The Moon and Venus are Beautiful... But Inflation and Poverty are ugly.

20:14:00




I took a walk. Just now, I left my mug of Irish Cream, Baileys, and walked outside to look at the sky. I have to tell you, the Lagos sky isn’t what it used to be. When I was young, younger… I am still young. I have to remind myself of this daily because I fear that if I start believing I am old, I will behave like an old person. That is to say likely to drop dead at my next breath. 

 

There used to be stars, heavenly bodies as far as the eye could see. Now, there’s usually nothing, just black. If you’re lucky there’ll be a cloud. Maybe two clouds… These days it’s black, stale, hot, humid. Just me, and my sweat, looking up at a bleak sky. But not tonight. Tonight, there’s a beautiful crescent moon. How it gleams. And there’s a star above it too. I think it might be Venus. How pretty! How lovely! How nice! It’s so nice that I’m very nearly able to forget the deplorable situation in my country, our country, Nigeria. 

 

There are many Nigerias. There’s the one you live in, and there’s the one others, your betters, occupy. Of course, if this logic holds, ceteris paribus – remember I have an Economics degree, there must also be a worser Nigeria, populated by the unfortunate. The people who reply to the question how are you with, “I’m quite truly terrible.” A lady did that to me yesterday. I fled from her, vanished from her sight with the quickness of the Greek god Helios, or Hermes, or Apollo? Which one of them is the one that drags the sun across the sky? 

 

Anyway, let me tell you of my Nigeria. 

 

There’s more than 500 naira in my bank account. Thank God. I have had less money than this. If I find a cash merchant, one of those POS somebodies, I’ll be able to get 300 naira, and this will buy me a bottle of Fanta, a divine drink which every good boy deserves. 

 

Today, a friend of mine, Beamer, told me of an odd thing that happened to her when she was driving home… This Beamer is an excellent friend. Truly spectacular! So incredible that I don’t mind that she friend-zoned me when we were 18, so excelle-markable that we remain friends 15 years later. She said… 

 

Enter Beamer!

 

Beamer: Afam, my facial was good, but also bad. 

 

Afam: How come? Aren’t you looking finer than you were before it.

 

Beamer: Yes… but…

 

Afam: But what? You really must stop sweating the small stuff Beam-Beamer. If you die before your wedding, I’ll be very unhappy. 

 

Beamer: What if I put you in my will?

 

Afam: I’ll mourn you with joy! 

 

Sorry I must take another walk… Drinking and writing must be broken up by walking lest one lose the will to finish. 

 

I have returned… but my laptop battery is low, and if I let it die, it may never come on again. If you recall I have under N 1000 in my bank account, and that money is reserved for Fanta. It is not for fixing laptop. 

 

I must now go and get the charger. 

 

Where is the charger? 

 

I have returned. Where was I? Yes. Beamer. 

 

Beamer: How lucky I am to have a friend so good he’ll laugh when I die.

 

Afam: Only if you put me in your will. 

 

Beamer: The extractions were excruciating. I screamed with my mouth closed.

 

Afam: So you squealed in public. How shameful!

 

Beamer: Also, the guy that owns the place was hitting on me. 

 

Afam: The curse of the beautiful, to shock everyone, even the unattractive, to attraction. 

 

Beamer: PIKACHU!

 

Afam: Pokemon? 

 

Beamer: No! I just saw a lady. 

 

Afam: You’re really too excitable. How is seeing a lady worthy of taking the great pokemon Pikachu’s name in vain. 

 

Deamer: She’s wearing a Denim skirt but no shirt. Her nipples are saluting the sky!

 

Afam: So she’s only half mad! That is bizarre.

 

Exit stage left Beamer!

 

In Lagos, we’re used to fully mad people. Naked people rambling around for who knows what reason. I think it’s a sign of the times. 

 

In my Nigeria, I am being gaslit by the economic principle, and truly terrible thing, inflation. On Saturday night I bought a beer for N2 500. Abomination! I came back for a second 30 minutes later and they sold it to me for N3 000. 

 

At my local supermarket, my deodorant of choice, Rexona invisible for women is now N 3 500. It’s expensive yes! Too expensive! But even worse is my brain, which tells me that I cannot pay that much for deodorant, so I switched to roll on. A big mistake. The first time I rolled on that anti perspirant, was the first time since puberty that I smelled like my animalistic self, which is to say I fled the dancefloor because I was skunking up the place. The next time I went back to the supermarket I shut my eyes and I bought the damned thing.

I’d tell you more of how I’m living, and what’s happening, but I’m tired, and it’s Tiger’s birthday. 

 

I’ll go outside now, for a walk. I’ll look at the sky. The moon, a crescent moon! She’s so pretty. And the star just above her, Venus, is so sparkly. Both of them, a reminder, that only the best things are free. 

 

Happy Days, 

Afam.

 

 

 

 

 

 


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We go again - The Return of the Ramblings of A Madman.

01:27:00



Do you know that I wanted to be a star?

It happened in the summer of 2018. I had just left CNBC Africa. I had just joined the BBC. I went to England, London for a week. Life was good, but yet, there was an emptiness, a vacuum I found terrifying. There are very few things worse than nothing.


I expected the Lord to part the clouds and scream to me, “Well done my boy! Come home!” 


He did not. 


Instead, I’d have to begin the less-than-divine struggle for prominence. I thought it beneath me. 


Madness didn’t descend like I thought it would. There were no fireworks. No bomb went boom. No great pane of internal glass shattered. I suppose it’s nearly impossible to know you’re breaking when you break slowly.


Something broken broke properly; the tilted vase fell, shattering glass. Glass on the marble dance floor. Blood pooled at my feet. 


Do you know you can bleed forever? Do you know you can spend a whole lifetime losing liquid life and still have life? 


That one’s a bit of an odd statement to make; a weird question. How very queer of me. 


Whenever I go away I feel the need to explain why, to conjure words where there are no words, to build a story around myself that makes sense. I was ill. I was tired. I was exhausted. I was terribly depressed - stories by a story man, the ramblings of a madman. 


I think I stopped being myself. 


Is that it?


Does that work? 


Am I lying?


Perhaps. 


The Rambling Madman - Afam, sat on a wall.


The Rambling Madman - Afam, suffered a great fall. 


And no priest, no reverend, no shrink, or psychiatrist, could put him back together again. 


Do you know that someone, let’s call him, Aboniga… That’s what we called him at school. He was insufferable then, and he’s insufferable now, tweeting for Africa, misguided thoughts about policy, politics, and power. Always, all the time, as if cursed, his fingers articulate ideas that are mostly stupid. 


I don’t dislike him. I don’t dislike him one bit. In fact, I think I quite like him. He’s interesting, I think. Watching people be themselves is a delightful occupation. Some people say, “Shut up Aboniga you’re an idiot.” 


I say, “Ride on good misguided sir, let’s see how far this takes you; how fat you become.” 


That’s besides the point. 


This sir once told me I was self-absorbed. The words stung. They pierced my un-fleshy breast, nestled in my heart like a festering cancer. A demon of the heart, singing me lies like lullabies. 


A brief aside. I’ve developed a fondness for alliteration. That’s what you do when you string words with the same consonant sound together.


“Lies like lullabies.” - That’s alliteration. 


“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” - That’s alliteration. 


“Am I self-absorbed?” 


The thought plagued me like an unpaid prostitute harangues an owing client. 


It was only one of many things people had said about me, painful words that reached my ears, bruised my heart, and crippled my spirit. 


I stopped being myself. 


Healing is as strange as breaking. It doesn’t happen all at once. Deliverance takes a lifetime. Church bells don’t ring. Flying Monkeys don’t swoop in from the sky and shout, “The Wicked Witch of the West has withered to waste.” 

   

In the great before, during the time of turbulence, the season of pestilence, I would try to explain myself away. Treat myself like I was some Mr. Robot. The Rambling Madman on the journey to greatness, timelines so strict, he couldn’t stop for a drink of water, a meal, a snooze. 


Ah! A fool’s mission. 


There were breakdowns. Big ones. Little ones. Serpentine ones. 


What kind of person journeys without fuel and gets genuinely surprised when the car stops on the road?


What did I think would happen? 


I started this blog in 2012. It is 10 years old. How marvelous, how wonderful, how grand! 


I haven’t written a word on it since 2019. How terrible, how neglectful, how sad!


But also…


And so what? 


What of it? 


Why should I feel bad about it?


We go again. 


It's just like it was in the beginning. No audience. Very little knowledge about what will happen. A boy, a baby man, with some words in his heart, and absolutely no plan. 


Let's see what happens. 


Happy Days,

Afam 







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The day music goddess Kah-Lo defended her one and only Afam.

13:56:00

There's a manic pixie dream girl I'm in love with. Her name is Kah-lo. She's the sort of person that makes you believe in magic and fairies and unicorns. Her hair is green, her skin is brown, and her eyes twinkle with mischief. She is one of the few people on this planet that drunk me and sober me love with equal amounts of fervor.

Now, I must backtrack here, because some of you are a little bit cross with me. You're thinking, "Afam, the next blog you promised was the one about your kidnapping and valiant escape. What is this piece of nonsense."

To this, I have the following to say.

I will not speak of, or casually refer to that traumatic incident until my therapists and I have dealt with it completely. As most of you know, I took a break from my exceedingly successful career as a journalist to become a full-time Demon Slayer. And just today, or was it yesterday, I realized that I'd given my demons such a thorough thrashing that I could return to my journalism career. However, we must never forget where that career started: the blog.

In any case, Kah-Lo is a wondrous creation. She's a lyricist without compare, a songstress with an eye for trouble, and a hard worker. Now, I must say, I don't know her very well. On the few occasions that I have met her, I have never once behaved well. I would apologize for this, but love is love. With my consistent declarations of casual affection, I have weaseled my way into her heart. Just the other day, she jumped on twitter to defend my honor.

It all started when I tweeted the following...
And then that led to this...
At the time I didn't really want to discuss my tweet further. In as much as twitter is a source of joy, it's also very often a source of stress. I find some debates stressful, and debating with Timi, who I quite like, is exhausting. It's far better to do peaceful constructive things like sleep. So I followed that tweet with this.

Fight Club is an extraordinary film that came out 20 years ago and like all good films, its relevance exceeds its date of release. Timi had the following to say about my tweet.
When I saw his reply, I sighed very heavily and thanked the good Lord for growth. You see, when I was younger, I'd have used this as an opportunity to further my achievements in pettiness. I'd have said something like, I admire your ability to treat the mundane as serious. But, being an adult, I did no such thing. And that was when Kahlo, my green-haired, Grammy-nominated, music-making, angelic fiend, came to my rescue. 
Obviously, Timi wasn't going to let this slide. 


But Kah-lo, the defender of my musical dreams and sanctified ears struck him again.



Timi refused to stay down. He was hell-bent on defending his position. If Kah-Lo was a lesser being it'd have worked, but Kah-lo isn't a human being, she's a spiritual being, I knew it the first time she said, "It's time to make the club go up, it's time to shut the club down." My girl came through with a sledgehammer of a retort.

And before I could dance a merry dance because Kah-Lo had put down my wayward but ultimately lovely assailant she followed it with this. A Ginger sized 1, 2 punch. An "open close faster faster" if I ever saw one.


I danced a merry jig when I saw that one. When the agents of Jesus fight for you, all but the monumentally troublesome dare fight back. Timi tried to steal a win but he was ultimately unsuccessful.

And then, Kah-Lo made me love her forever and ever.


I love it so much I'm going to put it on a t-shirt and give it to myself for Christmas. After that, I'll put it on my underwear so anyone that's lucky enough to see me in the semi-nude (typically my parents) knows the way I swing and lastly... If you do not already know who Kah-Lo is you must educate yourself. She has a brilliant single that's perfect for Detty December (The Nigerian way of saying in December we party to the death). And with no further ado, I present to you, the work that my Knight in Shining Armour has made:


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Can you die if it isn't your day to die?

15:41:00

There’s something about being in your twenties. It’s the only time in your life when you can be a young upwardly mobile professional and a smooth talking delinquent with little or no irony, perfectly preserved in some version of post adolescent beauty by the happy combination of fantasy, alcohol and money. At least, that’s how the Nigerians I know do their twenties. Adult children with big dreams devoid of suffering, weeping or teeth gnashing. If only their dreams were real. 
Somewhere in our twenties adulthood begins. The smooth roads we dreamt of are only accessible when we sleep, or at the end of a whisky. Happiness grows so fleeting that it is scarcely remembered. Instead we learn how to perfectly preserve every exquisite moment of our suffering. Or maybe that’s just me.
I was driving across Falomo bridge in Lagos. It’s an important bridge but it isn’t the most important bridge here. That title would have to go to the Third Mainland bridge, aptly and unimaginatively named because it’s the third bridge that connects the island to the mainland. More important because it handles more traffic than any other bridge in the city. Falomo just connects two of the city’s more wealthy neighbourhoods. It serves its purpose with a Lagosian mediocrity for although it has not yet collapsed (I think it will some day) it isn’t the sort of bridge that you speed along without fear that a new unregistered undercarriage wrecking pothole has sprung up without warning. But I didn’t care about that. I was drunk and trying to prove a theory. 
When my grandfather buried my grandmother he buried himself. Three months after, he needed a wheelchair; four months, his heart started failing; five months, and he had trouble breathing. Six months later he was at my brother’s wedding. On Christmas Day he had a few glasses of Champagne and said, “I just want you all to know that if I die today I die a happy man.” Three days after he was gone. He died they way he lived. With him there was no time for regret only action. This brings us back to the theory I was trying to prove... That we wouldn’t die until we were meant to no matter how hard we tried. 
The speedometer climbed: 60,70, 100. My heart beat too fast for sanity, more adrenaline than blood in my veins. 120, 140, two cars joined the bridge. I’d gone far enough. I hit the brakes. It was too late now. It was going to be the car and me or the car or me. At that moment I felt something like regret. I could hear the squeal of metal on metal. I didn’t want to hurt myself or the Nissan which had begun to rebel against the idea that it should pay attention to the steering wheel. I felt like a brave fool. I thought, “Forget about half arsed prayers, God my life’s actually in your hands.” I’d forced life’s most mysterious aspect to make a move. 
The cars in front of me picked up their pace madly, like they’d begun a drag race. The Nissan slowed quickly, 140 to 60 in the blink of an eye. Nothing happened... but I knew two things. The first was that it wasn’t my day to die. The second was that I wasn’t quite alright. 
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How to survive the recession: Think Peer to Peer Lending

20:45:00
By August 2016, many Nigerians had learned a new word: recession. Two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth confirmed by the National Bureau of Statistics. It was a word that had not shown itself since 1994. Time had long eroded its meaning. For some, a recession means very little. It’s something heard in the news and mentioned in articles not unlike this one, their bank accounts and their incomes secure enough that they do not have to worry. But for the economically vulnerable, it is as good as an excruciatingly slow death. They watch their loved ones lose their jobs and live in fear that they will lose theirs sooner rather than later. Life in Nigeria was difficult enough when the dollar was cheap and the economy was undisputedly Africa’s largest. Now that the economy is in recession it is almost intolerable.
On the streets of Lagos the harsh realities of rising unemployment and inflation are apparent. “Masses are crying loud” said one pedestrian at the Adetokunbo Ademola round about in Lagos’ Victoria Island. Before she could finish, another passer-by chimed in. “People are crying.” Another woman lifted her hands despondently and said, “If they (the government) want people to perish and die and go, let them do it because I have never seen this kind of government before.” One man said that he had to keep two of his four children at home because he could no longer afford their school fees. Others reported much of the same. Rising prices leading to cutbacks on expenses that were once considered necessities. Any real hope that the government is capable of dealing with the situation is dying. 
When times are hard and real income is falling, people look for alternative sources of income to meet their needs. They take loans from banks and other financial organisations. However, with interest rates in the double digits this is not an option many can afford. The First City Monument Bank interest rate for general commerce ranges from 17.5 - 30%, and across the industry customers applying for personal loans or SME loans could face rates as high as 80%. As if that wasn’t bad enough, according to Lafferty Cards and Consumer finance, the probability of a loan being accepted is about 7%, but this is not unusual in a recession. In a recent interview with Premium times, the Chief Executive, Rest of Africa Standard Bank Group, Sola David-Borha said, “With economic recession, customers and companies find it very difficult to pay loans. Consumers have not been paid salaries and are unable to service loans.” As banks do not have the regulatory or legal framework to ensure repayment, or a well developed method of assessing risk, they have very little choice but to charge high interest rates. Furthermore as the Monetary Policy Committee has kept interest rates high, the bank rates have little room to manoeuvre but up.  
As rational as this method of operating may seem, it is not without its drawbacks. In a 2011 survey of the Nigerian middle class by Renaissance Capital 60 per cent of the respondents claimed it was impossible to borrow small amounts from formal institutions, 84 per cent had never applied for a loan, and a mere 20 per cent saw banks as the possible providers of loans. This is shocking when you consider that 20 million small and medium enterprises account for around 80 per cent of all businesses and  they employ a total of thirty-one million people. The situation has not gone unnoticed. Prof. Akpan Ekpo, the head of The West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM) said that the hard conditions faced by SMEs was caused by the lack of access to funds for working capital needs as a result of the behaviour of banks.This peculiar situation raises a necessary question. If 84 per cent of the middle class have never applied for a loan from an official financial institution then where or from whom do they borrow in times of need?
Most people are likely to borrow from the three fs: family, friends and fools. They are the first resort. A fool and his money are soon parted and family and friends are willing to dilute cynicism with affection. As some ask, what it is a little money between friends? But there’s a problem here. While blood may be thicker than water, it isn’t more binding than a well constructed contract. There’s no legal or formal framework and because of this both parties are exposed. Friends can recall the debt before it’s due, and you could choose to not pay back. In addition to this, friends and family are unlikely to have the resources to truly support the dream you have. Whatever they give comes at great cost to their well being. This is not the case with most formal institutions.
With inflation crippling the value of money and rising job insecurity, many Nigerians have turned to fraudulent Ponzi schemes promising impossible returns. Up to 3 million Nigerians signed on to the country’s iteration of the Mavrodi Mondial Movement, a platform that has never once failed to bankrupt users in every country it’s operated in. Nigeria’s version is in dire straits, as the founder of MMM in Nigeria is reported to have fled to the Philippines, leaving millions anxious about their investments. However, this tragedy has not curbed the Nigerian appetite. New ponzi schemes pop up by the day with some like Twinkas offering 200 per cent returns. A drowning man will grab a straw to save himself from death, it is the same way Nigerians have grabbed on to schemes most know are fraudulent to save them from poverty.
The difficulties of the great recession are not restricted to the lower and middle classes alone. Those with significant amounts of disposable income have been affected. Consumer confidence fell to a record low of -28.20 in the third quarter of 2016, and investor confidence has been hit as well with the Nigerian Stock Exchange shedding a trillion naira of its market capitalisation last year. In times of uncertainty even the rich seek security. They pull out from any schemes they deem risky and lock their money up in safer financial instruments.
For solutions to these problems, it is necessary that we look to technology. From time immemorial, technology has provided us with the most efficient means of moving forward. In the Nigerian retail space, companies like Konga and Jumia are introducing e-commerce to the average Nigerian and enhancing the shopping experience which has been crippled by logistical and infrastructural difficulties. According to a report by Philips Consulting, in 2014, 38% of Nigerians preferred to shop online, by 2016, this figure had shot up to 49%. This development has made shopping more convenient for consumers and has contributed to the rapid growth of the wholesale and retail industries. In 2014 the sectors accounted for 16.6% of Nigeria’s GDP, second only to Agriculture. 
If similar innovations were applied to the financial sector, it is possible that some of the problems the sector is plagued with would be resolved. An instance where this has been successful can be seen in the introduction of BVN which now serves as a powerful tool in identifying an individual financially. This system is not perfect but it is definitely a step in the right direction. One possible solution to the scarcity of credit and the lack of confidence in Nigeria’s financial markets especially in a recession, could be the introduction of a peer to peer lending platform like Fint, Nigeria’s first peer to peer lending site. Fint is an online platform where people can access credit at competitive rates and investors can earn returns on their investments by supplying those loans. On the platform borrowers can get as much as N3.5 million. 
The loans span a number of categories and are both given and received through an internet mediated registry. This model is new in this part of the world, but it’s been tried and tested in the United States with platforms like Lending Club and Prosper. Judging by their reviews, the benefits it could bring to borrowers and investors alike are astounding. 
For a peer to peer lending platform to work, it must have a method of assessing risk; a credit model. Fint uses a pioneering proprietary risk algorithm to achieve this, allowing people to receive unique interest rates that are calculated after a number of conditions have been taken into consideration. This leads to lower interest rates not only because the loans are provided by a large number of investors, reducing the risk any given one of them faces in the scheme, but also because the rates are tailor made for you after taking your considering the particulars of your financial circumstances. Furthermore, because the loans are administered over the internet, overhead costs are reduced and efficiency is increased, cutting the red tape by up to 12 weeks. 
The benefits of this system are not restricted to those who need credit alone. Peer to peer lending platforms like Fint are typically transparent so investors need no previous knowledge of financial products and can self manage their investments. Once they find a person, a project, or a business to back, they receive monthly payments from borrowers. This gives them an additional stream of income that requires very little additional work or effort. Furthermore, because interest rates are favourable, returns on their investments are higher than comparative financial instruments. Investing in Fint brings an opportunity to diversify a portfolio with a new asset class, giving greater confidence as risk is shared over a larger number of financial markets.
When peer to peer lending took off in the United States of America, some who were reluctant to look at the fine print of platforms like Prosper, were quick to paint it with the same brush as they would a ponzi scheme like MMM. However, the comparison is demonstrably false. According to the Securities Exchange Commission in America, a ponzi scheme is “investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors.” The difference is that with peer to peer lending, it is the borrowers provide the returns for investors, as they do with the most traditional financial instruments. 

 Originally published in Businessday
The causes of the Nigerian recession are many and varied. The scarcity of affordable credit, the global fall in oil prices, the lack of significant foreign reserves, the penetration of corruption, and the current government’s sluggishness in the face of  an economic disaster all had a part to play, but that is not where the story ends. To exceed the heights of our previous economic boom, we must not leave it to the Government’s spending plan or a reversal in global oil price trends. We must look to ourselves.We must empower our 170 million strong population, all of whom could be an entrepreneur given the right financial assistance. A peer to peer lending platform like Fint could very well be all the help that they need. 
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