BUNMILOFE'S MUSINGS

There is a certain way you feel when certain people treat you in certain ways.  It’s the kind of feeling that first ties your tongue in shock. When you finally find your voice, you say something like ‘can you imagine?’ to no one in particular. That is how the keke guy who carried me the other day must have felt. It all started when the lady seated beside the guy just next to me announced her stop almost too late. The keke guy had to grind to a sudden halt, nearly hitting the table belonging to a road side fruit seller who had barely managed to keep the fruits on top of one another. While he was still recovering from the James Bond stunt her late ‘ o wa o’ had required, she offered him her transport fare with her left hand. That is when the nuts flew off. ‘Can you just imagine?’, he began the rant. He was so angry at her lack of respect that he decided he was no longer going to Ajah, leaving the rest of us to begin a new keke search. He felt slighted. That feeling is the

"They said B.Sc's were no longer good enough,so I got an M.Sc. Then they said the market value of an MBA is higher, so I got on that horse too. Now they're saying I can't truly advance in my career/business without international certifications? But why?" Lots of professionals ask this question, wondering why their hard-earned work/business experience is not good enough to get ahead. The issue is not that your experience is not good enough, it's not that your previous degrees(or degree for some people) are no longer relevant; the issue is dear professional is that your singular experience in that particular field of expertise does not a global view make! That the world is a global village is a concept learnt since primary school, that globalisation is affecting economies is an over-flogged rhetoric. However, what most professionals DO NOT pay attention to is how to get ahead of the effects of globalisation on their own economic environment. Y

I am perpetually amused by commercial buses in Lagos. The kind of drama that happens in those buses will shame award winning writers. Just the other day, I found myself in a bus destined for drama. You see, the commercial bus was a family business featuring the husband  as driver and the wife as conductor. A female conductor is enough to cause side remarks and rancor, not to talk of a dress wearing, ponytail packing, English speaking one. Passengers, especially male, just could not get over her peeping thighs exposed by her dress which ascended by default as she turned this way and that asking " please, where are you going?" "Give me my money please". At first, it was merely hilarious, till one half drunk middle aged man accused her of disrespecting him despite the fact that he was probably older and richer than her driver husband. Only a few women can stomach such debasing comments, so she served it to him hot, reminding him he should be grateful he was even a

Leah has been on my mind lately. Yeah, that Leah. The one who was smuggled into Jacob’s bed by her dear father. First, imagine the humiliation of your father asking you to marry a man who obviously does not want to marry you. I mean, you have lived in the same house for seven years and he has hardly ever noticed you. It’s not like he’s blind or anti-women. Nah, he saw your little sister just once and his sense flew out, he didn’t even know when he pledged seven years of hard labour for her. After the long wait for his seven year prize, your father has packaged you to disappoint him. And it gets even worse. Kongi is a bad thing sha, It blocked Jacob’s eyes. Until the deed was done and a new day had dawned, the mister didn’t notice he had the wrong sister. Imagine the embarrassment, Leah was ravished all night and rejected by morning. She must have been crushed. Her ‘husband’ didn’t want her and no other person could have her. She had been branded ‘Jacob’s’ by her night in his bed.

Everywhere I turn, someone is either talking about GEJ’s hilarious make-up or GMB’s stunning daughter. I have gradually become convinced that all these aggressive debates about the contesting giants are responsible for the alarming weather twists. Or, how else can one explain the sudden heat wave that has taken over Lagos in the past few days except that like that largely forgotten  KOWA woman, the sun has decided to remind us of its existence after harmattan’s intense reign. Someone I know actually put up a status pleading with harmattan to remember this is Nigeria, not Russia. Such pleas must have made the sun extremely jealous, hence the vengeance we are experiencing now. Now that Charles Soludo has almost rendered both parties unworthy of our precious votes( which also signify our power) by his much appreciated expose’ on the state of the Nigerian economy, I am weak. So weak that if anybody should mention Buhari, APC, Jonathan or PDP around me right now: I would scream. OK,

A lot of things happen to us that almost take away the things we think we cannot live without. I bet you have said at some point in your life, ‘I cannot do without bathing at night, I won’t be able to sleep at all’. Or, ‘I have to have my phone with me all the time’. Or maybe, ‘my mum, I just cannot live without her’. So many things we cannot do without! I am also sure that at some point, in defending your supposed inability to do without such a thing to others, you have probably said; ’it’s part of my person, I’m just used to it’.  I bet you even have ready examples of situations when you almost had to do without it and the extreme steps you took, just because, to you, it is that important! Recently, I have been thinking a lot, I’m trying to find that one thing that is absolutely important to me, that I cannot imagine doing without, that I’ll go to any length to have or protect. And yes, I know life is impossible without God, we all do, so this is not about Him. I have