THE ARCSR 2014...................

'TICK' SAYS THE CLOCK, WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO, DO QUICK

I've been down with malaria for a couple of days.  The stress of driving and working in Lagos coupled with being a life long student seems to take it toll daily on my body. This morning was one of those mornings where getting out of bed seemed like the whole world hates me for making me do this. Anyways, finally got myself out of the house and driving down Third Mainland when my sista Audrey calls me. I get on the hands-free and she says: 'Sis, do you know Funke Babatola?', I answered - 'Yes I do.  What's up?'.

My first thought was that she wanted me to share FBI's ( as we call Funke) details with her. Next thing she said was - 'Just learnt she passed on yesterday'.  I almost stopped the car in mid-drive.  "No, which Funke Babatola? No she can't be dead naw.  Just last week she joked about my being ill with Emilia, so how can she be dead.  No Audrey, she is not dead.  I will call her once I get to the office now and call you back".

I'm driving in a confused state and wondering - this is not possible. Immediately I called Emilia, who was with her on Friday to ask and alas, this sad, depressing bit of news was true. All day, I've been in and out of shock, fear, sadness, confusion, etc. Today, Funke Babatola is gone, like a candle in the wind. She was hardworking, never relenting on ensuring she was doing something. An excellent and complete mum to Gbolahan. But she's gone now. Just a few days ago, Audrey lost her sister in law; just yesterday evening, Nneka lost a friend's husband to cancer, a young man so full of life; just few days ago, we learnt of Komla's death at 41. And I asked - what is going on this January?

All day I have reflected and reflected and over-reflected.  I went back and read Audrey's blogpost of a few days ago and again I ask - are we living? am I living or just passing through each day?  am I living as i should or living so I can be called a living being? Am I living for people?  Am I happy? Am I doing the things I ought to do and happy doing them,  knowing that the clock ticks away? If I dropped dead today, will my life have made any sense?  Will it leave any mark? Who will be shocked and who will be happy? With people so full of life just slipping away without any fight - is any stress worth it? Are the people around me killing me or keeping me alive?So many of us spend the better part of their lives living for others - for family, for friends, for children, for their parents, for husbands, for wives, but hardly for themselves, hardly for their Maker.

At the beginning of the year, I took time to pray and as always, ask God for direction as to how to work and walk this year.  I got a very clear distinct message - 'Do all things in haste'. I didn't understand and kept praying  and my mind was directed to Exodus 12:11. I was afraid as so many fearful things began going through my mind. I began researching on what the word 'haste' meant in this regard and in relation to me. The Hebrew word chippazon or kaphaz does not mean haste, but apprehension, trepidation, or fear. The only thing standing between the ancient Israelites and death was the blood placed on the doorpost. The lamb was to be completely consumed that evening and the remains completely burned, necessitating their staying in the house, soberly reflecting on the somber events around them, until the morning of the fourteenth. This entire event lasted more than ten hours. Consequently, the proper sense of "in haste" is more correctly rendered "soberly," "with apprehension," or "with serious reflection."

I then understood clearly and I shared it with my staff on the first day of work. We need to be sober and reflect more on our lives on a day to day basis.  The era of taking things and people for granted and behaving as if we had all the time in the world is over. You have to do what you have to do and do it on TIME.

I am not preaching but 'Haste' means your deliverance from where you are that is not allowing you fulfill purpose. It means time to take that painful decision.  It means time to go adopt a baby or do IVF instead of waiting and waiting after 10 years of marriage - because faith without works is dead. It is time to take that course; do that thing you have pushed aside; live in your happiness not in tears. Be who you were meant to be. Live, breathe, dance, laugh, eat, cry, jump, travel - do whatever you want to do.   Time waits for no one, they say but truth is life waits for no one.

Tick says the clock, tick tick, what you have to do, do quick. Goodnight Funke Babatola.

CLASSLESS PEOPLE & CLASSLESS THINGS

Hello everyone, happy new year and God's many blessings.  It's back to work week and me and my waka waka.  As usual, I sit quietly on these trips and observe.  I think one of my new year resolution is siddon and look quietly.  Lol.

Very interesting things sha. I boarded a flight to Abuja this early morning and sat next to a well dressed gentleman who looked every inch the part of a top gun CEO and while we waited for boarding formalities to be completed, he received a phone call and while speaking said to the person on the other end of the line that he is somewhere around Mile Two.

It took the whole of my veins to hold my neck from turning to look at him.  I was in shock but kept my neck straight.  I began wondering what it is that make these villageous, lying "classy " people do "classless things". I kept wondering till we took off.  Kuku ma, he is going to mile Two and me I was flying to Abuja. Thank God for journey mercies, we landed safely.

Somehow, my day of classless and badly behaved people was not over.  Finished my waka in Abuja, going up and down staircases ( seriously, no elevator in some of these government agencies - remind me to tell you that story another day) and smiling at some annoying lazy civil servants; and got back to the airport early and sat in the lounge so I could get some work done.

Act one Scene two: another seemingly serious minded "Oga", well dressed, even had a PA who was also well dressed, carrying the briefcase and looking very serious. Ok, was happy, I was in the "class" of big people in the lounge ( I too like good things na). Five minutes into sitting down, "Oga" received a phone call.  My people, the only thing I didn't get before they called boarding was Oga's full name.

I learnt in 15 mins of speaking at the top of his voice punctuated with raccoon-like bursts of laughter, that he is chairman of two blue chip companies and cannot imagine how he could be kept for three days in Abuja just to see a minister.  I also pitied in advance, the CEO of one of the companies who didn't make the meeting happen as "Oga" promised to fry his bum bum. I learnt his two sons left for London yesterday.  I learnt he was returning the Mercedes E class and taking a Cayenne (didn't know there was a car by that name till today, lol, I learnt na); I learnt he didn't accept the payment (I no know which one) because the money was short 21 million Naira (sai!).

I learnt his wife had told him not to come for the meeting but he hadn't listened to her and now he has to manage how she will rub in the "I told you so"( I just imagined what she was like with a trout like this). His loud conversation also made me realise, because of the urgency, he had to fly commercial - what an insult - because the "keke napep" of his friend was not in Nigeria!!!!

When the conversation first began, I was super upset.  I kept "eye-ing" the  ignoramus until it seems I was giving him a come-on sign so I calmed my eyeballs and minded my business.  Then as I listened, it became hilarious. I just kept chuckling and at some point laughing.  my people no go kill me. At some point, I began seeing the second series of my third book - Things I have Learnt  - forming in my head. I learnt about "Oga" tire. I can tell you for free that 80% of his stories were embellished poop.

It all just reiterated the fact that the clothes or the garb or the seeming "class" does not make a man or woman.  We are so obsessed with the outward presentation of people around us that we have lost the ability to see what is inside of them and comes out of their mouths and their corresponding actions.  If we did, we will take a lot of people less seriously, treat them like the goats they are and honestly, we will get less and less of this 'carrying up' of empty heads and shoulders. Time and time again, I see well dressed, in fact designer- bag carrying ladies with nicely coiffed hair, well manicured fingers speak haughtily, rudely and almost utterly condescendingly to others.  They talk noisily at restaurants with this notice- me-and-my-bag-or-I-die attitude. I see nicely put together men, young and old, with absolutely no manners. None at all.  They disrespect women, walk like tin gods and no decorum.

You can buy yourself some "class" ( inverted comma class) but you still remain classless and a nobody when you treat others badly; disrespect public nuances, talking loudly and stupidly in a public place and we know all your life history in twenty minutes; chew gum like a cricket and then stick it under a seat; when you use a bathroom and spill your urine on the seat and are tactless enough not to clean up after yourself; when you sit on an airport seat and your bag sits on the other and an elderly man looks at you and you look away and he remains standing; when you see people you know and act as if you don't know them so they can greet you first  ( like seriously); when you try to live like the joneses, forgetting they were actually farmers and you do not know what a cutlass looks like.......

Money can add you to a class of people but it cannot buy taste and good breeding. It's got nothing to do with pedigree as I hear some people say because I have seen some "pedigrious" people act like the behind of a baboon. Good breeding is proper behaviour; appropriate and befitting for wherever you are.

Na wa!!! I tire. Now I'm sitting in this airline class to Lagos with another "classless" somebody snoring us to death. ROTPL, mbok, story plenty for this Nigeria.

I dey look oooo......