration because it seems like your luggage will never appear on the conveyor, and asking for whoever is in charge so you can report the lackadaisical attitude of his workers and its time to leave the airport. You load your luggage into the car and start the drive home. Four hours later, after sitting in a traffic jam that was almost never-ending, and after silently cursing okada men getting in your way or hitting your car, and you’ve made it home. All signs of ENDD have disappeared, and the only possibility of a relapse is destroyed by the darkness you are plunged into in the middle of the night and the soon after humming of your generator and the generators of your neighbours which keeps you awake for the rest of the night. PHCN strikes the last signs of the disease dead. Cured.

So I came up with the name ENDD because I thought of it as an extreme form of Negritude. I, personally, am not against Negritude at all. I fell in love with the entire idea of these French-speaking black writers and intellectuals beginning this literary movement and ideology that praises the motherland the moment I learnt about it in school. I just don’t want a situation to occur in which I am so swept up with the goodness of my homeland that the bad things don’t bother me anymore. Because once they stop bothering me, it marks the beginning of me eventually not caring. And that is highly dangerous.

Lastly, prevention. Stay awake!!! Don’t get carried away when it comes to loving your home,  being patriotic etc. I always scold my friends that constantly put Nigeria down and try to get them to focus on the positive things. However, I’ve now decided to keep myself in check as well, and keep in touch with reality. It’s good to love and be proud of where you’re from but to be blind to the faults and shortcomings of your country is the beginning of a nonchalant attitude which could amount to the downfall of the nation if present in all citizens.

* One point about “Welcome to Lagos”, a lot of Nigerian people thought that as Nigerians we shouldn’t have been insulted by the portrayal of the former capital in the documentary. They said instead of being angry we take it as a wake-up call an begin to do something for our country. I would agree with this point whole-heartedly if it wasn’t for the fact that the documentary was not aired on BBC two in Nigeria. And on the BBC two website one could not watch it either if one was in Nigeria because of their zones and all. So surely there was something about the documentary that these BBC reporters did not want us to see, no?

If you think about it that way, then perhaps we DO have a right to be insulted… #imjustsayin

just an essay I wrote about two years ago…

I stumbled across this essay I wrote about two years ago and decided to post it. I always cringe while reading stuff I’ve written in the past because I always think there is a way to improve it……but I kind of like this one the way it is……(okay I tweaked it a LITTLE bit before posting)….but anyway, voilá!

Black.  B-L-A-C-K.  Black. My favourite word. Its spelling, its pronunciation and most importantly its meaning are all put together to form the reason why I love it so much. Who would have thought there would be so much to say about this five-letter word?

Ink , my hair, my eyes , night. Four black things, four of my favourite things. Black ink is the tool with which I set free the person within me that cannot be seen, but is revealed through words of pain, confusion, depth, love and random ponderings of life. Black hair, that is mine, a once treasured crown, but now ,after 5 years of it being cut short due to school regulations, still a crown but not as treasured. Black eyes, that are mine, labelled “expressive”, “animated”, and “feminine” by those around me, never failing to give away my true opinions and feelings despite my efforts to hide them. Night, a sacred time, when the galaxies are revealed for me to gaze at and marvel over, a time of peace, made for reflection and also a time for me to sleep, to drift into a world of my own, away from the pressures and reality of life even if it’s just for a short while.

Black. Black, the colour of the soil my forefathers sowed their seeds in. Soil found in the town of Uromi where my roots, just like the roots of my forefather’s crops, are found.  The way of life of my countrymen is somewhat embedded in me, just  like the roots of those crops embedded in the soil. The way I laugh so hard, and cry so much harder. The way I cook food with much spice, and eat food of all flavours. The way I walk with such defiance, and speak with all confidence. The way I dance till bathed in sweat, and sing till I can no longer. The way I have been, am and always will be is really a result of the culture and traditions my ancestors lived by, on that very black soil of the small town of Uromi, found in the heart of Africa. So truly everything that I have managed to accomplish during my small time on this earth, I really owe it all to my parents, their parents and their parents’ parents who lived upon that beautiful black soil.

Black.  The colour I flung on as soon as I threw the phone down, the afternoon of December 10^th 2005. The day when sixty students of my school, Loyola Jesuit College, died in a plane crash on their way home for the Christmas holidays.  I lost so many friends that day, and the thought of it remains a still remains a shock. Black. The perfect description of that day, one of the most devastating days in my life.

Black. The colour of the distinctive stripes decorating the body of my favourite animal : the Siberian tiger.  So beautiful, yet so fierce. The white fur portraying its purity and the black stripes defining its mystery.

Black. A five-letter word, that means so much to me that it tells stories, it makes images, it does so much, it’s almost alive, very nearly breathing. Black, a five-letter word.  Five letters just like my name. One can see how much the word Black can mean, and how much the name Paula can mean too. But let’s not get me started on the latter.