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Osimhen: Quit the anger! That $5,000 is not enough!

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By Sunny Igboanugo

I got a job with The Guardian shortly after NYSC and from my little keske, supported my classmate to establish a business centre in Owerri. When The Guardian was proscribed, I didn’t go to Lagos to trouble my senior brothers. I joined my friend in Owerri. I not only lived with him, I lived on him and with him shared EVERYTHING EQUALLY without let.

We cruised Owerri in grand style. I ate the same thing he ate. We were both light drinkers, but drank as much as he could carry. Before setting out, I knew the size of his pocket and knew what I could order. That was the only restriction. I knew I could order beer or meat or anything on my own without consulting him, based on my idea of “our budget,” and knew he would pay without hesitation.

I toasted babes on the same budget, just as he did, never having any inhibition or hesitation about who would pick the bills of the peppersoup or whatever was needed for entertainment.

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After the hunt, whoever was lucky, the other donates the bed. He was living in a one-room-self-contained apartment in Ikenegbu, different from my four-bedroom apartment in Enugu.

It didn’t matter that he had the dough or that I practically lived on him. On occasions both of us became lucky on our usual daily hunt, whoever gets to the bed first takes it and the other sleeps in the mattress on the floor. Sometimes we even preferred the mattress for obvious reasons.

Decades on, things became tough for my friend again and he reached out to me once more. I was living a good life and without hesitation I came through for him and he was reestablished. Two years after, things crashed for me again. I couldn’t even find money to evacuate my belongings from the city where I once lived in opulence. Just a phone call and my friend again picked the bills and did more.

Today, everyone seems ok. But tomorrow, when tough times knock again, we know where to go and what to do. Throughout the time when things were bad for me, I never felt any inhibition to live off my friend and when it was reversed, I never harboured any towards helping him out. He could drive my car and I could drive his.

So, what’s this nonsense I hear today? They call it ‘Entitlement Mentality!’ What’s that I ask? Does it mean I should be happy and I couldn’t demand that my friend with whom I chased rats and rabbit in the past help me when I’m in tight corners and I shouldn’t be sad or complain if he didn’t?

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Does it mean I shouldn’t complain when my friend is living lavishly while I struggle? Does it mean that my elder brother’s son would be at home because of school fees while I send my own children abroad on holidays or purchase the latest SUV to add to the cars in my garage – or start changing my furniture or even start building a new house and my brother who probably saw me through school would applaud me? Just because it is my money?

When did that become the norm in our society? When has it become the practice that we shouldn’t expect our brothers to scratch our itching backs and like animals rely on nearby trees, or roll on the floor to get relief, while our brothers stand by and look on?

In the case you’re wondering where all these are coming from, I’ll tell you. I just read a story purportedly attributed to Victor Osimhen, Nigeria’s football sensation. In it, the Galatasaray goal poacher, narrated an encounter with one of his friends. He stated how this “friend” to whom he had always given money, told him that he wanted to set up a business. He subsequently doled out $5,000 to help this friend. That would amount to about N8million, roughly.

That was a good gesture. But, according to the story, he was surprised when his friend started grumbling that the money was too small, given that he earned $1million every month. For that reason, he not only counted it against his friend, but suggested that he would stop listening to people in need who came to him because they were ungrateful.

After all, the football star and the reigning African Footballer of the Year (AFOTY), stressed that nobody came to his rescue when he was struggling in Europe. In other words, he was self-made and everyone should do same.

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He couldn’t just understand why people should be so ungrateful. To him, $5,000 was such a big amount in Nigeria, even though he acknowledged that in Europe, it was not enough to buy a pair of shoes for someone of his status.

Come and see condemnation as people lampooned this “ungrateful friend.” Some people were beside themselves with righteous indignation. Why couldn’t the friend find a way of making his own money? Was Osimhen his father? What right did he have to question or determine what he should be given? Osimhen should ignore him and move on.

I read all the comments and I shook my head in disbelief. Is this how low and deep our society has sunk? One thing that I found intriguing was that none of these people who formed the throng of supporters for the footballer paused to ask how he started with his friend and how far they went and what they told each other before Osimhen’s break came.

This same guy, might not be just anyhow friend. This could be one of the friends with whom Osimhen shared gala and coke at the time they were running after vehicles selling pure water along Oregun Road. At that time, it did not matter who bought the items, but they would share equally and be happy. They would crack jokes, look into each other’s eyes with the deep reflections and understanding only two friends could share.

Nobody knows how many times this same guy could have sprung his friend out of trouble and what they both could have gone through together. Now, one person breaks through and feels it is too much to ask him to lift his friend up to at least a level where the both of them could still relate appreciably on a sound, if not equal ground. I’m sure that’s what the friend was driving at.

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Now, the only way he could do that was to send this his friend the amount he himself confessed was not enough to buy a pair of shoes and believes the friend would jump up in appreciation. No true friend would. I won’t. I’ll grumble like that young man. I’ll not only grumble, I’ll confront him.

What Osimhen gave to that friend was not a reflection of friendship. It was a demonstration of the opposite – akin to master-servant – which is different altogether.

For those who want to know what true friendship looks like, read a similar story between Cristian Ronaldo and his own friend, whom he confessed made him what he is today. I’m sure the story is there for all to still go back to.

Mere tokenism is not a demonstration of friendship. Given the guy $5,000 out of probably $100million yearly earning is nothing but inconsiderate – if not outright wickedness.

To my brothers, who trumpet “Entitlement Mentality” slogan whenever issues like these are raised, be it known to you that what you’re are promoting is wickedness, especially in our African clime.

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An African society is nothing but a community where a tree tries to make a forest or is expected to if that is the only option or until other options. People rely on each other to live, not out of privilege, but of right.

Where I come from, the parents train the first set of children and they take it from there and train the rest. Even if the younger one is the first to make it, the rest rely on him to cater for the rest. It is not even a privilege, it is a right. Whoever fails to live by this precept is not only a deviant, but wicked. And society sees him as so.

It is even worse these days, when I hear people advocating that parents should not expect their children to take care of them at old age, because they have their lives to live. That is the height of it.

The white man you’re trying to copy has his own structure cut out for him. There is nothing shameful about his parents moving to old people’s home. All manner of loans are available to start life or go to school. All manner of start-up facilities are available.

Osinmhen is wrong and his friend is right. Here, it is a different kettle of fish. We ride on each other’s back. We get hurt when we don’t get help. There is nothing to be ashamed of expecting your brother to give you money to start business.

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So, when next, you think your brother who expects you to pay his son’s school fees is indulging in Entitlement Mentality, brother, the joke is on you. You’re not fooling anybody. You’re just wicked.

My name is Sunny Igboanugo, and I’m The Tiny Voice

 

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ADC ticket: In this Atiku, Obi matter, the joke is on Dele Momodu!

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Compatriots, come, let’s reason together. You know one of the biggest diseases this country is cursed with today is hypocrisy. It is a major malaise that has not only afflicted the people at every level, but eaten deep into their hearts and souls at any given time.

This obviously debilitating condition, is the reason Nigeria is currently in its sorry state today. Nowhere is this quite demonstrably evident than the political field. I will give you an apt example to adumbrate my position.

Without the disease of hypocrisy, Bola Ahmed Tinubu would not have been President today and Nigeria would have been saved the nightmare that his coming into power has inflicted on the populace.

I’ll explain. Throughout the events culminated to the disastrous 2023 presidential election, the burning issue around the vortex of that exercise was zoning. This was the factor around which Nyesom Wike, leading the G-5 – group of five Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members – anchored his agitation.

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Many chieftains of the PDP, especially from Southern Nigeria, sang it like a credo that it was the turn of the region to produce the next President after Muhammadu Buhari, a Northerner. In fact, it was the Governors from the South that began the agitation, culminating in the Asaba Declaration.

But see where it got quite interesting. Majority of these chieftains trumpeting the refrain equity, justice and fair-play would always stop half-way. For instance, it was the same Wike that shouted his voice hoarse about equity in the PDP, that tipped the presidential election in Rivers in favour of Tinubu instead of Peter Obi, the only Igbo candidate in that election.

Is it that the self-same Wike did not know that the justice, equity and fair-play of the 2023 presidential election was that a Peter Obi from the South East, deserved that position more, given the political trajectory in Nigeria?

Throughout that time and even now, I stretched my antenna to the numerous interviews granted by Bode George, as he waxed the morality of the argument like a gospel singer. But in all, he would always stopped at the mantra that it was the turn of the South without extending the issue to the other leg of the argument – Ndigbo.

How else would anyone describe it? Even the Atiku Abubakar, who they directed all their arrows could not help but fire back at their hypocrisy when he told the world that had the PDP ticket been zoned to the South East, he wouldn’t have contested.

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Now, to the music playing today. Aren’t you hearing the same lyrics as you did in the months and days before 2023? Doesn’t it capture the same subterfuge, half-truths and outright lies? Aren’t you seeing the same actors as well?

They trumpet it to your ear the unwritten political tradition made it mandatory the that the presidency must remain in the South, but lack the same moral suasion to underscore that the same arrangement also makes it mandatory that it must also rotate around the three zones with the area that has not produced, having the first choice of refusal – in this case – the South East.

Hear this: “In recent time, some groups have introduced aggression and rambunctiousness into a fledgling cooperation, and collaboration, of all. How can a coalition work if some groups, insist they must produce the top ticket by donation, and coronation, without election or persuasion? Why unleash tantrums and expletives on one another as if one group can win National elections without the others?

“This is why, and when, ADC must rise up and enforce discipline before it is too late. This was how NYESOM WIKE held PDP by the jugular till it became too late to be dislodged or expelled. ADC should be a party of love and not a Fuji house of commotion…”

This was Dele Momodu. You know the people he is tagging as aggressive and rambunctious? The Obidient Movement! You know why? In recent times, this group have become quite loud in demanding that Peter Obi, their principal should never accept the vice-presidential slot to Atiku Abubakar in the ADC coalition arrangement.

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They insist that Obi should settle for nothing outside the presidential ticket. This of course, has unsettled people like Bob D, who believe that the former Governor of Anambra State should play the second fiddle to the former VP, not because the latter is fitter and would do a better job, but for purely personal reasons of advancing their individual interest at the end of the day.

Now, it is not that brother Dele doesn’t understand the issues behind the agitation of these people. Sure, he does. He knows that the Obidient Movement is not afraid about Obi squaring up to Atiku for the ADC ticket if the process would be free, fair and democratic. But would it be?

Could Bob D swear he was not aware that many delegates to the PDP primaries in 2022 where Atiku eventually picked the ticket went home with as much as $50,000. Is he not aware that it was for the same reason that Obi pulled out of the PDP contest – that it was because he swore that he would not buy votes of the delegates – that he pitched his tent with the Labour Party eventually?

Would Dele Momodu swear with his conscience and all that is good in him that he’s not aware that Obi won the 2023 presidential election above Atiku, his principal and that – give or take – Obi towers above the ex-VP in terms of organic votes in today’s Nigeria?

Sure, he does. More so, is he saying he’s unaware that much of the suffering Nigerians are undergoing today is traceable to Atiku’s stiff-necked intransigence to drag what doesn’t belong to him. Again, he sure does. But he’s got a job to do!

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But hear him blaming Wike, for the ugly fate of the PDP, instead of Atiku – for usurping the slot of the South. He forgets that the same slot donated to him exclusively in 2019 by the same party. What a barefaced hypocrisy!

Today, he carries the same duplicity to the ADC and pretends that Nigerians are fools. Now, when brother Dele, tells you that Atiku is the only one that could match Tinubu, ask him what he really means. Is it that the ex-VP would rely on credible votes of the people? Whosai! What he really means is contrived votes through corruption of the institutions – bribe INEC, bribe the judiciary and commandeer security.

Pray, is this what Nigerians want? What difference does it make if Atiku cheats the system to emerge President? Isn’t it akin to selling the monkey and buying a dog – thereby retaining a squatting animal in your house?

No, Bob D! Nigerians are clamouring for a complete break from this system of climbing to power on a staircase of stashes of cash. They want a President that has their mandate. That is what they see in Obi. It is only him that will give them that clean break. That is the reason for their agitation.

Dele Momodu deceives nobody when he cries democracy. The discipline here is to end cash-induced politics. Therefore, if anyone should be called to order, it’s the people that insist that Nigeria must continue on the road to Golgotha.

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Benjamin Kalu versus Alex Otti: Forcing Ndi-Abia to drink APC’s poisoned cocktail

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Compatriots, do you know how irredeemable our national politics is? O no! you don’t know. Let me give you an interesting story – two in fact – to underscore the parlous situation. The two happened at different times within an election circle.

Some years ago, I had this very interesting conversation with a state governor who was a friend. He had picked interest in playing tennis, knowing that I was a tennis player, as I still am. We had earlier discussed about revamping and putting to use the two tennis courts in the governor’s lodge.

So, this Saturday morning, I had driven to the government house bringing along the tennis items I bought for him – tennis shoes – racquet, bag, shorts, shirts and others. I met my friend having breakfast and he invited me.

While at the table, our discussion delved once again towards his performance. Without mincing words, this man was virtually on a gravy train in terms of popularity.

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His approval rating was so high that the din was reverberating beyond his state to the national and even international level. I told him so, when he asked me what the feelings out there were. Of course, we had agreed from the beginning that I was going to be his eyes and ears in the outside word to tell him the truth – the real – authentic truth not dressed in sycophancy or praise-singing.

I actually meant every word of it when I told him that his rating was quite high. Naturally, he was happy. We were both happy. But it was in the euphoria of the moment that my friend gave me the shock of my life – as at that time – because nothing shocks me today regarding the Nigerian polity or politics. Who could imagine that Nigeria would become a one-party state as we’re witnessing today?

Terrible Sunny – that was his name for me – you know, this thing you’re seeing now is just for two years. After this, we’re going to pause and prepare for election. Even if it warrants importing soldiers from North Korea, I’m prepared to do that.

The bread and egg in my hand hung mid-air, as I paused to stare at him, not sure I heard right. Importing soldiers from North Korea, what for? I asked. Don’t you know we’re going for war? That was his reply. War, what war – with what you’re doing now in the state, if you sustain half of it, your re-election will be a stroll in the park, I told him.

You know his reply – Terribly Sunny – you don’t know politics. Of course, I needn’t recount the level of argument we had as I tried to persuade him about the futility of the line he was about to toe. I was definite that my position of relying on tangible evidence of delivery – what the late Chukwuemeka Ezeife used to call eye-marked achievement was the way to go.

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Folks, all my attempts not only failed, but my consistency earned me enmity as my friend, whom I helped become a governor by the fact of my providing his media backbone got sucked in and eventually got encircled in the morass of evildoers – the hyenas and brood of vipers hovering around government.

Now, this wasn’t the only time I was told this about not knowing politics. Another of my friend, this time a Senator, who later became a Senate President, also used exactly the same words. In his own case, I had visited him on the morning of an election and overheard him giving directives. It was clear that he was instructing his field-soldiers on how to rig election for him.

When the coast was clear was, I confronted him, because like the governor, we had more than casual relationship. He was also a friend. Oga, no be election una wan rig so? It was both a joke and a serious statement. Do you need to rig. This election is in your hand, I stretched!

Again, the same expression – Sunny you don’t know politics. You only know how to write. Sometimes you need to teach this people a lesson. So, in his own case, even though he could win re-election effortlessly, his own reason for rigging, was to teach his opponent a lesson – for contesting against him – which was an affront. As I said, this same Senator, later became a Nigerian Senate President.

Why do I tell this story. You must have seen the latest video of our brother, Benjamin Okezie Kalu telling Alex Ottit to cross over to APC or kiss second term goodbye. Now why do you think he is talking this manner?? He knows that head or tail, he stands no chance to confront Alex Otti, who stands in a class of his own as the best governor in Nigeria today in terms of performance.

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Don’t get it twisted! Otti doesn’t oppose President Bola Tinubu, the deity to whom all political forces in Nigeria today are bowing. No! His only offence is that he chose to serve the deity his own way. Instead of defecting to the APC, he wants to remain in his party.

In fact, it is said that Otti has actually promised that he would donate at least 50 pre cent of the votes of Abia people to the President. But even though these promised votes are going to be contrived – actually stolen from the storehouse, because no Abia man will vote for Tinubu – yes – neither Tinubu nor APC will get up to 1000 organic votes in the state – this effort is not enough. They want to rub it in.

APC or you fall. You know why? How can I be a Deputy Speaker and my state is in the hand of a non-APC governor? This obvious ego-tripping statement is the reason why the people’s will must be rubbished. Because as you know it is all boiled down to the strategy of winning elections in Nigeria which Dr. Sam Amadi actually captured recently – bribe INEC, bribe the judiciary, commandeer the security.

Now, if you look at this our brother – take another look at him, what do you see? Didn’t you find the charisma of Nnamdi Azikiwe, the intellectual endowment and captivating eloquence of Oyi of Oyi, Chuba Okadigbo – or is it the courage and boldness of Mikael Iheonukara Okpara and Sam Mbakwe rolled into one.

Yes! He stands the chance of being the new political phenomenon coming from the South East from what I see. But what does he do with the talents nature and his creator have endowed on him. He has packaged them and donated to Tinubu – a man that has maintained the ignoble record of being the worst President Nigeria has ever been cursed with.

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Ask him to point at one thing Tinubu has done in the South East and see how he would skirt around the issues and paint the image of a non-existent castle in the air. Ask him what this APC has brought to the states in the South East, where they have been existing for more than four years now.

Now, the same man that is boasting of his APC standing sleeps and wakes up from his mansion in Abuja and Umuahia to the fact that Nnamdi Kanu, his constituent and cousin is in prison today. He knows that Kanu is languishing in Sokoto prisons and eating watery beans not because he killed 30,000 people as his fellow brother Orji Uzor Kalu claims, but because he is an Igbo man.

But what has he done? What can he do? He’s as helpless as the next man in the street regardless. Use your number six now to set him free! Whosai!

In the earlier story. My friend the governor, ended up winning his second term, of course importing his North Korean soldiers – or the local variant. But ask me what became of him. Ask me where he ended up.

Today, he shares the reputation of Idi Amin – that flesh-eating demon of Uganda for the brutality and mass murder that happened in his state with many fingers being pointed at him.

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Today, he is as worthless as a faeces-soaked toilet paper. He cannot even win a local government councillorship. This was a man that, had he sustained as much as half of what he used to import those soldiers, would have remained one of the best things that happened in the Nigerian polity since the discovery of white rice and fresh fish pepper soup.

We shall see how this Tinubu project works, both for Otti and his promise of 50 per cent votes and for our brother BOK, who wants to force the poisoned cocktail through the throat of Abia people.

But how many times do I need to warn that whosoever commits evil in Igbo land and against Igbo people answers for it? It’s worse when you spill blood. I won’t say more.

My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice!

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Actress Doris: Eating the forbidden fruits, like the days of Eve

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What made Eve eat the forbidden fruit? Why was she vulnerable before Satan, the Devil in the Garden of Eden? Ponder as you chew this salacious story of Sister Doris Ogala and our so-called “Pastor” Chris Okafor.

You had everything that gave you pleasure. But there is just one you were warned not to touch. Then, boom! The devil comes along and begins to lubricate your imagination and before curtain falls, it’s done! What remains are the consequences.

So, why the hues and cries? If a woman as perfectly made as Eve, living in a perfect environment, with everything bright and beautiful at her disposal could still fall to an imaginary life of extra pleasure, how much less a Doris Ogala living in a world so defaced and corrupted?

As you’re reading this, there are scores of Doris’ even within your tiny street alone. I just read one quite recently. It had to do with a lady in a perfect love-encrusted relationship.

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The young man had even proposed and marriage rites were supposed to start in weeks but as the lady went to fix her hair at a salon, a man who came into the shop, ended up picking the bills of everyone.

That was it! Numbers were exchanged – fat alerts – appointments – then one thing led to the other – a lush-plush life of luxury – or so she thought.

She even had the temerity of terminating a three-month pregnancy of the ex’s baby, of course, alongside the relationship. Then, gbosaa! Bubble bursts!

She had travelled to the village to see her parents where she spent some weeks only to return to her new home and found everywhere under lock. All attempts to connect with the new guy failed. Bobo – the sharp man he was, had returned to the US.

Our gold-digger, having no other option, decided to make a bid for the ex. Of course, the gate was closed. Slammed against her face! The young man told her that the only condition was to recreate his baby she terminated, to which she had no solution.

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Our lady, is now 49. She has gone beyond desperation, having visited all the churches, worship centres and prayer houses in virtually all cities and villages of Nigeria where she faced all manner of scams by the scam-masters themselves – pastors – who obviously also had their fair share of her honeypot to boot. Depleted bank accounts? O! Sure!

Clearly, that snake that bit Eve has not rested. It is still going around and about striking other women with its tail.

Now, how long have I read even on this Zuka platform alone, fellow women warning others that there are a million husbands out there with love and flowery proposals only to turn to tigers and vipers the moment they succeed in luring them out of their matrimonial homes? How many times.

How many times have they been warned that the only position out of their homes is that of a side-chick of a sugar-daddy – not even from a bachelor – for a bachelor has a full bag of spinsters to pick from?

But there’s a greater danger! Today’s liberalised world! It’s here! In the days of our grandmothers, kpekus was for procreation. They finish their duties with it, sealed up and trained their children, living happily thereafter. Our mothers were satisfied with just missionary.

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But today? In just one night – doggy – bicycle – scissors – flying monkeys – bow and arrow – swimming fish – bicycle kick – etc. There is even fisting – plate-licking and even nyash-eating – a full complement! End-game? Dissatisfaction! Bitterness! Unhappiness! Divorce!

Harried by day and haunted by night, men, now punish themselves at every point trying to keep up. The other room rather than an abode of pleasure is now of torture and nightmare chamber!

As men jump from one REMEDY to the other, they practically become prisoners to all manner of scammers both in open markets and social media, taking advantage of the apparently huge market to merchandise all forms of dangerous items that go as drugs, sold at pocket-tearing prices.

You could find a N60,000 pack of 25 groundnut and alligator-pepper wrapped in a tea-bag as the supposed endgame or a N70,000 bottle of 30 pieces of capsuled ground bitter cola being sold as the perfect treatment for ED, big gbola and guarantee for long-lasting kerewa. Phew!

Now, who knows which one outside the obvious – the glittering world of our pastors – filled with opulence and luxury that lured our sister – our modern-day Eve out of her home, where she most probably had a secure and happy life?

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Maybe another long elaborately-veined and sturdy Gbola! Money or Gbola? Who really knows what she’s crying for and why she seems so implacable that she’s now trying to kpai herself. Your guess!

Remember: Onye amu di mma amaghi ihe onye ibi n’afu! Translated: A man with healthy manhood doesn’t know what his brother with elephantiasis of the scrotum is going through. This is an Igbo proverb.

So, you might choose to mock or sympathise with Sister Doris. But be sure that before the cock crows tonight, you would have seen dozens more of our sisterly. Worse still, nobody knows whose daughter will be the next victim.

But surely there are more where this came from. Mark my words! _ The Tiny Voice!

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