Aijuswanarite

A Good Chris Rock Movie

2009-12-08T09:44:00.003+01:00

I know its too early to tell and Chris Rock trailers have been misleading before. But is it just possible that Chris Rock has finally made a watchable movie where he is the lead: The trailer is below:

Who knows it could be the start of something good.

In other news Zoe Saldana looks hot as always. I'm really rooting for her. With the roles she's getting (Star Trek, Avatar) and the performances she's putting in, she may become the second breakthrough black actress in the last thirty odd years (the first is Halle Berry obviously).

Is This The Best A Man Can Get?

2009-12-07T17:41:00.004+01:00

I suppose I should admit to a bit of bias after all I am an Arsenal fan. A few weeks ago Thierry Henry, an Arsenal icon who currently plies his trade at Barcelona, hand balled in the penalty box. In doing so he put France into the world cup and received worldwide disapprobation. He was widely decried as being a cheat and was to be sentenced immediately to hell for being worse than a child molester.

Gillette, the razor company, panicked and dropped Henry from their clean cut sporting legends roster that comprised of Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and Thierry Henry. Apparently a cheat like Henry did not meet the standards that Gillette was trying to promote.

Flash forward a few weeks to the incident of the fire hydrant and the tree. It is being revealed that Tiger Woods sees in himself a cross between Gene Simmons and Wilt Chamberlain. However there has been no immediate reaction by Gillette saying that Mr. Woods did not meet the standards that Gillette was trying to promote.

Such blatant hypocrisy should be expected from corporations. After all, Ludacris was fired as Pepsi spokesman for being too risque... he was replaced by the Osbornes.

Ludacris sued Pepsi and though he did not get his contract back, he got them to donate to charity. I think Henry may not be able to do the same thing (after all he did cheat) but something should be done to make the world aware of the hypocrisy of Gillette.

I won't hold my breath though. Laters.

That Old Time Religion

2009-11-30T20:10:00.002+01:00

I was aiming to beat my record for 2009 by publishing more than 6 blog posts in a month, but I guess I'm going to have to settle for matching the record set in July. I suppose I can drop another post after this one just cos but I feel that would be gratuitous.

I don't normally blog about religion on this site, but sometimes things come up that move me to blog. A week or so ago I heard about a well respected pastor that said he died for four days and went to heaven. He said that he saw another well respected female pastor in hell. Now this was bizarre to say the least. I mean even you take the man's claims at face value what will he gain by mentioning the female pastor.

I realised why he did it last night when I heard the reason for the female pastor being in hell. Get this, this pastor claimed that the female pastor was in hell because of her dressing. Her dressing! This guy got up on stage and said this.

I was livid when I heard this. To my mind the guy has just proven that he was in a 4 day coma and had a very nice dream but people were seriously discussing this pastor's report like it meant anything. I mean I know that Nigerian's are a patriarchal society, but to believe that dressing is a sin that condemns people to hell is a poor reflection on us.

I wonder why we let pastor's get away with saying things like this, but I guess that is part of the price we pay for putting our pastor's on pedestals. His church should make him apologize both to his own congregation and definitely to the husband of the pastor he defamed. That is not really enough, cos to my mind someone who can say that is not fit to pastor a church, but then again that's just me.

A Change is Gonna Come?

2009-11-23T18:30:00.002+01:00

I was gonna call it a new dawn but I realised that I already have a post titled that. It was about the Glo-1 underwater fibre cable. By way of update Glo is now advertising in the papers about the new Glo broad access service. It almost has to be internet services based on the bandwidth of the broadband cable. Fast internet here we come :D

Anyway today's topic is Power. This is the definition of generalization by anecdote, but I wanted to make sure this was out there before the bandwagon gets rolling :D.

So my generator packed up last week Saturday cos we weren't using it enough. Granted my battery was bad, but this is still memorable because it was lack of use that finally killed the damn thing. The reason for the lack of use was that PHCN was pretty much constant all through the week. True to that form, they brought back light about 30mins later.

Now I live very close to a main distribution substation which means that my light is better than most normally, but this was pretty unprecedented. The reason is that PHCN for the last week or so has been able to distribute about 3500MW of electricity. This has not been done for any sustainable length of time, especially in the dry season so this is a notable achievement. Granted it stacks very poorly against all their notable non-achievements but encouragement works yeah ;)

Now the improvement in generation is due in large part to the recent peace in the Niger Delta. The improvements to the transmission grid over the last year allowed the power to be sent across the nation, but it was the increased availability of gas that made the difference. So here is to hoping that the Niger Delta stays peaceful :D

So with gas availability no longer an issue (knock on wood) it is entirely possible that installed capacity will reach 6000MW. They say they are on 5000MW right now. Most people do not believe that the grid can take 6000MW before the end of the year, but it may be reasonable to assume that PHCN will get there early next year. When you factor in the 4000MW from the NIPP plants that should come in the power situation in Nigeria may start to get good even for people that don't live near the substation.

I now have another question. If Yar'Adua does succeed in doing both Niger Delta and Power would he have done enough to deserve reelection?

Did Unity Bank Just Pull a Fast One?

2009-11-20T17:32:00.004+01:00

I could be wrong, but I think Unity Bank just did something very very weird on the financial statements that they published in the papers today.

Here are a few select financials from Unity Bank in September 2008

Profit - N2.7 billion
Reserves - N23.5 billion
Shareholders Funds - N30.8 billion

Now flash forward to September 2009
Loss - N8.7 billion
Reserves - N24.8 billion
Shareholders Funds - N32 billion

The fact that reserves increased to N24.8 billion from N23.5 billion in accounting terms means that there had to be a N10 billion addition to reserves sometime in the last year to make up for the N8.4 loss in 2009.

The first way this could have been done was for Unity Bank to make N10 billion in profit between September and December of 2008. I don't know about you, but I find it very hard to believe that after making N2.7 billion in 9 months of 2008, they made an additional N10 billion in the last three months.

The other possible explanation is that sometime between September 2008 and September 2009, Unity Bank raised N10 billion. If they did, I would hope that they disclose this investment to stop any rumors of accounting fraud from spreading.

However in the same accounts Unity Bank in 2008 had N34.7 billion in non performing loans, but only provided for N225.6 million. While this was probably due to the CBN suspension of provisioning for margin loans, it is still worrying that a prudent bank would do this. Oh wait... Never mind.

Dis Fuel Scarcity O!

2009-11-17T17:12:00.003+01:00

See eh, all of you that live in Lagos or have friends that live in Lagos you need to do me a favor. You need to spread the word that

QUEUING FOR FUEL BECAUSE OF DEREGULATION IS DAFT!!!

Look at it this way. If you have an empty tank and buy 50 liters of petrol all you save is about N2000 if the price goes from the current N65 to the expected N105.

That is it

2000 effing naira.

You people are putting all of us through hell for 2000 effing naira

Oh and all of u VI workers that are sending your drivers to queue, you'll get yours too.

Aiight I'm done.

That Sexism Thang

2009-11-16T17:50:00.003+01:00

Welcome back to your ~~daily~~, ~~weekly~~, well dose of Aijuswanarite :D Today we will be discussing sexism.

I started thinking about this again when one of my friends inflicted a bbm forward on me. The forward was the old riddle about the man and his son in an accident. The father dies and the son is brought to the hospital. When he gets to the operating table, the doctor takes one look at him and says "I cannot operate this is my son". The riddle then asks you who the doctor is.

When I received this, I immediately lambasted my friend for picking such a stale riddle to present to the world. I was sure that everyone who read it would know the answer even if they had never seen the riddle before. 10 mins later a few of the responses received were:

a) Gaylord couple
b) A spirit
c) can't be surgeon's son
d) surgeon played away
e) Its impossible
f) I don't know
g) its too hard

I was stunned. However it did put me in mind of the Implicit Harvard tests that I blogged about a long while ago. In that the question kind of acts as an implicit test of sexism because it plays on preconceived notions of gender roles.

As a result of this, anybody that reads/hears that riddle and doesn't know the answer demonstrably finds it hard to think of the mother as the surgeon. To my mind, not being able to do this means that on some level you are sexist. Though it is possible to argue that the "gaylord couple" answer is correct as it is a valid answer to the question.

Though I would argue that the gay answer even though correct is even more sexist, because the person would have to think that it is more likely that a gay man is the father of the boy rather than a woman. Though I suppose the person gets some bonus points for a lack of homophobia.

So can you guys think of any other thing that can be used as barometers of sexism in addition to its regular? I was going to mention trying to defend 1 Timothy 2:12 as an example but that is too obvious even for me. So what you guys & gals got?

The Ex Significant Other Thing

2009-11-03T15:07:00.003+01:00

This is a post that has been ruminating in my head over the last two months or so. Every so often I want to write it, but I think I start feeling that I cannot do it justice. So I have decided not to try and do it justice, but just to free associate it and see what happens.

This post is about the wonderfully complicated world of the ex significant other... of a close friend. You know the drill if you are not a complete social cripple, or the person is a complete ****, you tend to end up becoming decent to pretty good friends with the significant other of one of your close friends.

This is normal and expected, the complication arises when the relationship ends and you are all friendly with this person. The standard solution is that you leave with who you came with. Which is that if you were the guy's friend you are no longer friends with the girl and vice-versa.

However it is not always so simple, because you may have truly become friends with the person and you don't want to throw away a friendship on a technicality as good friendships are hard to find. On the other hand you do not want to aggravate your friend's issues because after all they were your friend first.

I was looking for a pithy "solution" to wrap around this little quandary but none decided to present itself. So I have decided to throw it open to my last few remaining users to find out what you think.

Now I know that it depends on the situation and all that, so what I want from you is what your normal inclination is before you allow the situation to have an effect? Don't all talk at once now :D

Oh and this is sorta like my three year anniversary so say something nice

Musings on the ASUU Strike

2009-10-22T15:27:00.004+01:00

So to the joy/sorrow of university students everywhere ASUU has decided to agree a pact with the federal government. ASUU had a laundry list of things they were striking about. However with the new pact agreed the only details that have been released is that the salaries have been increased 52%. Now I'm not saying that their personal pocket is all they care about but...

The second thing is that the lecturers were hoping to compel the government to allow them to pay 5% tax. While I doubt they would succeed in making this stick, the all out ballsiness of the request deserves a commendation.

The government flatly turned down the request for a set 26% of the federal budget to be dedicated to education in perpetuity. This makes sense from the FG point of view, but I wish ASUU could have at least convinced them to commit to a minimum figure of say 10% of budget. But you can't have everything.

I hope someone can explain to me how ASUU can want the government to pay them a particular salary on the one hand and want autonomy for the university on the other hand. I think they are just being ballsy again, but I may be missing something.

AWOL No Longer

2009-10-14T14:24:00.002+01:00

I have definitely been awol for a while, and I apologize to the three people that kept up with this blog since the last time i was awol. I will endeavor to make it up to you and hope that in time you wish that I were still gone. Anyhow my 3year blogging anniversary is coming up in the next week or so, so you can't be mad at me. See you tomorrow

Laters

Snazzy

Random Tribalist Fun

2009-09-11T16:24:00.002+01:00

There is this funny old quote about Europeans and heaven.

Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian, and it is all organized by the Swiss.

Hell is where the cooks are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, the police German and it is all organized by the Italians

I decided to try and fit this to the Nigerian tribes

Heaven is where the police are Hausa, the cooks are Ijaw, the mechanics are from Igbo, the lovers are from Calabar, and it is all organized by the Yorubas

Hell is where the cooks are Hausa, the mechanics are Calabar, the police are Ijaw, the lovers are Yoruba and it is all organized by the Igbos

So what do you think? Is it accurate? Can you do better?

My Two Cents on District 9

2009-09-09T10:09:00.003+01:00

For the record I should state that I like District 9. So feel free to dismiss my opinions as biased :D

The portrayal of Nigerians in this movie has gotten a lot of negative ink in the blogville. See here, here and here. The three commenters write compelling pieces on why District 9 is the worst piece of racist trash since Birth of a Nation.

Now it is entirely possible that they are right, but it is a tenable position only if you ignore the rest of the portrayals in the movie. Every portrayal is an over the top stereotype. From the evil evil white guys, to the helpful black South Africans, to the random ignorant people on the street. If you recognize those portrayals as caricatures why can't the Nigerian one be.

Now it is entirely possible that the caricature can be so over the top that it drops into racism despite the fact it is meant to highlight racism. I don't think this is a tenable argument, but that may just be me. Think of it this way, it is like arguing that Bruno is homophobic.

My issue with the racist argument is that the movie doesn't back it up. The only thing Nigerian about the Nigerians is the name. They speak English with South African accents, they look South African, and they speak gibberish as their language. It is clearly taken for granted that everybody in the movie thinks it normal that all Nigerians are criminal, even the bleeding heart liberal characters. Now you could argue that this is ridiculous laziness on the part of the writers, but is this really a tenable argument when all the other satire in the movie is very heavy handed?

All this reminds me of one of those things that they used to say about Hollywood in the 90s; that the only people one can portray as villains are the White men who have to be Western European or American; that way nobody will complain that they are being unfairly represented.

A New Dawn?

2009-09-07T16:59:00.002+01:00

There should be much rejoicing in the land. Globacom's fibre optic submarine cable Glo-1 has landed in Nigeria. The cable has a capacity of 640Gbps. To put this in perspective Nigeria's current demand is 4Gbps. The market for data in Nigeria is poised to explode, the days of $100 a month for 512kps are over... or are they?

Most of the internet traffic in Nigeria involves Nigerians connecting to the rest of the world. There are two ways the connections are made. Undersea cables or V-SAT connections. V-SAT connections are more expensive in general and tend to be used as back-ups, well some people use V-SAT as primary links but that is another story. Undersea cables, normally the cheap option, are also very expensive in Nigeria; between 20 - 40 times the price in most markets.

The new undersea cables being laid were expected to significantly reduce the price. Main One a Glo-1 competitor was rumored to have reduced bandwidth prices 90%. So it is clear, if the rumors are close to being true, that Glo-1 can significantly reduce data prices in Nigeria. However in typical fashion, Globacom has given no indication of what it plans to do with its cable.

Globacom could keep the cable for itself, and use its significant cost advantage to attempt to run its competitors in data out of business. The other alternative is for capacity on Glo-1 to be offered to the other data providers in the market. The first alternative may be better for Globacom in the short term, but as new cables are expected to land in the next two years it is unlikely to work as a long term strategy. I don't see the likes of MTN or Etisalat disappearing from the data space because of this. They might shelve their data offerings in the interim, but a brief window is the best that Globacom could hope for. The smaller players in the data space may be wiped out, but even that is too early to tell. The other cable suppliers may drop their prices significantly enough that most small players may survive.

I suppose it goes without saying that if we had a competition body that cared about such things, Globacom would not be allowed to use Glo-1 to create a monopoly, even for a minute. Still that is a larger Nigeria issue, which isn't the point of this post. So we watch and wait and continue to dream of real broadband.

Sex, Marriage & Religion

2009-09-02T18:35:00.002+01:00

On the face of it, it would seem that Christianity has very simple rules on sex; Don't do it until you are married. However after an in depth conversation I had with some married Christian friends, my belief that anything that is that simple usually isn't has been reinforced.

The discussion was similar to any that would be found on the pages of cosmo, except for the standard constraint of a Christian marriage. That is you have one partner; if anything is wrong you try to fix it or you deal. It was interesting to see people deal with sex issues with that frame of mind.

One of the areas where this was particularly interesting was related to the issue of sexual liberation in marriage. Is there any such thing as "too much liberation"? Does there come a point when consensual sex with your spouse can be considered a sin?

As you would expect people drew the line where they were comfortable. This means that oral sex is fine because you do it, but S&M is beyond the pale and thus sinful. This is generally the way non-religious people talk about sex; that it is preference determined. The only difference is that there is no sin component.

Thinking about it logically, there are two positions one can take.

First; Consensual sex in the context of marriage is no sin. After all if both parties are comforable with whatever is happening, it is for the betterment of their relationship and therefore cannot be a sin.

Second; Religion to a large part relies on denying fleshly gratification. So therefore giving into all sexual desires can be seen as gratifying the flesh. Fleshly gratification is sin; which means that some sexual desires could be sinful even in marriage.

While it may not seem it on the surface, the second argument is actually more nuanced than the first. The first is an absolute statement and the second is a more nuanced statement. While I am o so fond of grey, the socially liberal me tilts in the direction of the first argument. Even though the second argument, with its focus on intent is probably the more reasonable.

Clearly I have succeeded in tying myself in knots. So my dear readers what do you think? Which argument do you find more plausible?

The Joys Of The Monopoly

2009-08-20T18:30:00.003+01:00

So it seems that the flurry of posts towards the end of last month were an aberration rather than the norm. No matter, I may still surprise. Anyway on to today's post.

It is pretty much standard economic theory that monopolies are great for the monopolist and bad for the economy as a whole. Look at it this way, a monopolist will generally set the highest price he can get away with. After all it is highly unlikely to believe that if one business has the power to set prices as high as they can, they would restrain from doing so out of the goodness of their hearts. There are very few pure monopolies in the world, but there are companies that exhibit monopoly power.

One of the more obvious near monopolies in Nigeria is diesel. There is one importer that controls around 90% of the market. Cos of our power situation, diesel is pretty much an essential product. The market isn't too bad. I mean internationally diesel is cheaper than petrol but here it is about 30% - 50% more expensive. We got proof of the magical staying power of the diesel price, when the import price of petrol dropped below N65 and the diesel price remained the same.

Still we have lived with this for a while, and are used to it. What does worry me is that the price of diesel increased by 30% over the last three weeks. In this time, the price of oil dropped from its highs of about $70 a barrel so there has been no primary reason for the increase. The only thing that seems to have changed is that there have been rumors in the press that the diesel importer is over-leveraged and is restructuring his debt.

Now there may be valid reasons why this is merely a coincidence, but they escape me. As a favor to me my loyal readers, please procure me with a reason that I can use to make myself feel better when I am making a trip down to the local filling station to get some diesel.

In Which Intercontinental Bank Crapped The Bed

2009-08-12T17:48:00.002+01:00

As the global financial crisis showed, confidence is the strong support on which the banking edifice is built. Once that support goes, chaos ensued. Banks are in the not very stable business of borrowing short term and lending long term. This means that if enough depositors wants their dough, things can get really bad really fast. Jimmy Stewart said it best "John's cash is in Jim's house" and it a'int that easy to sell Jim's house to get that cash.

Which now brings me to Intercontinental Bank. In today's Guardian, the legal counsel who clearly does not understand this cardinal rule took out a double paged ad in which he begged and pleaded with President Yar'Adua to save the bank. He was discombobulated by the fact that there exists a cabal of so-called affluent men who owe the bank billions and are parading around town refusing to pay even when they had the cash. Our learned friend even went as far as to give three examples of such august persons. The key point to note, according to the lawyer, is that it is not that Intercontinental Bank has bad loans, it is that people who took the loans are refusing to pay placing the bank in the predicament of having to take losses on the loans.

We also learnt that in its bid to serve the Nation, Intercontinental Bank proceeded to ignore most prudent lending standards and finance such strategic sectors as oil and gas especially in petroleum products side. It seems that Intercontinental was not like those other banks that chose to finance multinationals instead of Nigerian companies and was very patriotic in all its business dealings.

No one can predict the success of the ad in attracting Presidential aid. What we can predict however, is the effect on the other banks and the banking public... Let's just say that Intercontinental Bank won't be winning any awards for honesty and transparency.

Lack of Evidence

2009-07-30T17:01:00.002+01:00

The first time I heard about the major problem of the Nigerian Evidence Act I was stunned. I could not understand how such an loophole could exist in today's environment. I mean there are things in Nigeria that are archaic but this was a bit much. It was a bit like finding out that in Nigeria we approve of the use of the abacus as the supreme only counting device. I was even more stunned to discover that this descent into "Luddite-hood" was not a by-product of an earlier colonial age. The Act in question was passed in 1990/1.

By now you are either on the edge of your seat in anticipation or have clicked away in anoyance. I just want to say that for those of you who stayed, you are a credit to your gender... you are veritable stars amongst asteroids... ok fine I"ll move on.

So the major problem with the evidence act is that computer based evidence is out. This is due to the simple fact that the original is on the computer and any thing brought into court is printed and therefore inadmissible as the printed material is not original. Some clever so and sos have experimented with laptops and flash drives but I don't think that those are catching on yet.

So is your head exploding yet? It gets better. In today's world this is a license for corruption cos the law makes most banking information inadmissible as as evidence in their own right. Which means that you cannot prove that someone stole money in Nigeria solely based on things like wire transfers, account balances, things that are considered incontrovertible proof in all other locations in the world.

This very problem is why you hear Ibori's lawyer saying that EFCC has no case against his client because there is no evidence. All I can say to that is that Ibori's SAN would not be making the same argument if the the crown court prosecutor in London had this information. He is also saying that the Federal Government cannot prosecute alleged offences that happened in a State Government, but lets leave that for the moment.

I just want someone to tell me why all the lawyers in Nigeria and the judges have not made amending the act their central mission in life. I know about the impossiblity of getting things through the National Assembly, but c'mon people this is not even hard its just an amendment not a new law.

By way of hope, there is currently an Appeal Court case on the Evidence Act pending, and this means that it is likely to go to the Supreme Court unless the person ruled against runs out of money to pay his SAN. Now the hope is that it will get to the Supreme Court, which will continue its activist streak and rule once and for all that computer based evidence can be used.

OnThe Nigerian Fire Service

2009-07-24T10:46:00.002+01:00

I'm sure most people throughout the world have heard about the "Attack on Atlas Cove" by those strategic incompetents known as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). What most people haven't heard is that the rest of Apapa was apparently spared from going up in flames by the actions of the Julius Berger fire fighting squad. While this is not a post about the actions of MEND, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what would have happened to them and unfortunately to the whole the Niger Delta if Apapa had gone up in flames. MEND should be sending the folks at Julius Berger Christmas gifts for the rest of eternity. I suppose the rest of us should as well, after all civil war is not fun for anyone.

So back to the original topic. The Fire Service like the Police Force is a Federal organisation. This means that there is one Fire Service of which those in individual states are members. While you can make arguments for keeping the Police Force central (these arguments involve politics), you can't really make any for keeping the Fire Service central.There is no political advantage to be had by keeping it Federal; I doubt the fire fighters will go around intimidating folk come election time :D.

Things like Atlas Cove, or the Ikeja bomb explosions of yesteryears, show the value of emergency response in a metropolis like Lagos. Saying it as baldly as possible, the Nigerian Fire Service would be hardpressed to stop a house fire let alone a citywide fire. Don't get me wrong, this state of affairs cannot be blamed on the fire service.

The Federal Government does not seem to care about the Fire Service, and to be honest it is not a central priority. After all the less industrialised states could care less about such. The solution is that states that care about the Fire Service should be allowed to devote the resources they feel their states need. The only way for that to happen is to devolve the Nigerian Fire Service and cede control to the states.

However I fully expect the empire builders at the center to resist such a move. Even if they were ameneable, I also don't think that an Lagos State AC government will be able to take the lead in convincing a PDP led Federal Government to devolve. A PDP industralised state will probably have to take the lead absent an actual tragic event, not a near miss like Atlas Cove, to put pressure.

Since the ideal solution is unlikely to present itself, I hope that Lagos State (and others like it) will implement the same partial solution with the Fire Service that it did with the Police Force. That is improve the equipment with which they work in State. Hopefully this will lead to a situation where Julius Beger doesn't have to be around to save the day.

A Speed Bump in the Returnee Road?

2009-07-21T11:39:00.002+01:00

There have been many different articles written about the returnee phenomenon that struck Nigeria in 2008/9 from the NY Times article which found it all very dazzling to the recent Jeremy post that didn't. Well the returnee invasion started about 2003, but lets leave that part out of it, it confuses the narrative.

Anyway one of the main drawing points for the returnee river that flowed and flowed was the concessional NYSC posting. In a nutshell, a graduate with a foreign bachelor's degree (sorry y'all masters don't count) could pretty much pick what state they wanted to serve in. Needless to say the majority of returnees (myself included) picked Lagos and Abuja.

Flashforward to the current batch of returnees who planned to begin service this rainy season, and the story has changed. With no official word about the ending of the concessional posting policy, foreign graduates are now being posted to states like... Nasarawa, Osun, Abia, and Akwa Ibom (how's that for some national spread :D)

Now I don't know about the rest of you returnees, but I know I would not have approached my NYSC Year with Buddhalie equanimity if I knew that there was a risk that I would end up in Jalingo teaching English. However I also appreciate the fact that there are few reason that will hold up to scrutiny that defend why foreign graduates are given concessional posting.

So I suppose those of us that have already dodged this bullet don't really matter. So what say you all in the diaspora? Will you return to face Okokomaiko? Are you more likely to stay in obodo oyinbo now?

P.S. To those of you with red or blue passports that say that you do not have to serve, I got news for you, you are working illegally. Unless you have an expatriate quota position or an NYSC certificate you are working illegally. Just thought you would like to know :D

A Blow For Freedom?

2009-07-20T11:50:00.004+01:00

I will like to draw your attention to the Next article that appeared on Sunday 19 July 2009.

Due to the vilification of the Eleganza Estate following the publication of the article, I feel moved to respond to all the critics that have resorted to the most unseemly name calling.

First of all, Eleganza Estate does not engage in racism. They offer accomodation to all expatriates of any stripe. I mean, I am sure that you can find an Arab Sheik rubbing elbows with an Indian Magnate before head to lunch with a British Petroleum Engineer. To slander this great estate with the tag of racism is unfair in the extreme, and I hope all those who did so are ashamed of themselves. Eleganza is not one of those vulgar estates that has the tag "for whites only", they fully believe in the dream of Dr. King.

Secondly Eleganza does not discriminate against Nigerians. Eleganza wanted to offer the estates to Nigerians. However all the Nigerians did not want it because they felt that it was too expensive. It was the Nigerians themselves that forced them to offer it to expatriates. Look at it now, if Eleganza did discriminate, would they have built that lovely estate next to VGC especially for Nigerians. I mean it is not Eleganza's fault that Nigerians are willing to pay N2.5 million a flat and not N3.5 million.

Thirdly, the expatriates when they come want to live like they live where they come from. Nigerians on the other hand are disgusted by such living. No Nigerian worth his salt would want to live in a place with 24 hours electricity, running water, and security. In fact I am insulted that you would even offer such a property to a Nigerian. Eleganza should be applauded for their knowledge of the national character.

Lastly, is Eleganza a private estate. How can someone tell them who they can or cannot let into their estate? Luckily Nigeria is a free country where such things do not happen. Our forefathers fought a battle to free us from colonialism, when we where second class citizens in our own country. They dreamed of a Nigeria where our people have the right to self determination. Eleganza continues that battle today, and should be applauded as a patriot that is striking a blow for the freedom of Nigeria.

December 2009 - 6000MW or Bust

2009-07-16T15:47:00.002+01:00

Most people who have been following Nigerian news with any degree of closeness would have heard one of the various government pronouncements about our power situation. For those of you that haven't, our much maligned Federal Government has stated categorically that 6000MW of power will be available in Nigeria as at December 2009. As a point of reference on a good day (which is rare these days) Nigeria generates 3000MW. However these days we are hovering between 1000MW and 1500 MW, which is not good.

Everyone I have talked to with some semblance of knowledge about the sector has said that it is basically impossible for reasons almost squarely related to gas infrastructure (there are some transmission issues but lets leave those for now). Based on all this I actually thought that the government would issue a cop out in the following way

"We have succeeded in increasing our working capacity to 6000MW as we promised, but alas there is no gas"

However I read one of the random government pronouncers say that the government will generate, transmit and distribute 6000MW.

Now you would think that I would be cheered by such a strong statement of intent. After all the government would not want to end up with egg on its face after so many public pronouncements... The is a strong credibility issue here... the government will move heaven and earth to deliver because the consequences for failure would be massive...

You get the point.

Now dear readers that my explanation will no longer hold due to this recent ~~over~~promising, what do you suggest would be a plausible excuse if we fail to achieve the 6000MW target?

Random Marriage Rant

2009-07-09T15:00:00.003+01:00

This one goes out to 36inches of okada brushing fame who recently got hitched.

In Lew Kuan Yew's book there is this bit about how in the eighties Singapore started doing commercials about the joys of marrying educated women. Apparently Singapore was like Nigeria in that they believed that housewife was the only occupation for a woman, and uneducated women were more likely to remain housewives.

The Singapore Guys were at least honest; they knew that they had to sacrifice a certain thing to get their ideal of the housewife. Based on cultural representation our Nigerian men do not want uneducated women, they want highflying superwomen that are ready to give it all up and move to the kitchen as soon as they get married.

Obviously, this caricature is not true, however people constantly act as if it is (with the attendant effect of driving me mad). Think about it, every interview with a woman of substance always has those bits where she shows she is a "real" woman by cooking for her husband and being wonderfully submissive. Though I suppose with the INS making sure that every woman knows that no matter how high she rises her husband is still the head, we shouldnt have to make them jump through the "prove your domesticity" hoop :p

Now it is clear to everyone with half a brain that certain sacrifices have to be made in a marriage especially when you throw kids in. After all you both can't be coming back at 11pm from your finance jobs with an 8 year old. Someone has to slow down, and odds are that it is going to be the woman. Which is generally fine - after all studies show that women feel more guilty than men do about leaving their kids anyway ;)

However nothing says that slowing down for someone to be around for the kids means that women automatically become glorified housewives. Even though with certain senators pushing indecent dressing maybe they should be :D

I suppose my point is that our culture makes it seem like being a housewife is the secret desire of all womankind, and any woman who desires otherwise is a defective of some kind. Who knows maybe it is, maybe all women live to be defined by what the value they bring to the lives of their husbands and their children.

I suppose if anyone will read this, someone will eventually say that I am against housewives, or that I think only uneducated women can be housewives. To those people, I say in my defense that some of my best friends are housewives ;)

Laters

Nollynomics

2009-06-29T09:28:00.002+01:00

Apparently the quality of Nigerian movies is one of those things that is hard to fathom. I've heard numerous people say that they cannot understand why an industry that is rumored to earn $2 billion a year produces movies of a quality that only the kindest of critics would call crap. People always insist that there is a better way for Nollywood, that there is a way for Nollywood to produce higher quality movies and still make the kind of profits that they are making. There is a way to do this, but it means deviating from the standard principle of Nollywood economics: that every movie has to make a profit.

The starting point to understanding Nollywood economics or Nollynomics, is that the average units shipped is the guiding light. According to a Nollywood thing I read, and a few other confirming conversations, the average movie sells about 50,000 copies while a blockbuster (eg Jenifa) can sell upwards of 500,000 copies. This means that at N200 a pop, the average movie makes about N10 million in revenue while some movies can make over N100 million.

The second thing to understand is that it is mainly the marketer that makes this revenue not the producer. If the producer funds the movie himself, he then sells it to a marketer to distribute, or the marketer funds and distributes the movie. The producers do get a cut of the total distribution revenue if they funded the movie but it is never what it should be.

So if every movie has to make a profit, the marketer makes his plans based on N10 million and not N100 million. This means he prices accordingly. Which means that the if he is aiming for a 50% profit margin he will be willing to pay about N7.5 million for your movie as a producer or spend N7.5 million himself to finance a movie.

Now if it is a producer financed movie, the producer has to make a profit on the money he has spent. Which means a budget of about N5 million and a N2.5 million profit when he sells to the marketer. So this leads to the Nollywood trend that movies funded directly by marketers are actually of "higher" quality than those financed by producers.

The need to maximise the units shipped results in the "sequel-itis" that inflicts Nollywood, after all for a slight increase in cost, you can double, triple or quadruple the units shipped. And if you have a blockbuster Part I...

Piracy does not affect the economics in the way people think because Pirates are not interested in the run of the mill movies, they are only interested in the blockbusters. So as a marketer you can generally capture most, if not all, of the value of the average Nollywood movie. However of a 500,000 unit blockbuster, the marketer may sell 300,000 of those units. So the marketer doesn't like pirates but the pirates are creaming off profits and not necessarily causing losses.

The international and tv rights (think Africa Magic) do not impact the numbers because most people treat it as jara these days, especially since the tv rights are apparently stingy. So no push to increase quality based on these audiences.

The way to improve quality is for Nollywood to have a paradigm shift. Basically the participants have to stop thinking that every movie has to make a profit, and to move towards the blockbuster model where most movies lose money and the blockbusters make up for it. Judging by the experiences of Hollywood and Bollywood, the blockuster model will eventually win out. However since there has been no credible evidence to show that the number of blockbusters would go up if the quality level increased, there is no incentive to move to the new system just yet. So all you quality buffs should tell the Nollywood peeps to stop making big budget failures like Amazing Grace that are now used to argue that the Nigerian populace does not want quality :D

P.S. I support an "action thriller" as the first "big budget" blockbuster :D

A Clear Conscience?

2009-06-17T15:02:00.004+01:00

Even by my recently lax standards it has been a long time since I have shuffled onto these pages to apologise for my absences. So consider this couple of sentences an apology, and lets dive right in:

So a couple of weeks ago I heard a story about informing on infidelity. So Lady A's best friend was getting married, and it came to her attention that her friend's intended was a serial cheater in the best Naija style. Lady A wrestled with it for a bit, but decided that her friend should have all the information before deciding. Her friend went ahead with the wedding and in the process their friendship was wrecked. Lady A coming to terms with the aftermath consoled herself that her consicience was clear.

Under the premise of "the more information the better" it is clear that Lady A was right to tell her friend about her beau's infidelity. Lady A had "provable intelligence" (it's in quotes cos she wasn't in the room) and so she had a duty to tell her friend. However there are tons of people who in the name of needing a "clear conscience" would tell their friends about their misgivings about the intended even in situations that are not as clear cut.

My take on this is simple: When someone asks you about their intended, you act like guys are trained to answer "do I look fat in this?" Unless you have concrete proof of infidelity or violence or some such it is not your place to give an opinion.

I have heard the argument that real friends can have constructive conversations in which an opinion can play a role. After all constructive conversations are the bedrock of any relationship. However in my experience, the only constructive conversation you can have about relationships is where the friend employs the art of empathic listening. The thing about empathic listening is that the listener does not give an opinion. The goal is to provide a sounding board for the person to come to terms with the issues that they are having.

For clarity, I have an example of where I would be tempted to give an opinion:

I think that every woman who is dating a man who is against her financial independence should run for the hills. However if a friend in this situation asked me if she should marry the guy, I would not tell her that she should run.

What would you do and why?

Niger Delta Redux

2009-05-27T11:52:00.002+01:00

On January 31 2007, I wrote a post titled They Want What?. It was about a group of Niger Delta militants who kidnapped an American and a Briton and were demanding N1.8 billion and 100 cases of whiskey. At the time I said that it was stuff like this that would lead the Nigerian Government to get enough cover to ignore the human rights, ethnic and political tangles and move to crush the militants.

It turns out that it took two and a half more years of "provocation" for the Nigerian government get to that point and start the "war in the creeks". Things have changed in those years with the "militants" for the most part resembling organized crime rings and not freedom fighters. The politicians and a significant proportion of the populace in the Niger Delta have turned against the militants, which has given the Federal Government the political cover to move in with force. The Senate even got into the act urging the military to widen the scope of the campaign, though the less said about our august senators the better.

MEND's great response was to threaten the families of the soldiers and to blow up a pipeline in a completly unrelated area, which forced Chevron to stop pumping oil from a major flow station. The fact that they hit an a soft target outside the conflict region shows that even MEND knows that they can't defeat the military in a stand up fight. However their actions are also giving the military more political cover to expand the scope of the campaign. I have no sympathy for the "serious" militant groups such as MEND. From where I sit, I think they have ignored or sabotaged all serious attempts to make inroads into solving the crisis - attacking Julius Berger comes to mind, as does insisting that Jimmy Carter chair the Niger Delta sumit. They have also been discredited by the criminal elements in the "struggle" regardless of how many hostages they "rescue" from the criminals.

Everybody and their mother should know that the Niger Delta solution has to be a political one not a military one, so after the bombs have stopped falling I hope there is enough of a will to tackle the problems that underly the Niger Delta struggle. There is a commitment to stop the environmental degredation, but the jury continues to be out on the seriousness of the state and federal governments to address the development challenges. If they don't do it, we will find ourselves right back where we started in a few years.