A LEOPARD'S SPOTS AND TRIBAL MARKS

They say a leopard never changes it's spots ... I think to myself as I knot my tie till it hurt ... "Well, I'm not a leopard? I'm a hausa christian from Borno state or an ex-con with scars just out from Alcatraz or kirikiri prison or a prophet with tribal marks trying to ... *muaaah!* 

Henrietta planted a wet kiss on my neck, it sent shivers down my spine, like the effect a clipper would have on a child having his first haircut.
I held her face, "Henri ... Stop. You don't have to do this". My eyes were closed. I didn't want to open them because I knew I wouldn't like the view in the mirror, but I knew if she flung me to the bed and tore my clothes with a horsewhip I wouldn't scream rape. 
Just then, she grabbed my balls and fondled it.
"Whoa! Whoa!!" ... I pushed her back, "whoa, calm down ..."
"You relax noow ... You got me horny, Ben". She bit her lip and did a little lap dance pulling her skirt so I could see her polka dot pants. I sat on the bed, "Henri ... Sit down. Sit down," I heaved a sigh of relief as she sat down with a thud, her face so close and her lips inviting - She was just drop-dead gorgeous ... though the stench from her breath was of cheap alcohol. Isn't this all a brother prays for?
Why was I just looking at the cookie jar with a stiff D? I was also looking at myself through her eyes - I was fighting seriously. I held her hand.
"Henrietta Solomon ... You're just a hypnotic bottle," I laughed. "And you've got a hard-on ... Still". She replied.
"Yeah ... Ignore him. He's my achilles heel, he'll go down when he wants to irregardless of my thoughts. We had a deal Henrietta"
"Yes, we still have a deal, Big Ben ..." Just then I snapped "My name's not Big Ben, I'm Ubong! All that social media stuff, the tweets, the posts, are just for gags. I promise you, you will get the job and we will ...," I stuttered "we will be good friends. It's not just nice like this. My conscience and posterity will judge me!"

Okay, pause, press rewind - a month ago, I was in a bus enroute CMS and this light skinned girl sat beside me. I was tired and losing a game of chess on my phone when she smiled, "you should have used your knight". I won the game and I thought she was Mrs. Einstein reincarnated.
We got talking like we knew each other and trust Lagos commuters, they would turn back from time to time to give me this weird look.
She told me she was in dire need of a job and I told her I'd be on the lookout. We forgot to exchange numbers as we kept talking and laughing till she alighted from the bus. A really black dude in the bus said, "You dey talk, you no collect number". SHIT!
I calmly begged the driver, in yoruba, to wait a bit, so I called to her and got her number.
She waved and gesticulated "Call me!"
      
      Last week, my younger sister said her company was in need of an admin officer, preferably female. That was how I called Henrietta and told her to come before 7:45am so my sister could see and assess her. No, she didn't.

She got here by 9:30, all sweaty and nervous. Apapa holdup, she said. I could relate.
"But that's no excuse, you know? If you start working ... "
"I knowww ..." she begged. "I'm sorrrry! This is such a bad first impression". I apologized too and gave her cold water. I struck a deal with her after seeing her excitement and I prepped her on questions to expect.
She said in all honesty she thought it was a scam and almost didn't show up, but a neighbour encouraged her to.
She was to give me #10,000 from her salary for the first 3 months - cheap shot, right?
I really needed the cash. She was elated. She said she could even make it a one-off payment and told me various stories of how girls she knew in Lagos would do anything to land a 50k job. Hers was 85.
Henrietta said she would stay until my sister got back, so I went to get noodles and eggs. She asked me to buy her chelsea dry gin (the medium bottle), lo and behold, this damsel finished the drink before I came out the kitchen with the food.
Okay o. Not a chance to even tell her I don't drink gin.
We finished eating and she said she wanted to take a nap. I loosened my tie and went back to work on some editing job my pastor sent me.
Henrietta called me after 30 minutes so we could chat. My mistake. So here I was, battling with my flesh.

        Least I forget, I used to be the wrongest guy to pull this kinna stunt with, I could read body language like two magnets with opposite poles, but then I met Jesus, the lover of my soul. It's been a different kettle of fish since then, but I wonder why the temptations keep coming.
Henrietta ran away with my 30k but we kept being good friends.

MORTICIANS IN THE HALLOWED CHAMBERS (PART 2)

 

   ... ( Cont'd) The same people who can stop the madness are the beneficiaries. It is this anomaly that makes the constitution governing Nigerian politics a very unfortunate oxymoron.
How can the same people that can sanitise the National Assembly be the same individuals who are there to recoup campaign costs and also “hammer”(make more money)?

How did we get to this point?
Why are nomination forms for political positions unduly expensive? Why has no one tried to ever challenge the legitimacy of this madness?
Imagine the presidential nomination form going as high as 40million naira for the major political parties? Why should it be so?
The simple consequence of this nonsense is two fold:

1. It automatically rules out people who are not thieves or rich from aspiring for public positions.

2. It makes those who aspire to eventually win and chase how to recoup their money and even steal/make more.

And this particular problem is the reason why our elected officials across the different positions including those going into the all-important National Assembly ONLY get elected and first think of getting back the monies they spent to get in.
That’s a very unfortunate reality. For the average Nigerian, when we think of thieving politicians, we only think in terms of the Executive- like the President or Governors.

But we forget one simple fact-
The only reason the Executive engages in stealing & lawlessness is because the legislature is incompetent.
So, the only reason the members of the Executive can steal without caution is because the National Assembly has failed at its duty of curtailing executive madness and the lawmakers are themselves busy occupied with stealing their own portion of the proverbial National Cake.

So if you have a Governor who steals a state dry, it is either because the House of Assembly is practically in his pocket doing his bidding, or because the lawmakers are themselves corrupt thieves who have absolutely no moral confidence to probe and investigate the executive.
And that’s why I’m of the deep conviction that the ONLY way to truly fix the country and its problem of incompetent governance is to fix the National Assembly.

     However, if you get the right people into the Legislature, they will curb the excesses of the Executive and ensure competence. So essentially, the power lies with you, the power lies with me.
The power starts when YOU carefully choose that person who represents your senatorial district at the Federal Capital and who stands for you at the State House of Assembly.
That’s the simple way to fix the country.

      Finally, we all somehow don’t bother about the kinds of characters who end up in the National Assembly and State Houses of Assembly, then we start to lament when the Executive continues or begins a tenure of perpetual incompetence, uncontrolled nepotism and blatant corruption.
Who were you thinking can stop the Executive from running mad?
Is it not the lawmakers?

But when we get carried away and only bother mostly with the Executive and pay no attention to the quality of people who fill the Houses of Assembly, then executive madness reigns supreme.
So ladies and gentlemen, it is not an easy task, but it is an easier, more realistic and more achievable task to put sensible people in the National Assembly (who will put the Executive on their toes), than to hope for an imaginary messiah with a magic wand
to sort all our pain.
That will almost NEVER happen. There’s no political messiah anywhere.

It is a lazy fanciful idea sold to politically naive infants who think the problem or solution to a country’s problems only require a political genie to occupy an Executive position.

Even IF theoretically, you do get a “good person” as President, AS LONG AS you have a compromised corrupt legislature, the fact is no actual work will ever be accomplished.

The answer lies in fixing the Legislature who can then ensure competence across all levels of government.

MORTICIANS IN THE HALLOWED CHAMBERS (Part 1)

      IF we truly want to fix Nigeria, we ONLY need to do ONE thing-

COMPLETELY make the Legislature financially unattractive.

That’s the ONLY seemingly simple step needed to truly fix the challenges of having opportunists in the National Assembly and of the Executive misbehaving.
IF you successfully make the Senate and Representative positions a totally unattractive office financially, you will start to get people who really want to serve the country and interests of the citizens will be the ones who aspire for the seat.

Unlike the current scavengers.
The Nigerian senator actually earns MORE than Donald Trump or Theresa May, and you wonder why people literally kill to get into the senate, why retired governors see it as a political nursing home and why the whole NASS National Assembly is just a comedy.

Do you now see why?

And this is why the National Assembly perpetually fails to do a thorough job at really checkmating excesses of the Executive (except in the few occasions where out of animosity they put up a faux opposition to government policies).

It’s all because they are not there to serve. And in my opinion I think it’s better to not just make the legislature financially unattractive, it should also be made PART TIME.
The reason being it will make people do something else to earn legitimate money so that they don’t have to take bribes or steal just to live well.

      When people are professional politicians and political opportunists with no source of livelihood apart from politicking is the reason why these people have no honour, no ideology, stand for nothing and change parties anyhow because they are loyal to their pockets.
Not the people.

       We must realise that the true power to change things and fix the country lies squarely with the legislature.

The President can choose to be unintelligent and unsmart but the onus lies with the National Assembly to keep him/her on his toes and kick him out IF he is incompetent.
But this will NEVER happen in a scenario where you call “lawmakers” people whose primary motivation for political office is to hold power, make money, disobey the law, enjoy the benefits of office and basically live as parasites off the commonwealth and resources of the people. The truth is that the office of the President ALONE is NOT where true power lies.

The true power lies in the National Assembly- those men and women who you elect (or fail to elect) are the real people who can make/change laws, curtail the President & basically fix the country.
And obviously the decision to make the National Assembly financially unattractive can only be made by the same opportunists who currently benefit from the jumbo salaries and pay packages. Is that not interesting?

REUNION

WHAT IS REUNION?

Reunion is when you get up in the morning and tell your wife you are going to work.
You secretly meet your neighbor to make love with her. Her husband comes and knocks on the door. You hurriedly hide under the bed.
The husband enters and his wife says she wants to go to market to buy food items. The husband takes advantage of his wife's absence and calls your wife. Your wife arrives and they make love. Suddenly his wife (Your neighbour) who had gone to the market is back and knocks on the door. You're still under the bed and then your wife rushes to hide under the bed.
This is REUNION.???

THE INFORMATION AGE - WHAT DO YOU KNOW?

                Does money alone make you rich? 

The answer is no. We all know people who go to work everyday, working for money, making more money but fail to become richer. 

We also have that one friend that would say, "If I should just win 3million liedis ... Or bet9ja just pay me 1.7 lasaan" well, if wishes were horses ... 

There's the story of a golfer who spent thousands of dollars each year on new clubs and every new golf gadget that comes to the market. The problem is, he will not spend a dime on golf lessons, hence his golf game remains the same, even though he has the latest in golf equipment. If he invested his money in golf lessons and used last year's clubs, he might have been a better golfer. The same nutty phenomenon occurs in the game of money. Lots of Nigerians invest their money in businesses, mutual funds or real estate but invest almost nothing in information, hence their financial scores remain the same.

There have been 4 economic ages of humanity, the Hunter-Gatherer age, the Agrarian age, the Industrial age, and the Information age.

     People still think we're in the Industrial age where resources such as copper, oil, tin, and rubber were wealth, and where industrialization took over farm lands; that's why parents send their children to school, promise them great jobs if they graduate with good grades.

By hook or crook many fortunate students graduate with good grades but parents can't meet their own end of the bargain, so he or she is encouraged to learn a skill and drop the laminated certificate at home -  apparently there are hardly jobs awaiting B.Sc holders but nobody tells them that.

     However, it's the dawning of a new era, a golden age called information. That is what helps the graduate. He hones his skills and follows the trends, he reads and he practices. In this age, this is what separates the rich from the poor.
Abundant and inexpensive resources produce wealth, such as silicone, organic food, being an artist, ability to predict football scores; in other words, the price of getting rich has gone down ... with Information.

That is why a man can sell an inherited land laden with gold and use the proceeds to travel illegally to Spain in search of greener pastures. He simply lacked information.

     So, the good news is that information is abundant and free. The bad news is that ... information is abundant and free. The irony of the Information Age is that there is too much of it. Today, people complain about information overload. At any given moment a person can be watching telemundo, surfing the internet, and talking on the phone - while driving past Wizkid's endorsement ad on a digital billboard.
Isn't it funny that in previous ages, no one complained about too much land or oil?
Even in the military, wars are won with information ... the right ones lol. So ALWAYS make sure you verify the source of your information because it can make or mar you.

Bill Gates leverages on information, so does Dangote, and Mark Zuckerberg. You too, can leverage on this in whatever field of endeavor you find yourself.

DRIVING COMPETENCY LESSONS - FOR LAGOSIANS ONLY

• Fear No Bagga
• Every motorist is mad, act accordingly.
• Immediately lock all doors and windows if you see LASTMA or VIO approaching your vehicle.
• Yield to danfos, kekes, BRTs, and other commercial vehicles.
• If you like don't yield when you see trailer.
• Don't yield to anybody else, they are all mad.
• If you are 'on speed' you have the right-of-way.
• Do not give way to traffic coming from any direction.      There are exceptions: See 4 and 5.
• You will often have to socialise with other motorists. Be prepared. Words such as 'mumu', 'ode', 'ewu', 'idiot' and so on, should be practised beforehand.
• You are expected to hoot your horn as loudly as you can once every half kilometre.
• When changing lanes in traffic ... Look face.
• Lane markings in Lagos are suggestions.
• When rain is falling and visibility is reduced, increase your speed.
• If a fellow motorist 'brushes' your car, you are expected to immediately stop in the middle of the road and sort things out. 
• Accidents with G-wagons and other similarly expensive cars should be resolved as follows:  if it is your fault you have 2 choices; 1. Exit your car and vanish (via okada or Usain bolt things, based on one and twos).   2. You can decide to lie on the floor and wail ... if you are a good crier (if not, resort to number 1).     If it is the G-wagon's fault, it means you've been paying your tithes. Cancel all meetings for the day and face the owner squarely; God has buttered your bread.
• The sidewalk is a spare lane.
• At toll gates, you are expected to form lanes equal to the square of the number of gates. E.g: If there are 5 gates, you should form 25 lanes. Lagos motorists adhere to this particular rule subconsciously and whoever defaults is stared at for 2 minutes.
• Please enjoy the local traffic cuisine while you snail your way through.
• We encourage motorists to live out their greatest GTA fantasy on our adrenaline-filled roads.
• The use of seatbelt is compulsory at all times for your safety.

"YOU'RE A FEMINIST?? LOL ... WHAT'S THAT?"

Last week, someone said to me: “What does the word ‘feminism’ mean to you?” I recoiled, feeling uncomfortable.

On reflection, I avoid using this word not because I don’t believe in equality, but because of its negative connotations and the risk of shutting down a dialogue.

My reaction bothered me. A sick feeling at the pit of my stomach lingered, much like that time I ate boiled egg at work that I'm sure was really bad, which, for the record, ended in tears.

What had conditioned me to (violently) react this way? (I’m not talking about the eggs…)

After some internet (and soul) searching, I was relieved to read Martha Rampton’s view that, “Feminism’s perceived silence in the 1990s was a response to the successful backlash campaign by the conservative press and media, especially against the word feminism and its purported association with male-bashing and extremism.”

Martha went on to say that, “Some people… have trouble with the word ‘feminism,’ because of its older connotations of radicalism, and because the word feels like it is underpinned by assumptions of a gender binary and an exclusionary subtext: ‘for women only.‘”
... Martha Rampton is a professor at the Pacific University, U.S. and the director of Centre for Gender Equality.

Still curious, I started asking female friends the same question: What does feminism mean to you?

There were a lot of awkward reactions, and some declined to comment. Others were falling over themselves to share their thoughts. The responses I received from a 51 year-old male banker, a 13 year-old female secondary school student, and 12 other men and women, were revealing and uplifting. So much so, that my negative associations started to shift.

As for that favour? I’d love to know what the F-word means to you. Please share them in the comments, below or come and chat me on DM (twitter): @umoh___ubong

Is feminism all about gender equality? Does gender equality mean a lady should ask a guy out too?
Well, bite me if you can, but i strongly think they should, it'd be awesome!

Recently, I was watching an episode of Family Guy that touched on the topic of women asking men out. When the typical-teen-daughter character, Meg, asks her mother if it’s acceptable for her to make the first move and ask a guy out, her mother responds,

“Meg, are you asking me in this day and age, whether it’s appropriate for a girl to ask a boy out on a date? Of course it’s appropriate. It’s also sad and desperate and I would never do it, but you’re not me, are you sweetie?”
It got me thinking. Though you thirsty guys out there might be thinking this is what feminism entails, sadly it isn't. A man should do what a man should do and a woman shouldn't be in competition to out-do a man in what he should do, a woman should just be treated right and given equal opportunity as a man has - comprehende?

Helpfully, Merriam-Webster stepped in with the definition of ‘feminism’ “‘Feminism’ is defined as the advocacy of women's right on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men"'

So, what does feminism mean in 2018?

"For me the meaning of feminism and my relationship with it has changed a lot in the last 10 years. When I was in my early 20s I did not identify as a feminist, I associated feminism with aggression and hollywood movies.
But as I have grown older I have identified more and more as a feminist, as I have discovered more and more that the job really isn’t done, certainly not in many developing countries. So for me feminism is about striving for equal treatment regardless of gender in all forums, and it’s also about women who are lucky enough to live in developed countries to advocate and fight for the basic rights of women (particularly education) in countries where they are denied.

Omolare Adeojo, Lekki phase1

"Unfortunately the term ‘feminism’ has a negative connotation for me. I am for gender equality and have strong views on women’s issues and empowerment. I do feel, however, feminism is an ideology that can sometimes keep the blinkers on by focusing solely on women’s issues without considering the broader picture. I feel that perhaps sometimes feminism places blame on men for women and girls problems. This is a complicated issue but an issue that needs to be collectively addressed. We need to consider both genders if we are looking at gender equality. I would therefore say I am not a feminist – I am a gender equalist"
Lara Richards, Admiralty way

A very smart girl in her early 20s, Lara Richards, but please, help us not confuse ourselves here. Me self, i'm trying to grasp the concept ... (She went indept and said so much, kudos!)

 ... I met some other smart young girls and then some guys. Watch out for part two of this my little lekki survey -