I have known of James Bond for as long as I've been alive. He's essentially, the most visible example of Witchcraft, Wizardry, Sorcery, or flagrant Vampirism in the world.

I refuse to believe that there's some new medical procedure that's helped him stay between 31 and 42 for 53 years! And I absolutely refuse to believe that it's a code name. There can't be that many men with deathly alcoholism, chronic commitment issues, profound womanizing disease, and the most terrible loathing of disabled people in all the world.

I know what you're thinking! You're thinking, "But how the Vladimir Putin does Afam know that James Bond has some rather frightening feelings about disabled people?" I shall break it down for you Villain by Villain.

Dr Julius, Amputee, boiled to death!
I mean... Couldn't Bond just have shot him and been done with it. It's a ridiculous way to kill a man!

Emilio Largo, blind in the left eye, shot through the back with A SPEAR GUN!  
Talk about Overkill. 

Ernst Stavros Blofeld, Paralyzed, Incineration.
Can someone say fire and brimstone

Tee Hee Johnson, hand eaten by crocodile, tossed off a speeding train.

Francisco Scarmanga, three nipples, shot in the heart #heartshot.
Finally! Something humane. If being shot through the heart can be called humane.

Karl Stromberg, webbed hands, multiple shots to the penis.
Have Mercy Bond! It's supposed to be Bang bang he shot me down, not Bang Bang I no longer have a Penis. 

Alec Trevelyan, Sever Facial Scarring, tossed 50 stories and then crushed by metal debris.
Because he wasn't dead enough after falling down the equivalent of a sky scraper!

Le Chifre, he had a weeping bloody eye (quite disgusting, really), head shot.

Raol Silva, horrendous looking he had no jaw and he was in terrible need of a dental appointment, stabbed in the back.


There is also the matter of his promiscuity. In all the years that I've seen him in action, I have never once seen him with a condom! Does he have a latex penis or do his magical vampire body switching powers prevent him from catching STDs? Or maybe it's that he reconstructs his body everytime he gets a new potentially fatal infection.

And what of his alcoholism? How many vodka martinis can a human being possibly consume without being a functional alcoholic or gaining a liver with the same constitution as a stone?

As far as I can tell, the only good thing about Bond is his sense of style. He really does know how to pull of a suit.

Look at him on the left. I'd be so taken with the suit that I'd literally forget to dodge. I only have one good suit and I've got an affinity for hand me downs.

A charcoal grey double breasted suit, a white shirt and a red tie. I can't tell if it's a match made in heaven or in hell. All I can tell you, is that every man should aspire to look like this at least once in his life.

Happy Days,
Afam
Thanks to Suit Direct for these epic illustrations about Bonds present and past. 

Also, thank you internet for revealing Bond's apparent hatred for the disabled. I do not think I would have noticed it without you. Particular thanks should go to the Funny or Die team, for I laughed and I didn't die. 

For more about how to look like Bond without killing, drinking or shagging like him, please go here- https://www.suitdirect.co.uk/inspiration/james-bonds-suit-wardrobe

By now most Nigerians should have heard of Sugabelly and her account of rape at the hands of Mustapha Audu and his friends and family. She revealed everything on Friday the 27th of November 2015.

I didn't know how to report it. I didn't break the story, and any attempts to rewrite the post she called Surviving Mustapha and his Rape Brigade seemed senseless to me. I was seeking to add value to the conversation. Her account was already so clear and stark that it demanded empathy immediately. I would be lying if I said that I did not believe her. In spite of my empathy, I could not do what several others did. I could not declare his guilt before it had been proven irrevocably.

I could however perform a task that several others would be unwilling to do, simply because of its magnitude. Sugabelly began her blog in January 2007, and her first post was about meeting her alleged assailant. I could crawl through her blog, post by post and create a loose timeline for her version of events.

In this I won't offer an opinion for what is an opinion but tumbleweed in a field? To condemn him would be to contribute to the assassination of his character without being completely sure about his guilt. And to treat her words as lies would be to deny everything about me that is human. Her pain causes me pain. If what she alleges is true it would mean that she carried this weight on her own for eight years. It is a burden that I do not think I could bear.

Of course there are arguments that lend their strength to the veracity of her story. It is hard to believe that she schemed for eight years to achieve this end. It is also hard to believe that she would embrace a country's worth of cyber bullying for fame. This is the sort of infamy that will kill you long before you can enjoy any of its benefits. We are Nigerian. Our numbers are many. Any percentage of us is an army.

I felt it important to know what happened as it happened, so that I could make sense of it. If I could say that this happened in January, and this in March, and this in April, then I would know what to ask if I ever got the chance to talk to either of them.

A lot of it reads like a series of unfortunate events. Her love for him is clear, but even clearer is the torment that he causes. It is very well written. I could have enjoyed it if it were not her truth. It starts in January 2007 and continues until July 2010. They meet several times in person between January 2007 and April 2008. The last time she writes about sleeping with him as if it is something that just happened is the 8th of April 2008. Between April 8th and July 2010 she struggles with the experience. She writes like she's fine for months at a time, then she learns that he's nominated for a Future Award and she slumps again. She's broken after phone calls and email exchanges. She writes repeatedly that he was her first. She writes repeatedly that he thinks she's a liar and a cheat.

It isn't until this year that she names her all of her alleged assaulters and abusers.

The Timeline according to Sugabellyrocks.com:

January 24th 2007: She met him, and called him Bakura. She is 17.

February 5th 2007: This was the first time that they had sex according to Sugabelly. She reports that it was not explicitly consensual.

'we drove around Maitama until we found a dark street. I was so nervous, I almost couldn't breathe... and I unbuttoned my shirt and let you touch me... I told you I couldn't have sex with you and you said"...it's okay. We're not going to have sex... yet." ...But we did, and I was sore afterwards, the inside of my thighs hurt and it was painful to touch myself.

February 6th 2007: Sugabelly writes that he took her out for Shawarma.

This is important because the Mustapha said in his interview that the first time they went out for shawarma at 212 was some time after her birthday on the 22nd of March. 

February 9th 2007: Sugabelly writes that she was molested by younger members of Mustapha's family.
 "your  little brothers? came and sat on my lap, and I swear they molested me... the younger one had his hand in my bra when you came back down the stairs and ordered them to run to Islamiyya."

She writes that they had sex in his car, on a different street, every night that week. 

March 1st 2007: Sugabelly, writes that she's addicted to poisonous guys. She also writes that she'll be 18 in a few weeks, and that she will be nauseous for a month because of medicine that she's taking. The tags on the post are Bakura (her pseudonym for Mustapha), fear, and HIV.

This led me to wonder if she was writing about Post-Exposure Prophlaxis, where those who've been exposed to HIV go on a 28 day course of emergency anti-retroviral treatment. The side effects include nausea.

March 24th 2007: Sugabelly writes that Mustapha did not show up for her birthday. He acknowledged this in his interview with scoop. It is clear that she has feelings for him. She introduces the phrase, "my little beast-whore."

April 20th 2007: Sugabelly writes that she and Mustapha are in a relationship of some sort. She also writes that she is afraid to incur his wrath, and that he yells, shouts and pushes her. The phrase, "my little beast whore" appears again. She writes, "aren't you... my little beast whore... cute?"

She writes in another post on the same day, "So Elwe, what happened? Did I make love to you and you not notice? Or was it not painful enough? Maybe I didn’t let you hit me hard enough, and so, you sulk. Maybe I didn’t cry, and so you felt I wasn’t a good girl."

"Elwe Singollo, King of Pain.
His Queen of Bruises, me."


The first incident of abuse?
Elwe Singollo, another name for Mustapha.

April 30th 2007: This is the first time that she explicitly writes about sexual assault.

"I never knew it would be so hard. And that the fear would be so paralyzing. I kept trying to throw him, off, and I just couldn’t. He was forcing my legs apart, and I was so afraid. So I bit him. Bit hard, anywhere I could get, until I tasted blood. And still he had his arm wrapped around my neck. And with one hand fingered me. Vile creature."

She alleges that Mustapha was in the parlour and that he should have heard her scream, but that he did not come.

She also alleges that Mustapha said that it was not rape.

"I stood before him in shame, the bite his cousin had given me in retaliation swelling rapidly on my nose. And he said it was not rape."

Is the cousin Bashir or Jibril?

May 2nd 2007: She writes again about a possible assault.

"There was blood everywhere, but I was not surprised. I just hoped it wouldn’t last as long as I expected. It didn’t. And I was relieved. But I hurt inside. He did this to me. But I let him. I let him because I wanted him to be there, no matter what. And he was. And he hurt me as much as he possibly could for it."

May 2nd 2007: She writes that she went to her doctor. He said that if "it"continued, he'd have to make a police report. She writes that she has internal injuries, and that the bite on her nose referenced on the 30th of April will heal. She gets a swab test and he advises counselling.

"The point is.. I need a way to break away. Like the doctor said. One day, he will hold a knife to my throat and it will be too late

"One day, it will be too much at once, and one of us will break. It is most likely me. I can already feel my walls cracking."

May 5th 2007: She writes that they (she doesn't say who) flirt with another woman and that she and Mustapha sleep with her. She writes about his anger too. It's an anger so great that it forces her to hide.

May 6th 2007: "I must hate you. Or it will kill me. And I want to survive this. I hate you. Fucking whore. The both of you. Whores, all of you. Please save me... Elwe Singollo, King of Pain
His Queen of Bruises, me."

May 17th 2007: "And if you suggest something, it sounds great. Bakura. I want to type it over and over again. It helps this pain you see. Because I have these images of you touching her. You were both naked, and I hated her and loved you at the same time. And the only way I could tell myself it was not a nightmare was to touch her too. And when I felt that she was real, I had to hurt her. I’m sorry if it upset you. I don’t know what you wanted. Me to make love to her too perhaps? With you? Us, together?"

She names him in this post. It is her sign off.

"Mustapha Audu, King of Pain
His Queen of Bruises, me."

May 30th 2007: The time between the 6th and the 30th is explained. He told her to get out. She writes that these words were perhaps the cruelest he'd ever said. She congratulates him for the pain they caused. "M is for Monster. M is for Molester"

June 1st 2007: She likens him to a sailor because he allegedly cheats wherever he finds himself. She considers cutting herself: doing something to make the pain visible.

"God, when will it stop? When will it end? How is this fair? I never wanted the things he made me do. To turn them around and use them as leverage is hardly right. How can he hate me for what he wanted?"

This could refer to her claim that he'd made videos of her being raped. This also implies blackmail of some sort. 

November 13th 2007: She explains the break in transmission by writing that she's had a slump but she seems hopeful for the future. She's in College in the United States. Though the distance between her and Mustapha is great, her feelings for him remain.

"I have to admit, I’ve had a slump. Like a major slump. And not just in blogging, but in so many other aspects of my life. I have felt for a long time now, like more or less a semi-failure because of a lot of mistakes I made, and other circumstances. However, if at first you don’t succeed………….."

 November 13th 2007: Her optimism doesn't last long.

"Everyday, I drag myself out of bed. Put one foot in front of the other, and I trudge on. I feel so, so, very sad. For my family, because they know I;m not happy. For myself because I am so disappointed. For everything, for life, I feel so down."

January 21st - 25th 2008: Sugabelly writes that she loved it when Mustapha spanked her on the 21st of January. Mustapha replies on the 25th. He writes, "Hmmm looking forward to the next one aren't we darlin??"

This calls a part of the interview that Mustapha gave into question. In the interview he claims that the pair dated for two months, or a month and a half. It is unclear whether he says a month and a half or two months. In his message to her, it doesn't look like this is the case. It looks like there was a plan for a spanking session in the future. Of course, we do not know how Mustapha defines relationships.

February 5th 2008:  "Today I fought with a man, my man, a man I love. Not with punches, or blows exchanged and then felt, but with words, whose pain is greater. And I wounded him but his wounds wounded me deeper, and now I am the one who cries. Today I picked up the phone and called him, a thousand miles east past the sea. To hear him hurt hurt my heart to hear it, and bruised my soul that I was the cause."

February 17th 2008: "(my ex-boyfriend is coming here in a few months, and in order to win him back I can’t let him see me like this), I resorted to my last hope, my secret weapon, the BEYONCE diet."

February 26th 2008: "Bakura and I are back together….in a way. But at least now he’s confessed his love for me, and I’m beside myself and blushing."
May 14th 2008: It isn't as over as she thought or hoped. She hears that he's at his girlfriend's in London, and she's gutted.



Notes: Details may have been lost in the transcription of this. Gaps are also present in the timeline, as Sugabelly's blog changed three times, and data was lost with each move. 
Braarchitect.livejournal.com
sugabelly.vox.com
sugabelly.blogspot.com

The next phase of my reporting on this will be a verification of the facts. If you know something about this story that no-one else does or you know someone who may know something, drop me an email. @afam.a.o@hotmail.com. Your anonymity's guaranteed.

All quotes are direct excerpts from sugabellyrocks.com

When you read the Hunger Games series, you're reminded of the Twilight series because of the inherent love triangle. While Twilight never quite strays from its sugary beginnings, the Hunger Games becomes an entirely new beast by Mockingjay 2.

I wasn't exactly pleased when I learned that the trilogy would be split into four parts, but in the end I think it worked. Jennifer Lawrence is brilliant as Katniss. She carries her scenes almost effortlessly. Any movie fan will tell you that what she does isn't easy. I may not know much about acting but I have seen several others fail at what she seems to do so naturally.


She's magical isn't she? All she's doing in that GIF is walking. It isn't even a Naomi Campbell walk, but it's still rather riveting. It would probably be the greatest thing if she had her own reality television show.

 It would be fantastic if for once there was a reality tv show that about someone with an actual successful career. But that's enough about J-Law because believe it or not she isn't the only one in the movie.


And now we've got David Sutherland as President Snow.

A quick aside...

If I look half as good as he does at 80, I'll make like Kanye and toast the douchebags of the world. I mean look at that beard! He's essentially the fashionable combination of Gandalf and Dumbledore. #Goals.

Everything that he does in the film is great. I think my envy for his beard may have clouded my judgement a bit. It's been a month since I last shaved and my beard looks like patches of mould on a too long left out piece of bread.


Josh Hutcherson plays Peeta Mellark and he's fictional proof that the nice average looking guy is the one that ends up with the popular babe. However, before the nice guy makes his way out of the friendzone, he must do the following.

• Try to kill her.
• Insult her in a profoundly deep and meaningful way everytime he sees her. 
• Kill at least one of her friends. 
• Be mentally ill for at least a year. 
• Show up for when she's in dire need of company - This bit of advice may actually work. If you adhere to the others, I all but guarantee that the odds won't be in your favour. 

Then you have Liam Hemsworth as Gale. He does a good job of being somber. Even when he smiles, he does it like he's grieving, and while that may sound bad, it's in keeping with the general tone of the movie. Kudos! His story made me glad. It said that we are not free from blame if we unknowingly hurt someone. This is something that I agree with.

The most note worthy scene in my opinion was the one depicted above. It both confused and delighted me. They said it was oil, but I didn't know what kind of oil it was. Crude oil? Bonny Light? All in all it made for very interesting viewing. I say grab a bag of pop corn, people get shot, and good and bad people go boom boom and then they say bye bye. One of the most interesting things about the series is that there was really no one in it that was entirely good or entirely bad. There is beauty in the murkiness of life.

I don't know that I've given the lot of you an update lately. I will rectify this shortly. In the past, my updates were incredibly singular: mere snippets of my life at the moment. I intend to change this too.

During my confinement in Nigeria, I had a lot of conversations and I learned a lot about life. The things that weren't said in conversation were said through action. For instance I learned that even the most harmless looking man is a potential murderer.

One day in Lagos I was speeding along in the father gifted Kia Sportage, when I bulldozed my way through a puddle and emptied the contents of a flooded street on an unsuspecting motored tricycle. 

(The Kia Sportage is an excellent vehicle that reminded me that I Afam, am not an orphan, and that some parental support is better than none at all even when it kills you to get it)

 For those of you who do not know what a motored tricycle is I shall explain. A motored tricycle is also known as a Keke na pep. It exists in several countries that I do not care to name at this juncture and it typically looks like this.

It's obviously one of the safest vehicles in all of Lagos, and that colour is incredible. It's the sort of yellow that you never see anywhere but in Lagos. I don't know how it was decided that this would be the unofficial official colour of most public service Lagosian vehicles. However, whoever it was that decided on the colour is a genius because I do not believe that there's ever been a colour more reminiscent of jaundice.

 After being doused with road water and sewage, the driver and his passengers were stupendously displeased with me so they sped after me, overtook me and parked in front of me. I was forced to slam my foot on the brakes because if I hadn't I would have wrecked my still unscratched Sportage. I've become so small minded that I was more concerned with the car's paint job than their lives.

They stormed out of the Keke Na Pep and marched towards me. I was mildly confused when that happened. I simply couldn't comprehend why anyone would do what they had just done, so I continued nodding along to whatever it was that my iPod had picked out for me at that moment. It was at that time that the shit hit the fan.

One of them slammed a fist into my bonnet and dented it while the other two walked up to my open window, and began what I can only describe as a festival of slaps. After landing anything between 3 and 8 clear strikes to my face, they were having so much fun that they decided to enjoy themselves a little bit more. They yanked my door open and spread the love around my body. It was then that I decided that enough was enough. I shifted the car into reverse and backed the hell up. After that heroic move, I slammed the door like an angry king and turned unto the sandy pavement and sped away.

In the spirit of this blog, which is not about being beaten within an inch of sanity in Oniru (A residential area somewhere between Victoria Island and Lekki - these are both places in Lagos). This blog is about things that I think you need to know this week.

• Lagos is still a bit violent. If you can, drive when there's no traffic, lock your doors, wind up your windows, and keep anything that you would rather not be stolen away from prying eyes. However, there's a fuel scarcity and there are fewer cars on the roads, so traffic should be less? If you were looking for a silver lining in your cloud of life, I think that's it.

•  If you were thinking of a movie to see, then Mockingjay part 2 is a rather good one. It isn't revolutionary, but it promises everything an action movie should. Things blow up. People die. And if you're a fan of the Game of Thrones then Mockingjay part 2 is exactly what you need. It's a little less Hunger Games and more Hunger Game of Thrones. Also Jennifer Lawrence carries the hell out of the movie! 
  

• The book I'm reading this week is Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. It's got lines like, “One's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and to not accept the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.” How truly profound? 

•  As highly strung as Madame Bovary may seem, I haven't changed at all. I'm still tragically addicted to entertaining trivial fodder. Online, I've spent more time than I care to admit reading Long Live Summons by Xia Fei Shuang Jia. As I do not speak Mandarin, I rely on translations by shiroyukitranslations.com. The story is reall quite compelling. With chapters like, "Kill them all for me", "Beating a violent slave violently", "Killing Demon Generals Instantly" and "I want to beat you up violently too", my infatuation with it shouldn't come as a surprise to any of you. 

• The article that made me laugh the hardest this week was this one on the guardian by Colin Quinn. It was about how the Earth is evil. 

• The article by me that I read this week and quite enjoyed is this one - Misadventures in Lagos the Quixotic Escape from Escape. It was about the first time I got slapped in Lagos, so it's obviously goes well with the general theme of this post. For some reason my mind seems to be stuck on violence this week. I can't say that I know why this is, but I'm sure that next week will promise new excitement. 

•  In terms of music I've succumbed to the Adele craze. I can't say anything that hasn't been said about her.  It's disappointing that I cannot find a positive adjective that hasn't already been used, but I'm not nothing if not a fool. I will not be at peace if I do not try. Adele's voice is commanding. Above its obvious technical brilliance it says, "this is what I felt, have you felt it too? Is there any part of you that understands?" It is compelling in its breathtaking honesty. 

On that note I think I'll leave you. I know I cannot thank you enough for what you've given me. I know that I don't thank you enough, but I hope you don't think me ungrateful. It's been three years since you met me, and several of you are still here. That you choose to come on this unimpressive website out of an endless sea of websites will always mean everything and the world to me.

Happy Days,
Afam

We live in an age where comment is free. With the rise of platforms that encourage the sharing of public opinion, our feelings and thoughts about issues are no longer restricted to deep meaningful conversations between friends. This has its merits and its demerits. On the one hand it is great that we are free to share our positions on a number of topics, but on the other hand you’re forced to contend with the fact that several of the people speaking are idiots, and that not all opinions are valid or even worth hearing.

Underneath an episode of Ndani television’s show, Real Talk, about whether or not women should downplay their success to keep their men is a comment that reads, “The thing is women are wicked, and when they lose it, they become very disrespectful, and will not hold back not rubbing their wealth in your face.” The problems with that statement are obvious. It is a generalisation so broad that it stretches the confines of the imagination. The next one is in the same vein. “Let’s get one thing clear first and foremost most women who have high paying jobs in the corporate world aren’t that attractive.”

It is one thing when it’s a character on Twitter, but it is another when the person speaking is an influencer on a formal platform. I was listening to a radio show called Table of Men on Coolfm, where a panel of men, and their listeners discuss a range of subjects. On the day that I tuned in, the men asked themselves if they would prefer marriages to career women or housewives. Instead of choose one or the other, they opted for a hybrid. They spoke about how women couldn’t be expected to keep to the same work schedules post marriage. They implied that women would need to adapt their lives to the marital situation. They stated that women should no longer work past 7 at night once married because food needed to be on the table. It was the classic illustration of chauvinism but they didn’t see it or care. They stripped women of their choices and sentenced them to lives of indentured servitude. They also presented the idea of difference as an affront to what it means to be African. This infuriated me.

Stereotypes about what it means to be African are both annoying and useless. Africa is not a country. We are not one people. There is no issue based identity, and if there is, we do not get to pick and choose what qualities define it. Those who publicly declare that female home-making is an African tradition with pride should do so in the same breath that they acknowledge that illiteracy, poverty, and violence are African. After all they both exist on the continent. Why should one be used to defend chauvinism and the other ignored because it challenges our current understandings of what it means to be African?

Opinions that encourage any sort of oppression are just as annoying, and I have grown tired of presenting defenses against them. I have come to realise that it is difficult to describe a pain that someone else has not felt and is unwilling to confront. Positions like the ones mentioned above are the product of ignorance. They are what they know until they know something else. If at this point you still maintain that women are best kept in kitchens, then it is unlikely that your stance will change until you meet with a situation that encourages you to reconsider. It is the same way that a staunch decrier of divorce will think twice before suggesting that his sister remain in an abusive marriage.
Inherent in our humanity is the lack of control we have over life as it exists outside us and it is this that makes sentiments such as the one expressed by the men on the radio show meaningless. If a man with a family lost his job, or got sentenced to prison, what would he ask of his partner? Would he demand that she wait for him to come through, or would he see that she would have to get on with life as best she could? Would he have her starve to protect his idea of what it means to be a man? Would he have his children suffer because his idea of what it means to be African is to leave to his wife the home building, and himself the money making? Of course, when the world moves in his favour, these aren’t things that he would seriously consider but when it doesn’t, the shit gets real. There are jobs to be done, and it doesn’t matter who does them. There are choices to be made and his biases won’t mean a thing in the face of them. There are bills to be paid and they won’t care if the account holder is an XX or an XY.

Change is coming. That much is guaranteed. Ignorance can no longer be covered by the right to free expression. When you consider that the Nigerian Female to Male labour force participation rate has risen from 50% in 1990 to 75% in 2013, you realise that it is only a matter of time before stances such as those expressed on that radio show crumble.

It was Obi’s birthday a few days before. Now I’m preparing myself for the celebration. He’s decided on a house party. I like house parties even if they very rarely ever turn into massive ragers. They’re cheap and efficient, and if you so happen to over indulge there’s a couch with your name on it. The bottle of Laurent Perrier I’ll be bringing is chilling in the freezer. My black Levi’s t-shirt, blue Uniqlo trousers, and black Russel and Bromleys are suitable. I am cologne-less but appropriately deodorised. All of this is deliberate. I do not want to give the impression that I thought about this for the better part of the afternoon.

Life in Lagos was fine. It wasn't filled with long walks where I didn't wonder about how safe I was. No, the one time I walked home, I was chased a hundred feet by two men who could best be described as suspicious, and struck by a policeman. That night will always be one of the highlights of my youth. I'll say to my friends, "How young I was: how foolish, how wise." I was foolish that night and I'm unlikely to be foolish in that way again. I know that it isn't my fault that I was slapped, but I've come to the conclusion that pain should be avoided wherever possible. If I had stayed at the Nightclub, I would have been driven home by Agbero (a friend of mine), and that would have been that. There would have been no uncertainty as to the cause of my blistering headache in the morning.
As bad as that night may seem to some of you, it could have been so much worse. Have you ever sat across the table from someone that tells you of his kidnapping and escape? He said, "They beat me and then they threw me into my boot. They thought I was some actor. I stopped the boot from shutting but held it down so that they wouldn't know. They sped off and when they slowed down, I leaped out of the boot and fled."

This is the sort of terror that Lagosians expect. Stories that involve casual brushes with disaster are almost never surprising. This is perhaps truer now than its ever been.

Several report that crime in the city is the greatest it has been in recent memory. Going to the police is often the gunpowder laced icing on the cake. You can quote me on that last part. It takes a certain sort of audacity to ask the victim of a crime to fund the official investigation into the crime. It is this sort of audacity that the Nigerian Police Force exhibits by the bucket load. In a statement to Thisday, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, the Lagos State Commissioner of Police said, "We have only been faced with pockets of traffic robbery incidents, but they are hardly reported at our police stations. The attacks are only reported by victims via twitter." The reporting journalist didn't ask why that was. It seems a little weird that people who've just been robbed prefer to trust twitter, a social media application more than they do the people who are sworn to protect them.

The good Commissioner went on to say, "But let me assure you that the ugly trend has reduced drastically. We have been going after them along Apongbon, Oworonshoki, Costain and Onikan bridges, respectively." The article where this quote appeared was published on the 16th of November, so I find the following story, published on twitter the following morning more than a little bit troubling.

we were in traffic at about 5:45AM this morning accessing V.I through the bridge that leads into onikan roundabout...

— Oga Ade™ (@BabatundeCASH) November 17, 2015

Those guys are always lurking around there waiting for their next victim preferable women...

— Oga Ade™ (@BabatundeCASH) November 17, 2015

They walked close to a lady in a black Camry, stood at both sides of her doors, put a white cloth on her door glass BOOM > Window Smashes.

— Oga Ade™ (@BabatundeCASH) November 17, 2015

Before I could even understand what was going on, They opened her door and took everything they could from the Car. I just told myself...

— Oga Ade™ (@BabatundeCASH) November 17, 2015

O boy! U're next! I took my windows down hid my phone and kept my tab where they could see it...I was willing to sacrifice that not my life.

— Oga Ade™ (@BabatundeCASH) November 17, 2015

3 cars behind me as well, Another set of robbers..Another car, An SUV this time another Female...ROBBED! All in that traffic to enter Onikan

— Oga Ade™ (@BabatundeCASH) November 17, 2015

you could tell they had an entourage lurking around...they didn't look armed but you never can tell...they looked like area boys

— Oga Ade™ (@BabatundeCASH) November 17, 2015

No Police, No security agents at sight to help...just Unarmed citizens looking at each other helplessly. It was a scary experience.

— Oga Ade™ (@BabatundeCASH) November 17, 2015

It's sad nothin is being done about these robberies, Cos I can bet they will be there again tomorrow, Same Time waiting for the new targets.

— Oga Ade™ (@BabatundeCASH) November 17, 2015

The next day? On a bridge where robberies had been drastically reduced? Mr Commissioner somebody's having a nightmare at work. Oh dear! It can't be easy can it? I'll spell the possibilities out.

1. The Commissioner is Pinocchio without the nose.
2. The Nigerian Police Force is waltzing this man around the biggest dance floor in the world. 

The official rhetoric is that efforts are being made to set the city's affairs in order, but they're not entirely believable when Lagosian's continue to share their daily brushes with crime.

I spoke to Mr. Oladipe Adekunle on twitter this morning about an incident he witnessed last night. This is his version of events.

A man randomly walked through the traffic and stopped when he spotted a female driver. He smashed her side window and grabbed her purse and phone and casually walked to the other lane where an Okada (a small motorcycle) was waiting for him. He got on the Okada and they took off. This happened near the Oando Roundabout on the Lekki Express Way where there are Lagos State Transport Management Authority (LASTMA) officials, police officers and about 3 patrol vehicles.

We went to tell the police officers what happened but their response and the body language that accompanied it was terrible. The said, "Oga but you know Christmas is coming... Thank God na only phone and purse dem take."

Adekunle went on to say, "The truth is that security officials need to be well equipped to handle such crimes and protect citizens. This never happened during Fashola's time, what is Governor Ambode doing?!"

The sentiment that Governor Ambode isn't doing enough to keep the state in order is one that's shared by several Lagosians. However, it is important to note that the Nigerian Police Force is a federal organisation and not a state one. Lagos has no state police, even though it may very well be one of few Nigerian states that could ostensibly afford one.

When speaking at  the closing session of the four day Leadership Retreat for the State Executive Council, Governor Ambode said, "We're not yet where we want to be. We have only just 33,000 policemen in Lagos for a population of over 20 million. Again we don't have control over these policemen."

He went on to say that Lagos State had gone beyond its budget limit, and was spending money to support police operations in the state."

However Lagosians are perhaps interested in the results than they are the statements and promises of commitment.

As always,
Happy Days,
Afam

The rational among us are unlikely to forget Friday the 13th of November 2015. Before that day, when people touted Friday the 13th as a day of supreme unluckiness we laughed about their supreme superstitiousness and how such superstitiousness had no place in 2015, but not anymore. Now, whenever there's a Friday the 13th I shall ferry myself between work and home without wishing on a pub, a restaurant, a bar, or a club and when I walk, I shall keep an eye out for suspicious fellows, and fellowesses, lest they gun me to oblivion.

I was thinking about how sad the day was while listening to a Justin Beiber playlist on youtube, when I realised that several of his songs had lines that summed up how I felt about everything. It's funny how things change isn't it? A year ago, you could have pulled out one of my testicles and I wouldn't have admitted that I knew who Justin Beiber was let alone that I was familiar with his musical repertoire. Now that his music has lost some of its tween essence, I find that I no longer consider being a fan of his to be an assault on my masculinity.

So without further ado here are some Justin Beiber lines that say how I felt on the day that IS/ISIS/DAESH/ISIL carried out that terrible attack on Paris.

"What do you mean?" from What do you mean... by Beiber

I said those words whenever any leader spoke about an attack on the French way of life which was also their country's way of life. There's some very ambiguous wording there. Does it imply that the Muslim way of life isn't compatible with the French, American, or British ones? I also said it when I heard them say cultural values because we don't all share cultural values. I'm black and Nigerian. There are many ways that my values differ from those in the West. Do you know that I cringe whenever I find myself handing something to someone with my left hand? That example is fairly bizarre so I'll give a better one. Donald Trump said that if the French had guns, Friday the 13th wouldn't have happened. In that regard, I look at America, then I look at the United Kingdom, and then I look at France, and one of those countries is not like the others.

That being said it isn't the first time that Donald Trump has chosen to use French Tragedy in his pro-gun propaganda. After the Charlie Hebdo killings the following exchange happened.


"Is it too late now to say sorry?" from Sorry. 

This one isn't that hard to relate to. The vast majority of us were so distracted by the events in Paris that we turned a blind eye to other tragic events that happened around the world. For those of you that do not know, I shall tell you of the people you failed to pray for.

The Japanese: There was an earthquake off the coast Japan on Friday. It measured 7.0 on the Richter Scale, luckily there was no major damage or loss of life. Now, thank God/Allah (Buddha, the universe, the grass, your penis, whatever God you pray to whenever you tweet #prayforsomewhere) that it was off the coast and not on the island. People didn't die, and this too is a reason for prayer.

Beirut: There was a twin suicide bombing there that killed 40 on Thursday but we were silent. Not a hashtag trended and not a was building lit in solidarity. Also Facebook's I'm safe button wasn't activated.

Borno: Things are terrible there, but to be honest I haven't tweeted #prayers towards Borno in months. Nigerians weren't too pleased about their brethren ignoring the tragic events happening within their border and praying for people who share neither language nor passport.

Baghdad: 26 people were killed and dozens left wounded when a suicide bomber detonated himself at a memorial service held for a Shiite militia fighter killed in battle against the Islamic State on Friday. The attack  was carried out by the Islamic State. This story was also largely ignored by the media.

I am sorry for having Western tinted goggles when looking at the news. I will endeavour to leave them off my face in the future.


"Like Baby, Baby, Baby No!" From the record breaking Beiber hit, Baby. 

After Paris. 'We need to snap out of our multicultural fantasies'. Me in the Telegraph today: https://t.co/FFDziGXdu9

— Douglas Murray (@DouglasKMurray) November 14, 2015

That article is incredibly divisive, and division isn't something that the world needs right now. If Islam is presented as incompatible with Europe then you put several Muslims at risk of violence,  persecution and hatred. It is both uncalled for and unnecessary. As journalists we have to think about the consequences of our words, and I don't think that his were very well considered.

Over the weekend there was a suspicious fire in a Mosque in Peterborough in Canada that caused about $80,000 worth of damage. We have a right to free speech but we mustn't abuse that right. There is power in the letters we use. We must be responsible.

"It's a cruel world" from As Long as You Love me. 

That's how I feel about everything really. France looks to be committed to an all out war against IS, and over the course of this crusade there will be casualties. We can't say how many, but we know that the dead will number hundreds or even thousands. This is sad. War is sad.

"The sky's our point of view" also from As Long as You Love me.

This should be how we think about the world. When it comes down to it, we are all human and death means something. All massacres matter regardless of where they are. The safe will always owe the the unsafe their empathy if not their sympathy and our empathy should never be bound by geography.

Happy Days,
Afam

I wasn't the most academic child. I apologise for the roundabout introduction but I'm anything but straightforward and the Masters degree doesn't allow me to exhibit the full measure of my literary flair. They frown upon all uses of the first person in written work and admonish any lack of objectivity. I've come to the conclusion that the soul of journalism is to strive for objectivity knowing full well that you'll never quite get there.

I got lost somewhere in that opening paragraph so I'll have another go at it.

I wasn't the most academic child. It wasn't for a lack of cleverness but that was a fact that very nearly killed my mother. That she'd managed to beget a fairly intelligent child who lost interest in anything that could be regarded as work was completely intolerable. At the worst of my lazy episodes I was taken for deliverance at a popular church called the Mountain of Fire and stoned with Gifted Hands - Ben Carson's Autobiography. The liberals among you mustn't utter a word of complaint about the way my mother mothered me. The job of a tiger mother is not only to take her child to the proverbial pond, it is also to force it to drink that water. A true tiger mother will do anything to achieve this aim. We all have our faults.

Gifted Hands became a little bit like a Bible for me. If Ben Carson could go from carrying the weight of his class (this is a euphemism for coming last) then I could elevate myself from the rear of my class and transplant myself at the top. If Ben Carson had had two heads I'd have given up, but he only had one so whatever he'd achieved was also achievable by me. It was Ben Carson that lit a fire under my arse and got me to take the 6th grade seriously. If I hadn't I wouldn't have gone to that boarding school that all Nigerians call the local jail for children and I wouldn't be who I am now. Yes, it may not be very believable but the book was that influential. After reading it I believed that there was nothing in the world that hard work couldn't surmount. Good old Ben was second to Jesus, only a few places above his counterpart in profound disappointment, Bill Cosby. And to be honest I find that I am more disappointed in Ben than I am in Bill. Cosby may not admit to the world that he is a sexual offender, but there is no way that he can go without knowing it. When over two dozen people accuse you of something, even those of us that think ourselves innocent will begin to see how we are guilty. The same is not true of idiocy, especially when there has been ample opportunity for education. Idiocy is a solitary crusade for not only does it mean that you do not know, it also means that you do not know where you may go to know and that even if you did know you wouldn't care to.

Over the course of his campaign, I have made the following faces.

This one was when he implied that he doesn't see racism as a major social issue in America. I "doesn't" understand it. I can see racism in America from my window in Lagos so how is it that someone that lives there doesn't see it? Racism should be pointed out even when it hides in a myriad of other issues. Racism should be pointed out even when it makes you the black guy that's always pointing out racist things. In Ferguson he saw no racism. He said that the problems there were caused by a lack of education and respect. He said, "Education is the great divide... Children need to understand that they have to get a good education.” The problem here is that you can't see education but you can see colour.
"My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain." 

When I heard that, it occurred to me that Ben may not exactly be normal. Most of us refrain from speaking about subjects that we know little or nothing about, but not Mr Carson. The Egyptian antiquities minister Mamdouh el-Damaty said, "does he even deserve a response? He doesn't", at a news conference about recent thermal scans of the pyramid
Egypt’s head of ancient antiquities, Mahmoud Afifi added: "A lot of people are trying to prove that the pyramids weren’t built for burials. Maybe they’re comments used for publicity like that man who’s not an archaeologist and says they stored grain, and I don’t know what that was based on."


The theory of evolution was created by the adversary (the devil) and the big bang is a fairy tale. 
One of the things I love about the Bible's creation story is that it doesn't tell you how anything really happened, and we don't really know how long anything took. "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."(2 Peter 3:8). And there's this other quote from Isaiah, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.

So apart from if God personally told Ben Carson these things, I can't see how he could be so dismissive of scientific theory. 
"You know Obamacare is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery,"
 

They tell you that there’s a war on women. There is no war on women. There may be a war on what’s inside of women.

“You can operate for 10, 15, 18 hours on a kid, and if you’re successful, the reward my be 50, 60, 70 years of life. Whereas with an old geezer, you spend all that time, and they die in five years of something else! So, you see, Monica and I, we like to get a good return on investment.”

This one is essentially hate speech.

There are a ton of them I didn't use. I didn't quote him on gay people and jail. I didn't transcribe his jokes about Auschwitz. I didn't write about the time he compared Obama to the devil. I didn't write about the lies he told in Gifted Hands. I didn't even write about the time that he said that American are more stupid than they think they are (if there's any American that's perhaps a little less clever than he thinks, it's him). And I definitely left out his comments on fox news.

"Even if all the media tries to shut you down—which they have tried very much to do with me," he said. "But they can't because the good Lord has provided me with mechanisms like my syndicated column and like Fox News. We'd be Cuba if there were no Fox News."