Looking for Trouble

by

Obododimma Oha

If your name is "Nsogbu" (Trouble), as in the name, "Nsogbuụwa" (literally, "Troubles of this world" or "Zerensogbu"(Avoid Trouble), and somebody is looking for you, is the person not "Looking for Trouble"? Trouble is trouble, whether an affix or the root word. You are looking for trouble if you do not know that what is just an affix could suddenly become a root word. You should know that change means rankshifting and strangeness is the colour of the time.

The name "Nsogbu" should excite directors of films at Nollywood. That is, when one thinks of eloquent names like "ụkwa," "Akị na Paw Paw," etc. "Nsogbu;" that sounds great. Great and hippy because the bearer can pass as a bad boy and a dreaded fellow. Who would see a labelled "Trouble" and go near it?

In a 1971 album named "Yanga Sleep Trouble Wake Am," the maverick Fela Anikulapo Kuti sang of how pride can ensnare us, making us subject to trouble. This is true. The oppressor is not always an outsider who works against us. The oppressor could be in one's head, so that if one really wants freedom, that inner demon has to be shackled first. That is not to say that the external oppressor is no longer there. The sleeping yanga should not be activated. So, Fela was a mentalist at the beginning? Good to know. Especially if one is talking about troubles.

I feel excited when I hear expressions like: "You are looking for trouble," "You are asking for trouble," "He is looking for my trouble," "You are asking for my trouble," etc. So, somebody wants to activate trouble that is resident somewhere? Fela was right: "yanga sleep, trouble wake am."

It is worse when the "freedom fighter" has been known to be romancing with those ruling, enjoying the bait that comes in many forms. Then, that parrot begins to sing a different song one day. First, the parrot is invited and asked to stop, but this talker continues, thinking that patron saints do not remember their offensive mortality. The "freedom fighter" is later picked up and kept out of sight for a while.

As some people have argued, it appears that some fellows prefer dying in silence ("suffering and smiling") to somebody called a "radical" coming to their community to stir the pot of wahala. Some may be afraid of being free and being able to question how they are ruled. So, whoever makes trouble and looks in their direction, it is argued, is really Mr. or Mrs. Trouble. That trouble-maker should be chased away!

That sometimes happens when those that are afraid of "troublesome freedom" have long lived in deprivation and so see it as the normal way of life. When they have lived in despair and have no hope of getting out of it, chances are that they would not like a talk of "revolution." Revo-wetin? You want to upset things?
So, the irony is that those asking or working for genuine liberation are "trouble-makers." Those ruling and oppressing would even harness the irony, turning lexical items on their heads to favour the government, so that those talking of freedom are branded "trouble-makers" and the very oppressed are indoctrinated to believe it and even propagate it. Sad, if it becomes the pandemic in any society.

What is the business of "security agents" if not to deal with "trouble-makers," those hot-heads who want to "pour sand into the garri" of the fellow in power? Those "security agents" are following orders and overzealous ones can even over-do what they have been ordered to do. The important thing is that they are the "security agents" of the fellow in power, even if this means being the "insecurity" of liberation workers. Whose "security"? in a world where things are on their heads?

Trouble-making quarrels easily with "I am the state" or "the state is me." It is for "I am the state" to define and redefine. If "I am the state" says that you are a trouble-maker, then, you are automatically a trouble-maker. If "I am the state" says that you are a terrorist, then, you have become a terrorist. It does not matter what the dictionaries say or what the professors teach in the classrooms. The meaning authorized and mobilized by "I am the state" is the meaning. Is that not the frightening climate of George Orwell's Nineteen Eight-Four?

Let us reflect further on "Nsogbu" as a name that a popular street tough would likely adopt. "Nsogbu" is coming! And everyone would be alert. Then, the street tough with bad walk passes bye. Didn't I say that Nollywood would easily buy that? The link between the meaning of the name and the bearer  who may have to cultivate other signifiers (bad walk, terrible clothes, way of chewing, toothpick in the mouth, etc) makes the drama appealing. But this is beyond humour and laughter. It is a serious matter that can involve death. Because trouble comes with upsets. It even sends an invitation to its relatives saying, "Come fast. There is somebody who wants his or her life to be miserable." And they hasten to honour the invitation.

When next somebody starts looking for trouble, either through clipped naming or through the law, let the person think. Trouble is listening and will rise to come and will send out invitations.

Nollywood Films and the Wrong Depiction of the Nigerian Village

by

Obododimma Oha

 The stereotypical image of the Nigerian "village" in Nollywood films is that it is a territory of evil, duplicity, and a context people just have to escape from in order to progress. This thinking has grown into a big superstition which propels business for non-creative scriptwriters and film-makers. But the "village" is really a place in transition and does not always contain the conservative systems ascribed to it. At most, what is ascribed to it may be mere fiction -- which viewers regard as hard facts sadly --  and this fiction only exists in the imagination of scriptwriters and film-makers who may be out purely to make money. This brief essay reminds us that we are dealing with fiction in looking at the village through the films and that we need to be very careful instead of using what we view to reinforce our prejudices and seek to run away from the "village."


First, just look at the kind of people posted to act as devils in the "village." They could be school dropouts, petty thieves, and pocket rulers who wear unwashed red caps. These people are arranged as gate-keepers who kill progrssive ones from the "city." Hardly does the "city" inflict its own shit on village life. So, it is true? If you go to your village, they will kill you! You will come back a corpse. Let us remain in the city. So, it is just between my husband and I. No interaction with village people or with town union.  You want to appear before them? Didn't you see that film last night? Chineke e!

And so the naive fellow keeps away, at least, in the interest of peace in the home.

The village is populated by vultures. When they kill, they eat. Moreover, you only take corpses back there to bury and they bring out their antiquated notebooks and check the dead fellow's fines (if the dead fellow registered by mistake). So, the village is a vulture, only receiving dead bodies.

Indeed and ironically, somebody can have fleets of cars and live like a king in the "city" but will only have one room (probably shared with siblings) in the "village." The village knows hunger and starvation. The village knows poverty in the midst of affluence.

Do you see one reason why escape is necessary? Escape from poverty. Escape from backwardness. Escape from want.

The escapee will soon come back, after  getting involved in a money ritual, and will be awfully rich. The escpee-returnee may be driving one flashy jeep and may become an instant celebrity. Songs would instantly composed and funny dance exhibited. Welcome escapee-returnee, but don't hope to go back to the "city" without being infected first.

How can you talk about the "village" without talking about charms? Charms waved over what you have been given to eat. Charms around your house. Charms somewhere at your building site, to tie your hands and stop the money. Charms around your beautiful wife, to stop her from conceiving and bearing a son! Check mother-inlaw's tongue! Charms everywhere. Charms more powerful than COVID-10. Evil fellows! No wonder you are down there in the bush.

So, the "village" may not be charming, but it lives and moves and has its being in charms. Beware. Be aware.

Do you see that retired Baba and that retired Mama? They have stayed back in the city to enjoy all the noise and pollution and not go back to the village. That old Baba is looking for a retirement job and may be employed somewhere to cut grass with a rusty cutlass and man somebody's gate. Is it not better to have somebody who is halfway in his journey to the spiritworld look after the gate? Okara mmadụ, ọkara mmụọ. If previously a lecturer, aah, there are private and faith-based universities to retire to and start getting cheap stress from students. And the old Mama: she is selling groundnuts and roasted corn at the junction. What is the point retiring to the dangerous "village"?

We can see that the the Nigerian "village" is depicted as a terrible headache. Only those who worship Satan and are hardened ritualists survive there. Going to the village? Maybe because one is mad or wants to use power to fight power.

This twoness of space in Nigeria is antithetical. Of course, societies that are postcolonial but still patronise London and Washington may be used to twonesses. Even this essay; it is either with American English or British English. One colonisation gone, another colonisation instituted. Also, the city there, the village here. Even village cities and city villages. Contradiction. Contrary diction.

It is even more disturbing when fiction becomes reality. Why would villages not be seen as zones of evil fellow if chimps and snakes can swallows millions of dollars? Why would villages have skyscrappers but bad roads, while cities enjoy pitch darkness for days? When contradictions become normal, films that imitate life can fabricate, making fiction look like fact and many believe this.

Moreover, with social isolation, where does one go for moonlight play? Is it not better to be glued to African Magic or any other movie-oriented station, and to swallow what it gives out? So, you see. Nollywood is helping social isolation, otherwise many would run mad. They just have to chew something.

Sorry, "village." As you are transiting, this idea of being "a village city" may have its discomforts. They have depicted you as an evil empire. But that may even be an introduction.

"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.