Nah nigga I don't know, I don't know who got you/
I don't know who stabbed you, I don't know who shot you/
I don't know who cut you, I don't know who robbed you/
But you think I know cause you know how my squad do/

That’s 50 Cent on “I don't know officer”. You dumb fucks out there ain’t got nothing on me.

You might have recognized that I’ve been firing from all cylinders in the past few hours; forgive me. It’s just that a recent post on naijablog got me all angry. Dude a.k.a. Mr. Nigeria is at it again. He’s straight misinterpreting and dissing a chick, same thing he did to me some weeks back. Such stuff makes me want to ask him to hold his peace and leave the country if he hates it so much. In my case he started the whole falsities and then his good friend Black Looks took over. And man it hurt so bad. Black Looks a.k.a. Mrs. Activist (In reality she sucks at it. Her whole blog is a joke. Straight copying, pasting and summarizing. You’re a news editor now huh? Mam if you have nothing original to say I suggest you stop blogging) went ahead to brand me as being homophobic (for your info I do dislike homosexuality but I’m not exactly like “kill all homosexuals”) and misogynistic…one who’s canvassing for the raping of lesbians. She did the branding in posts and comments on her blog and on her beloved Global Voices Online. It just wasn’t fair at all. An apology would be a good way to start setting things straight.

Away from that now. I was going through my blog news aggregator like I love to do and stumbled upon this “soul on ice” post. Obi I’m totally with you. It reminds me of one of them Christian pamphlets I read recently. Story goes like this. There once lived a pastor and his son. They usually made the evangelism rounds together distributing pamphlets and preaching the word. Then came this very cold winter morning; dad opted out of the walk but son volunteered to do the rounds alone. As he was on his rounds he came to the house of an old widow. Son knocked, knocked and knocked until she finally opened her door. Son does his delivery and leaves immediately. Next Sunday widow goes to church to give a testimony. Says she was heartbroken over her hubby’s death, after which no one cared for her. Thus she was about committing suicide until son’s persistent knocks made her to go attend to the door. Son’s cheerful smile and the pamphlet he gave her with the bold title “God loves you” made her change her mind and give her life to Christ. Bullshit if you ask me. Very unrealistic to say the least. Can you imagine someone who’s really depressed suddenly change her mind for three words and a smile (most likely a fake one at that). Christians should stop spreading this “God loves you” stuff and instead start spreading the word “we/I love you”. What does a depressed person care about God? God that he/she cannot see. As is said: "God lives in us", therefore if we really care for her we would tell her that we love her and really try showing it to her in our words and actions. Also the habit of trying to make converts with "the world is coming to and end and damnation stuff" is straight bullshit. that’s intimidation. The main message should be that one should be good because it’s good to be good and not because one could otherwise perish in some eternal fire.

Enough said, I’m out

A lot of bad stuff has happened in the past months: Katrina, Tsunami, London bombings, Bellview-Sosoliso crash etc. And being that they didn’t directly affect me I’ll be like: “nna na wah oh, which levels na. Nothing do me sha, so no le le”. In line with that the bird flu stuff came and I didn’t really pay attention to it. Then all of a sudden I heard it has spread to Kaduna and even down to Abuja. The news finally hit me in the face when the FCDA (Federal Capital Development Authority) Development Control Department visited our street on Thursday 16th February. You see our Neighbours rear chickens, turkeys and goats in their backyard…while we (my mom to be specific) have a garden in ours. Who ask you sef? Ajayi work, no payment. Ok back to the story. Because of the bird flu scare, rearing of birds has been banned in residential areas in Abuja. Thus our neighbours are by law in the wrong and the FCDA guys came to set things right. Like joke like joke they raided our neighbours chicken coop dry! They took the chickens, dipped them into some chemical (most definitely poisonous) and then stuffed them in a bag. I felt our neighbours pain; another source of income gone in these hard times. And according to madam, she devoted a very large part of her salary into the poultry project. Now all her labour amounts to nought. I’m sorry if this is dumb. I know we gots to be careful and all, but them birds sure did look very healthy. It makes little sense to just kill them all like that. Me thinks they should have been taken alive, tested for flu and those healthy be returned to their owners or killed and stored in some government abattoir. The government’s say is final sha so I guess no more chicken meals for us. Oh well, who cares. I’m too broke to be a fast food addict (Biggs, Tantalizers and the likes). Ha-ha. The chickens were counted though, so there could be some compensation (maybe monetary or in form of chicks) in the offing.

I’ve always wanted to have a customized T-shirt/jersey. I’ve finally done so, thanks to the artistic brain of my main man Kenieflex. Picture taken February 15th.

Shorty calls me TRAE baby, the ABJ representer/
You know I love the ladies, give me chance and I go enter/
Brought up in the eighties, a real intercontinental/
Restless like I’ve got rabies, man I’ve seen both heat and winter/
Super Eagles shriner, I love Agha and Utaka/
I’ll turn down a Pathfinder for a chance to get onliner/
I hear music my head scatter, like hip hop, rock or even samba/
Rugged like an okada, fuck with me, o boy your father!/

You’re familiar with the title phrase huh? Well, after we got knocked out of the ACN at the semi-final stage I was mad…sort of sha. In line with that spirit I’ve decided to get a few things off my chest…give a few knocks to people that piss me off. Here goes.

Osaze Peter Odemwingie
Although the goal which knocked us out of the ACN was dubious (offside), Côte d'Ivoire totally outplayed us in the game and deserved to win. If a scapegoat was to be picked for the disappointing match it would be Osaze. He was a big “minus one” in our team, what the hell was Eguavoen thinking? Utaka or Aghahowa should have started at that right wing instead! Osaze seriously limited our impetus in attack; nothing positive came from his wing while he was on the field. I don’t know if it’s the magnitude of the match that overwhelmed him but dude couldn’t hold the ball, make a good pass forward, talk less of dribble. Whenever the ball was with him he either passed it back to his teammate or set off running like a headless chicken till he was dispossessed. Anyways in the end we settled for our usual Bronze so it ain’t all that bad.

2face Idibia
Truth be told, nowadays the only thing I like about 2face is his music. Period…kpom! When giving interviews, doing promos, hyping up the crowd at shows etc the guy simply sucks. All in all he talks like a damn illiterate, he ain’t sharp enough. And that’s too bad considering the fact that at the moment he’s Naija’s foremost musician. You need to hear him answering questions, he always gives wack responses. He mumbles one or two sentences then the next thing you hear from him is “my people, nothing dey happen”. “Yes oh, my brother na God” etc. he’s got the musical talent but he needs to brush up on his intellectual stuff.

Olusegun Obasanjo
Silence they say is golden. But it takes a wise man to know when not to stick to the rule. OBJ’s silence over his purported third term bid is killing me, more seriously it’s heating up the polity. It’s as simple a question as one can ever be asked. I’ve put myself in his shoes to try and ration out if silence is really the wise thing at this stage and my senses tell me it’s not. Why can’t he just come straight like his friend Thabo Mbeki has done. If at the end he’s not dreaming of Aso Rock beyond May 2007 then I’ll say his present silence is one of the dumbest things he has ever done since coming into power in 1999. Postscript: Lamidi Adedibu deserves to be bitch slapped.

Guys who stoop to pee/piss
I don’t know about you and your environment but for me the sight of a guy stooping to piss is quiet a common occurrence in Abuja. And I’ve realized that these guys are almost always Northerners…particularly Muslims. Pardon me but I think it’s un-masculine or bizarre to say the least. Information reaching me is that it’s either these guys are uncircumcised; it’s some religious rule, or both. I like to think of men as conquerors of the world. You should stand and do your thing while surveying your kingdom. Ha-ha, keep Abuja clean.

I’m in a shitty mood, forgive me. Many other people piss me off. But like Nas in his song “destroy and rebuild”:

it’s sooo hard to put a coward’s name in my rap (blog)...

nonsense, not to be obnoxious kid/*** for the record you could suck my ****/

Anyways it’s valentine in a few days. So like Georgy Porgy I’m giving all the sweet ladies who read my stuff a big cyber kiss, and like OBJ I’m giving all the fine gentlemen who regularly bust through my lines a warm cyber handshake. Peace and love in Africa!

If you’re Nigerian and you’re news conscious you’ll primarily relate the word “Kuje” with a prison in Abuja. Big shots like Mohammed Abacha, Tafa Balogun and even Gani Fawehinmi have spent many a nights there. I don’t even know what the god damn prison looks like but I finished up secondary school in Saints Simon and Jude Junior Seminary Kuje, Abuja (SJS). This post originates because I visiting Kuje again for the first time in six years last week to collect my WASSC certificate (your boy made all his papers in one sitting…still baffles me how I pulled that off. Too bad I slacked academically in the university) and as a result I’m rearing to blog.

It’s a known fact that we have a very low maintenance culture in Nigeria. But being that SJS is a private school I didn’t think that would really apply to my alma mater. But I was shocked on my visit. The school looks very shabby. The buildings need painting and refurnishing; the school vehicles are down; the aesthetics has been lost as the grasses, trees, flowers, pathways, orchards are all in a mess. I also heard of staff welfare complaints. I guess money needs to be pumped in. Although they’re getting grants from Rome and lots of goodwill in cash and kind from Catholics in Abuja. Or maybe it’s a case of poor management.

Anyways I still got good memories of SJS Kuje like:
- The religious stuff. Attending mass and saying the rosary every freaking day. And getting double doses of meditation, reflection and retreats. All in all e been good as e keep man pikin from spoiling…fast.
- Living a nice communal life. It was a small school population-wise so we knew each other and generally got on well together.
- Having fun amidst the hustling. E.g.: food palava, visiting days awaiting, outing trips to get to see girls and get stuff.
- Getting the chance of sitting near the altar in 1998 when the late Pope John Paul II made his 2nd trip to Nigeria.
- Spending a week at the National Missionary Seminary of Saint Paul Gwagwalada, Abuja along with my classmates to witness a priestly ordination firsthand (That week was heaven, right then I definitely wanted to be a priest).
- The bullying I got while there (I lost out on being the senior prefect in my final year because I was too damn small…puberty shit) as it toughened me up for life.

Despite these good memories, at the end of my stay in SJS I decided against continuing my priesthood chase. I didn’t feel I had the calling, plus celibacy definitely wasn’t for me! I still meet up with some folks who decided to advance (My own classmates will be ordained priests in about 3-4 years time) and those guys are living large for real! Nigeria is such a religion obsessed country that once you’re on the priesthood train you’re kind of made for life (nonetheless it’s not all bliss as evangelism is not as easy as it seems). Some wise guys realize this and take full advantage. Let me explain. The road to priesthood is like this: 1 year probation working in a Catholic establishment for candidates who didn’t go to a Junior Seminary (or who need to be crossed examined first), 4 years studying philosophy, another 1 year working, 4 years studying theology, being ordained a deacon and if found worthy being ordained a priest. The wise guys enter the fold, enjoy the free education and other benefits and pull out as soon as they get their philosophy degree. Now ain’t that a bitch?

So much for reminiscing, it has left me feeling like Ahmad in his 1994 hit “back in the day”

I miss those days, and so I pout like a grown jerk/
Wishing all I had to do now, was finish homework/

Why can’t my troubles in life be only about finishing my homework?

Picture TRAE as a senior seminarian. This is what it would have looked like…damn!