"Stay Safe"

by

Obododimma Oha

Some network providers in mobile telephony and even banks know that times like this need slogans. But, we have to "stay safe," both from what the slogan is doing to us and from the perilous time. Slogans could be pretentious and ceremonial as aspects of social discourse. That is even more why you need to have  immunity from them.

This looks like being insensitive or as if one has just  dropped from Mars. One is unsafe here, in the first place. Unsafe from the bullets of security and insecurity agents. If one does not diminish, one could perish. Just like that. So, telling you to "stay safe" is either a joke or a statement of what you already know. You have always been unsafe and can do little or nothing about it.

But beyond what you already know, take note of this. It was Abraham Maslow who saw security or safety as one of the important needs of human beings. After physiological needs, we have safety needs coming as human basic need. In that case, we can easily see that safety is very important and are not surprised that it can be capitalized upon to pretend to look after our interest. Only clever manipulators can do this. And hardly can we think that our simplicity is being played it.

OK, we care for you. Granted. Stay safe from a pandemic. Stay safe from bad leadership. Stay safe from our exploitation? Network providers always have ways. Biting your poorly-washed fingernails and blowing some air to make the host feel comfortable and not think of being attacked. Like hungry but clever mice.

But let us face it: the slogan is an attempt to manage an impression. It could be that the source of the message cares, especially at a time like this. It should make the government agency that grants or renews licences happy when it comes to attending to the well-wisher. It is, in fact, one clever way of staying safe with a government that talks about corruption. So, networks, stay safe, too!

If you say "Stay safe,"you are not only a well-wisher but also reminding us about what we need to constantly think about. Some have even removed the name of the network and have substituted it with "stay safe." The new name is now "Stay safe." That renaming is some sacrifice, a lot of sacrifice. Imagine substituting your network identity with a reminder. Please, "Stay safe."

My network is now "Stay safe." Whenever I use my phone, I am sending out the message through "Stay safe." In fact, "Stay safe" is the metamessage. Is that surprising?

This safety need which is a reminder which is a warning which is a renaming.... is not like every other slogan. It is inscribed on every casket of suspected victims of COVID-19. The slogan makes one lose appetite. One is being reminded that death is waiting and watching with arms folded.

There a very thin line between CARE and SCARE. "Stay safe" could be both. Sometimes you could be given a scare in the process of showing care. It is just one letter, "s" that separates "scare" from "care," but sometimes one attacked by COVID-19 may realize one as the other.

My worry is this: I suspect that communication experts have asked my network providers to reach potential victims with slogan, but I know that tragedy is more than a slogan and cannot be compensated by one. All the same, "Stay safe" in this endtime.

Feeding Your Eyes and Offending Your Mind

by

Obododimma Oha

Many experts would agree that feeding has a psychology. One has to enjoy one's meal. Taking a meal is not the time to overlook the food or eat absent-mindedly. I know that many people are now attached to phones, TV shows, films, etc. They like feeding their eyes and by so doing feed their minds. But this kind of feeding of the mind can conflict with and offend feeding the body,  so that the food we ingest is mere excess luggage. The body cannot be insulted or bribed when the mind is somewhere else. This essay  is simply saying that both are good but have to be done appropriately and in a non-conflicting way.

Phones and films are great stressors and means of killing time. The local Igbo who describe films as "elelebe ejeghị ọrụ" (That which somebody watches and fails to go to work) are very right. Such activities can consume our time if we are attached to them.That means that we should use them wisely. Like every habit, they try to control us. We should not let that happen. Is it a phone call when one is in the middle of something? NO; let it ring out. Is it God calling you? Later you can check and see the "missed Call" and return the call. Same for the films.Don't let the attachment to "ezemmụọ syndrome" lead you to forget that you are putting your android phone inside the soup and not some salt.

But this is about feeding and insulting or offending the mind. When you need to watch your favourite programme on TV is not the time to pretend to attend to your stomach. That is also not the time for "ezemmụọ." Your stomach is asking for a lot of care; is it? Your stomach has to respect modern multi-tasking; is it? Please, feed while you feed and watch pictures while you watch.

Watching pictures would help you to laugh, to smile, to chuckle, to unburden, to take life easy, etc. But it would also make you feed on the raw emotions of others, internalize such, and temporarily step out of yourself to be somebody else or to sympathize with X and Y and be a partisan politician. When you are at table, that is not the time to play all that politics.

It could even be worse if eating and watching pictures are jointly done just before turning in for the night. So, someone has to go to bed with all those emotions burdening one's mind, coupled with the sad experience of COVID and cattle militia? It is highly possible that the fellow would have bad dreams or start shouting while asleep and kicking the next sleeper like football. Even the supper that is taken absent-mindedly may be digested absent-mindedly by the body, leading to indigestion. But the body and the mind need to work together on the food and happily, too. Absent-mindedly ingested, NO.

There was a lady supervior of cookery that I was lucky to have come across in Lagos sometime ago. She would stand to see you served and would then say, "Enjoy your food." That became her signature greeting equivalent to "Bon appetit." I am beginning to realize how right she was. Enjoy your food and do not be distracted. Enjoy our creativity that comes as this food. Enjoy the beauty of this food and the beauty served as this food. Just enjoy.

And she would be beaming with smiles, as if one has to eat her face first, then, eat the food.
Am I beginning to sound like a motivational speaker? An expert in cookery? NO. None of these. Just an idiotic fellow telling you also to enjoy your food. Telling you on behalf of that lady beaming with smiles somewhere. I wished the warmth of her smile and her good wish would follow me to every table.

Didn't I say that watching pictures was also feeding of the mind? Indeed, what you see is what is fed to the mind , what is thought about. So, at other times, be careful with what you feed to the mind. I don't blame those children who easily lose interest in "crazy" adult programmes and prefer to play with their toys. Those indigestible narratives that adults use in complicating their lives. Those painful but "stupid" quarrels. Abeg, I won't play with you again.

Well, you have got it. When you watch your disturbing pictures is not when to pretend to be eating and enjoying your food. Your food is your life. Enjoy your life. If you want to disturb that life later with sad pictures, you can do so.

Watching a film or TV while eating is not always good for your mind and body that receives the food. Eating has a psychology. Those in the film or TV won't know that you are eating if they say or do something that would make you lose appetite. Respect your table today.

Trouble-maker

By

Obododimma Oha

If you still know
the difference between right and wrong
You are
a trouble-maker

If you do not accept
that the abnormal is normal
You are an unrepentant trouble-maker

If you do not think
that a snake can enter
a well-guarded State House
and swallow millions of dollars
You are a terrible trouble-maker from Mars

If you believe appointments are ethnocentric
it means you have been reading too much
narratives of conspiracy, and need to COVID-mask
as a trouble-making spirit
dancing naked in the global village square

Trouble-maker
Rabble-rouser
dangerous citizen
a cocked AK-47 pointing to your head.

Some Interesting Local Re-articulations of Some European Names

by

Obododimma Oha

Taking European names when one is an African may be seen as a sign of being bought over culturally, being fully identified as colonized, but it is seen by some Africans as being modern, being liberated from the bush and its identity, or being converted. I know that no European would normally want to be addressed as "Mr. Okafọ" or "Mr. Okeke," a native of Italy or Greece. But some Africans are very proud to bear European names or try to make the names sound European. In this short blog essay, I reflect on this practice of bearing European names as Africans and particularly how these names have been re-imagined and re-articulated in my local area in Nigeria.

Local people need to be familiar with European names that others bear. Is it not for identification? One has to identify the bearer but one has to show familiarity with the label. So, local people in our village try to impose a familiarization strategy: they re-articulate the labels in a way that the village can recognize. Thus, a label like "Joseph" that somebody  hangs on himself is realized as "Jesiefe" and "Cornelius" becomes "Kolonuusu." You want me to bite my tongue? I have to pronounce it the way that we pronounce it, particularly so as not to bite my tongue.

Okay, names like "Wilfred," "Alfred," "Gregory" and "Grace" ask one to do a little press up to get ready to articulate them. Local people can only think of "Wilfred" as "Wulifreedi,, " "Gregory" as "Ngiringori," and "Alfred" as "Arụfreedi." Would any law on masking in the National Assembly also deal with someone who calls "Grace" something like "Greesi"? I doubt it.

Maybe Igbo language should be partially blamed for this. The language trains its speakers to follow certain patterns in the realization of sounds. Now, you want a person who wants to appear European to do a surgical operation on the tongue or to write a fervent protest letter to Chukwu Abịa-amụma, complaining bitterly about being neither here nor there? You want one of those?

A person is also encouraged in some churches to bear these European names, that they are saint names that serve as passports to Heaven. The original bearers were not local people somewhere before becoming saints. By the way, why is it that these saint names do not include Okeke and Okafọ? And why should I quarrel with bearing saint names and be hated by the saint colonialist who has gone up there?

Further, there is something about looking like the other to become the other in this that I do not like. So, the hosts of Heaven cannot really take me as I am, along with my local name? So, I must appear to be a saint to become one? So, the politics of naming and change of a local outlook even extend to Heaven? Too bad. Let us see how my local name and language are offensive to the authorities "up" there.

As one protests and riots over the politics of naming and re-naming, one cannot help but laugh with the local people in our village when they they re-articulate "Patrick" as "Patriki," "Festus" as "Festuusu," and "Felix" as "Felikisi." Why can't one elongate the name a bit, out-doing the original in modernity? Why can't some syllables be inserted here and there to make one's tongue a bit relaxed?

You see, people in our village are heroes. They  do not have to be world-class theoreticians of onomastics or or decolonization, but they have done a great job. Imagine decolonizing these names without waiting to get permission from Abuja! They also do not ask for any university degree before they can be reognized. If you are "Cornelius," be sure that you are simply "Kolonuusu" in our village. If you are "Wilfred," you are simply "Wulifreedi." The local people are not afraid of you.

Some Interesting COVID-19 Protective Face Masks: Commitment to Survival or Artistic Performance?

by

Obododimma Oha

COVID-19 has almost turned many into masked figures, with their presentation of many types of coverings as their protective masks. It is suspected that the air might be a chief means of transmitting the virus, and the air is shared. Mask covering the mouth and the nose is recommended for preventing an entry of the virus into the body. There is also the conspiracy theory that masks sold by major organizations may be produced to infect many or secretly designed to implant a dubious control chip. For some who think that they are very clever, it is an easy way of ripping people off and making money. In this case, they could mass-produce and sell masks and encourage their use, but they have another agenda. That, of course, is happening, just as some may like an on-going war because it helps them to sell their weapons or bags of beans needed by troops somewhere.

On the other hand, the COVID-19 experience has almost turned protective mask-making into an art. This article is interested in exploring briefly this kind of art that makes the mask a source of fun.

Some Facebook friends have been sharing some of these masks. For instance, Toyin Mojisola-Adegbite Makinde. One may be interested in why she is doing that. One reason, I suspect, is that the mask represents a unique playfulness and there is an attempt at humouring COVID-19 (that means, laughing in-between tears).

Here are some spectacular updates of some funny protective masks on Toyin Mojisola-Adegbite Makinde's wall:
               
                                       (1).

(Taken from an update on Toyin Mojisola- Adegbite Makinde's Facebook wall, but photographer unknown ) 

(2)

(The Ape Facial Mask, taken from Toyin Mojisola-Adegbite Makinde's Facebook wall, photographer unknown). 

(3)

( The Bra Face Mask, taken from Toyin  Mojisola-Adegbite Makinde's Facebook wall, photographer unknown) 

In the second case in which a chimpanzee is mimicked, Wale Sobande in his comment writes: "This is coro monkey facemask." Sobande is right: obviously, there is an attempt to make us view masking as a way of taking the identity of the other. And why not steal that of a chimp that likes imitating a lot? It remains for the mimicry to be extended to walking on all fours and making a monkey-like guttural sound. Is that too fictional?

Mojisola-Adegbite Makinde also brings gender into this masking practice. We could see this clearly in the dressing of the masked figure in a woman's gown. But of the third image of the mask from her shuts one's mouth completely: a woman's bra is used as a mask! Surprising! Or, rather, alarming! Is what is important not the covering of the mouth and the nose?  If bra could do that, fine. And really every mouth or nose has touched what the bra is used in covering. But we are subtly reminded what the bra is originally used for. The secondary use is your own headache. In this case, the underlying idea of breast is just implied and is left to the reader-viewer.

This is where interpretation of signs comes in. Is the breast naturally tied to bra-wearing? Why not COVID? If not, why not?

Then, the worrisome aspect: women are sometimes associated with evil and disasters in male-oriented narratives. Ask Adam and Eve. Ask Delilah. Ask Jezebel. Ask Lady Macbeth. So, a woman's bra taken over by COVID, a global health disaster, reminds us about those terrible narratives. But COVID is not a woman. At least, one is not saying that it is. But COVID is disastrous!

All kinds of things have been used as protective masks, even tin. But also in some cases, one finds very strange, total covering of self, a clear humouring of the masking practice.

Perhaps, very direct to the masquerade link is the update by Chidozie Chukwubuike, in which we have following text: "If we knew we would all eventually be performing as masquerades perhaps my village wouldn't have cancelled our Ekpo masquerade festival in deference to COVID-19." The visual image of a masked self tells the rest of the story.

(Self-masking by Chidozie Chukwubuike, from his Facebook wall)  

For Toayofunmi Diya-Ayokunnumi, a more factual play on masking is also worth considering. So, she uploads the following information for our attention on masking:

(The Hard Facts about Masks and Masking, on Toayofunmi Diya-Ayokunnumi's Facebook wall ) 

She further explains that: "All is good but to be use (sic) at moderation. Excessively usage of N95 might implicate some respiratory complications. Why? It would congest C02 to less aeration." That sounds too Chinese!

Anyway, we could see that making just anything a mask is not protection but a mere performance. And that is the heart of the matter. Humour aside, performance aside, this is about survival. Covering the mouth and the nose is not just out of fun. It is about life, a desire for survival and a visual statement saying that. So, we can enjoy the joke of our miserable selves, but we should look beyond that and struggle to survive.

A Gbanjo Trader, Once Upon a Time

by

Obododimma Oha

Have you encountered a real gbanjo trader armed with a bell and his sweet tongue, inviting attention to his goods on the ground? "Gbanjo" is a Yoruba word  for what the English would call "auction," but that gives us a poor translation, for a "gbanjo" person does some other things. The Igbo would call this "gbanjo" something like "mgbuka" (cutting to bits or pieces) (alternatively, "ire na ntụ," or "selling as ash thrown away")  but this near-synonym is not acceptable to us, for "mgbuka" has something derogatory about it. The "gbanjo" person is not really "cutting it into bits," as the Igbo name sugggests. Anyway, the Igbo derogatorily refer to the "gbanjo" businessperson as "onye mgbuka." Also, in their naming is the implication that "onye mgbuka's" goods are of low and terrible quality. But we know that superior goods could feature in "onye mgbuka's" heap. Which is why this article partly reveals the slippery wisdom we used as "gbanjo" businesspeople once upon a time.

In my own part of Igboland, children are trained to be self-reliant. Right from infancy, they are exposed to the idea of struggling to be a success on one's own. So, when I was just a child, I was a dealer in kerosene and would return from school only to head for the market with my galon of kero and beer bottles for measuring the fluid for buyers. I used to have a strategic location in the marketplace, so that buyers would easily see me and my ware. This required being sharp-eyed to see when a bottle is approaching or when a bottle is hiding in a bag, especially if there were other competitors selling kero. But I supplemented this with going round and picking the bottles and knowing each owner, to ask the owner to pay later at nightfall when going home. So, one was used to making money by this means, or joining adults in their contributions in meetings which would be shared before a major feast like Christmas.

What it means is that one could approach the feast richer and could buy things for oneself. What gave joy like a shirt or footwear one gets for oneself? That was a special wear! And the feast was a special one!

So, one was already used to the culture of self-reliance which came up now and again. it was in the spirit of this culture of self-reliance that, during our long vacation, when I was only going to Class Three in the secondary school, I went to spend the "holidays" with a cousin who was a "gbanjo" trader in Imo State in Nigeria. In the one room that he shared with other traders, I was asked to find a corner and to occupy it. I did so. The "house" was in the heart of a market and its walls were made of zinc. That kind of house was called a "batcher." Well, my gbanjo cousin did not even mind.

In a few minutes, he explained their frugal ways: we had to go a kilometer away to fetch water in the night, we had to buy supper and it could just be leftovers of things, we had to sweep the premises, the landlady came once in a while  and was a fighter; in fact, as a no-nonsense woman, she could pour acid on anybody (something I witnessed once!), our toilet was that open street! And so on.

Over to the real "gbanjo" experience. On a marketday somewhere in the vicinity (provided the ware was ready and waiting), one would leave very early to get a ride at the back of a pickup van with some market women. The ride could be hard and challenging, but when one got to the market, one would quikly jump down or be helped to do so. One could  get cramps after such a long and uncomfortable ride. But that was to be expected and was just an exercise or personal training.

Then, to the heart of the market on arrival. One spread one's nylon on the ground, brought out one's bell, and one's carton of wares. Then one went to the food sellers to buy breakfast and eat it fast. Time waited for nobody. After that, one had to pretend to be a buyer and confirm at the shops the prices of the wares that one brought.  If one brought camphor and a wrap was ten kobo in the shops, one cut one's price to five kobo. That was it.

When the selling began and the "gbanjo" business person was with the bell inviting attention with some sweet words or drama, even those in the shops would come to buy and resell later. They could buy in large quantities. that meant more gain. Their logic was that, instead of going to Onitsha to buy which could entail offering bribe to police on the way (apart from other risks), the best thing was to buy from the "gbanjo"  trader. Let the "gbanjo" trader carry or take away the many risks.

To say the least, the profit was not much for us as "gbanjo" traders but before long we were ready for home, ready for another market elsewhere in the state, collecting our little profits. Those who wanted to sell a wrap of camphor (which may be discoloured at point due to age) for ten kobo could wait for buyers for months or even years. The "gbanjo" businessperson had moved on.

The next day, the "gbanjo" businessperson living in a "batcher" would climb into another crowded truck and head for another market in the local community. But one was not worried since one was sure of making little money during the holidays and buying things for oneself.

I remember these "gbanjo" days with great pride. Today, as an elite person, one has to live a life of falsehood, giving the young ones the wrong impression that going to school means depending on other people for life. Nonsense. One is here on earth on one's own. If one chooses not to struggle, it could be terrible and worse tomorrow. Onyemaechi? Who really knows tomorrow?

The End of Speech

by

Obododimma Oha

Think of an absurd situation in which people have to carry their ideas and things they want to talk about as enormous luggage on their heads. When they meet other people and want to talk to them, they carry down the luggage and start gesticulating. The kind of absurd situation Lemuel Gulliver describes in his encounter with the people of Laputa.

As you may argue, this kind of world is inconceivable and can only give stalled transactions. But it seems acceptable to institutions that privilege silence, or encourage people to speak less. It could particularly appeal to bee-keepers (who have to maintain silence when approaching honey-bee hives, to avoid upsetting the bees and getting stung). But human beings have to disturb the air acoustically and attach meanings to the sounds they produce, which they call speech.

 Interestingly, too, experts on sound production in  humans tell us  that that kind of process of attaching meanings to sounds comes much later in human development. In fact, they argue that the production of sounds as  a form of communication with other agents is a secondary function of the organs we assign to speech production. They inform us that the so-called speech organs (lips, tongue, mouth cavity, nostrils, etc) were primarily designed by nature to serve our feeding and survival and not for speech, that speech was added by us later. That means that those parts of the body were trained later to produce some sounds and their transformations! So, speech, you are still a late-comer, and should be prepared for the treatment mapped out for late-comers!

Well, it looks like speech has got into trouble out there where functions are strictly policed, maybe partially for coming late. It has got into trouble with those processes with which it has to share the air, like air-borne diseases and their relatives. One may be making light a very tragic situation in the COVID-19 experience if one links up the wearing of protective masks to that idea that speech is a late-comner who has to wrestle to get out of the luggage people carry to communicate ideas and the frightening possibility that it is in trouble in sharing the air and may come to a bad end.

Am I protecting my speech (maybe falsehood or non-chalance) or protecting my life when I wear the mask? Please, I am for safety and not dying due to carelessness, but one has been trained to examine life, for, as the ancient Greeks used to say, "An unexamined life is not worth living." Let us help speech to survive the pandemic, too, for the pandemic seems to force people to mask the exposed parts also used for speech.

If one protects one's speech and prevents it from being infected through the spreading of fear, fake news, and conspiracy theories, one is not doing the objectionable. The fact that modern life involves a deluge of information, which one also has to sort frequently, is itself a pandemic. Many are killed by information that pursues them here and  there. If one has to survive the news pandemic, one has to be in charge of one's mind and not submit easily to everything conveyed in language on the Internet.

I feel strongly for speech as a late-comer. If some useless humans have to be erased and a new world would emerge, then a new speech is needed (to emerge, too). The old speech may come conveying the absurd luggage from the old world. And that is not good. New world, new speech. And this new speech may have a different character and not borrow body parts as speech organs.

Perhaps the new speech has to learn from sign language, even though it has to avoid reminding one about the Swift absurd syndrome.

The end of speech should mean another form of communication free from viruses. Let us understand when the anti-virus would be produced before the creation of the new speech. Let us also be made ready, in the form of training, on how to convey our meanings in it, just like the production of sounds and the funny attachment of meanings to them. Training of the body and of the mind that conceives.

No, no need of the cremation of speech that has been taken by the pandemic. We can build archives to house things of the old life. We can actually use technology to mimic meaning-making in the
old life.

Perhaps the new human will speak through the anus instead. Perhaps the new human will not need to modify the stream of air at any point and will just produce one long guttural sound. Don't ask how meaning can be negotiated. The human being may just see another and proceed to scan the other's mind, to determine intention. It is a new day and a new language is needed.

The end of one speech: the beginning of another.