My brain hurts (but not as much as ...)

This was a draft so a bit out of date as I am now ensconced safely back in VI.

I have grabbed an hour of internet time in the lovely Sheraton Abuja (yes I am being facetious) at the small price of N3k in order to do mails and a quick blog. I need to unload some of the stuff from the past 24 hours otherwise they might need to call a doctor and the men in the white vans for me (or leave me wandering the streets pushing a cart, foaming at the mouth, or worse elect me for the Senate). So this morning I woke up after a restless night. My A/c had not worked all night and I was too tired and afraid to phone for maintenance as this would have led to another saga. The first saga being me having the audacity to order room service at 9pm. When the food eventually arrived at 10.20 (no it was not haute cuisine- rice, plantain and fish) I was so boiling over with hunger and anger that I wolved it down only to realise later that it was the most tasteless junk I had shovelled down my gob since the pizza I had in NY last week. How can you make rice and stew tasteless? Make it for the Oyinbo palette. never mind your country man oh.

Anyway, I am an Aries and am one of those annoying people who no matter what mood I go to bed I wake up with a spring in my step and a song on my tongue (much to the annoyance of you know who as she claims she can never actually recognise the song. As if. If not for my 9-9 job I would give Luther a run for his money. Obviously he can't run at the moment. What with being dead and all). This morning, having taken a good fifteen minutes to straigthen my joints due to the hardness of the mattress, I did something I do not normally do for reasons of maintaining my sanity. I switched on the local news. I flicked between NTA and AIT. Most of it was of such bad quality it was difficult to tell what the report was on. Sometimes two reports merged into one with the reporter sitting there like a rabbit in headlights. Hmm, still no progress after 30 years? Have they not heard of teleprompter?

However when the reporter somberly faced announced that they were going to show some distressing scenes my ears perked up. I thought they were already showing the distressing scenes but if these were extra special that they had to announce a warning beforehand then count me in.

I then watched something that you rarely see in Western TV. Acts of violence so pure and savage that friends even balked when I told them the story. Basically there were two pieces. One showing some area boys loyal to some chap in Ibadan who took to the streets with cutlasses slashing everyone in sight. The bizarre thing about the film was it focussed on one particularly large chap walking down the middle of a busy road which cleared rapidly just slashing people as he went along. I mean really cutting people, arms, shoulders heads down the middle of a major thoroughfare. It was so real as to be unreal. Like when I watched the second jet fly into the WTC.

But there was more to come. The next story was about more troublemakers but this time they were apprehended by the Police on their way to commit some heinous deed. There was dramatic footage of police cars surrounding the suspects car and the occupants being forcefully ejected. The poor driver though bore the brunt of the coppers as he was mercilessly punched and batoned even as he was being dragged away. The thing was you could actually hear the sound (very clearly) of baton on skull. Ouch. I can see the influence of Western living on me now. Whereas before this sort of thing would be like - "so what?", now it actually makes a big impact. Just like how before I was the most enthusiastic when it came to killing the goats for the various Muslim festivals, now I am like "are you sure you are not contravening the goat's aninmal rights?". Which of course makes me very popular with the men about to do the contravening.

Why do they waste money creating programmes like Survivor Africa when all the raw material is already out there on the streets ready to be filmed. My people there is more to come oh. The Lagos primaries for Governor are upon us and as you would expect they went rather smoothly. Er not quite.