How Frustrating?

I've been thinking about this but although it has been long it happened, I still think it good to post it. This is a rather longish write-up based on a personal experience. On the 18th of March, I came across an invite for a scholarship program organized by NNPC(the country's petroleum management body). The scholarship was only for University undergraduates. The requirements stated involved a signed Statement of result from the applicant's department in his/her University of Study. The signed Result statement was to be submitted before the 30th of same month. I therefore mentally added it to the topmost of my to-do-list. For the next two days, I was very busy attending lectures at least till 4pm which was exactly the time my department closes for the day.
On Friday, I had ample opportunities because I had no lectire that day. I rushed to my department and submitted a letter on the requirement from NNPC and how urgent it was. Luckily for me, the Head of Department was in her office at the time I submitted so the letter with some other correspondence were forwarded to her immediately. I was asked to return the following week to check for a reply. I happily went home with hope that I would meet the deadline.
Monday to Wednesday of the following week were filled with activities(mainly lectures) that didn't give me the opportunity to go to the department. On Thursday, I went to the department and true to their promise, I received the statement of Result I had requested. I went through it but my eye caught a very grevious mistake which I had corrected the previous month. That mistake was on my Biology result which was recorded as 'F' instead of my actual grade 'B'. So, I gave them back the Result statement for correction. I was asked to return the next day. In my department, we had about 4 workers with the exception of the H.O.D but I will restrict my story to only two of them. I will refer to them as Mr. A and Mrs. B.
The Next day being Friday, I went to the department around 9:10am. I was asked to wait because the person who compiled the result was yet to come to her office for the day. I will term her Mrs. X. By 11:13am, my wait ended as the awaited finally came. I rushed to meet her in her office but before I could reach there about 9 persons were already there to see her too. So my second wait began. It lasted for about 45 minutes before it reached my turn. I went in, introduced myself and also notified her of the mistake in my result statement. She apologised and told me that she needs another result statement sheet to re-write all those grades. Note that a single mistake in a result statement sheet makes it unacceptable(condemned). She then asked me to go upstairs the departmental office and ask Mr. A to print out a fresh copy. She informed me that she would leave office anytime as she had a meeting to attend. When I reached there, I was told that Mr. A left about 7 minutes earlier. I asked for Mr. A's phone number and Mrs. B gave it to me. I called Mr. A. He told me that he was coming but he would take time. I went down to Mrs. X's office and informed her. She told me she can't do anything till she gets that sheet from Mr. A. She however gave me her phone number to call her when I get the result statement sheet.
So the wait for Mr. A continued. Looking at my timepiece, the time was 1:10pm. The next one hour caught me still waiting as patient as a Lamb. Thirty minutes later, I called Mr. A. He didn't pick the call until I had called for the third time. When he picked it, in a harsh voice, he told me to stop disturbing him; that he was on official duty - invigilating an on-going exam. He finally told me to exercise some more patience. I didn't call him again although I was highly tempted to do so. The frustrating thing was that for the next on hour, he didn't show up. By now, I had become very impatient to the extent that I audibly and verbally started expressing my anger not minding Mrs. B's presence Few minutes later, he showed up. I was still angered although I didn't say a word or act rashly. I was expecting an apology but I got none. Instead he went directly to the computer and printed out the result statement sheet. I called Mrs. X to know if she was still in school but she told me that she had gone home. Mr. A called Mrs. X to affirm that she truly sent me to collect the result statement sheet. Through the call, Mrs. X informed him to sign on the result statement on her behalf since she had gone home. But the problem was not yet over. The H.O.D was yet to sign.
The authenticity of the result statement sheet included the stamp of the Department and the signature of the Head of Department. Mr. A, after signing on behalf of Mrs. X, gave me the H.O.D's number suggesting that I call her and arrange a meet for her to sign. I called the H.O.D later and arranged the meet to hold on Sunday which unfortunately was the deadline by the organizer of the scholarship to submit the required documents. Meanwhile that day was Friday.
Sunday came, I hastened to meet the H.O.D. By 9:45am, I had met with the H.O.D and she had signed as we agreed. The next task was how to get the Result statement sheet stamped. Since Mr. A was the only person in possession of the stamp, I set out to meet with him. Note that on the previous day, Mr. A had given me the directions to his residence albeit imprecisely. I had to get more information on the direction to where I was to go. Mr. A's residential address from my inquiries was located in a village I had never before visited. Glancing at my watch, the time was 11:45pm. I called Mr. A to inform him I had to meet with the H.O.D, therefore I was on my way to his address at that time. At first, he started rebuking me with the question "Young man, You are not serious. Is this the time we agreed on yesterday?" I was very surprised at his reprisal because I when I called him the previous day, I had asked him if we could meet at 10am, but he had answered me with the question "Do you go to church at all?" In other words, either he meant that his church service duration lasted beyond 10am OR he meant that his church service ended much earlier before 10am. I chose the former, because I thought he was a protestant (Many protestant churches hold their church service way beyond 10am). I didn't oppose him since I didn't want him to be more annoyed although I knew I wasn't at fault. 
I boarded a bus which stopped at the first bus stop. Then boarded a second bus which stopped at another bus stop but since it was also headed towards the village I wanted to alight at, I paid an extra fee for that. When I reached the village, I had to take a bike to Mr. A's residence. After few inquiries from the neighbors, I got to Mr. A's residence and knocked. The time was 2:28pm. After 25 minutes of standing in the sun knocking at Mr. A's gate, and calling his phone number, Mr. A finally came out. Without saying a word, he brought out the stamp, I pointed to the required position for stamping on the result statement. He then stamped it. He turned and went back into the house locking the gate. No Apology for keeping me waiting under the sun!
I took a bike from there and began my journey home. Mr. FRUSTRATION must have whispered inaudibly to me "Hey you must be thinking it's over but sorry for the disappointment". When I reached home, it was 3: 35pm. I spent the afternoon till 6pm awaiting and receiving my parents who had come for a visit. I cooked my dinner. After which I had approximately 3 hours left of the Scholarship application deadline. In the course of finishing my meal, there was power blackout. Luckily, I had scanned in document to a soft copy(file on the computer). Since my laptop battery was having fault, I borrowed a friend's laptop. By the time, I was able to resize the image to the required size(as stated on the NNPC website), and upload it, I had 10 minutes left of the deadline(Note that the network signal was poor that night in my residential area). I spent 5 minutes going through all my uploaded details. Then I discovered that they had requested all documents to be uploaded in .pdf format(documents like pictures have various formats). It hit me that I had uploaded the result statement sheet in .jpg format instead of the required .pdf format. I decided to leave it in that format since it was already late; the time then was 11:58pm. I clicked on the "Next" button so as to be able to print out my details which will enable me to gain entrance into the the exam hall if I am lucky to be among the shorlisted students for the exam. At that moment the clock chimed 12am, the "Next" button disappeared and on the page was written "NO SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMME AVAILABLE".

How would you feel if you were in my shoes?

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When It seems all your plans fall through

A boy looked around him. He saw every other person as beyond him. He started thinking what should he do to catch up and possibly outrun others. His parents were the dedicated type, he was blessed with respectful siblings, he has an uncle who cares although sometimes inconveniences him with errands at odd times, he got very few relatives who gives the little they can. But in the midst of all these blessings were also some big negatives: his father scolds at any slightest provocation, his mother has a motto"Work Work Work", his sister hmm..nagging is an understatement, Cleanliness was the incurable disease of day. Financially,he was just moderate but yet he needed cash at least to be able to afford the little luxuries his mates could. He then thought to himself, "What can I do to assist my parents in the workload they bear?" They were more than 10 in the family including some external helps and some extended family members. An idea occurred to him,'To save some of the money being given to him for upkeep and invest it in any profitable venture'. In three months time, he had saved enough that he decided to invest it. His first attempt at investment yielded no fruit. He lost all the money he has been saving for a while. He started saving again and within 3 months he had realized a reasonable sum. The big question came to mind,"Where can I invest this money so that it will yield a considerable sum at least in few months time?" As a technology savvy person, he decided to try doing it online. This was because he had looked around him; how many make their money and he decided that he wanted his own to be unique. He decided to make money through the internet. He started scouting the internet for any trustworthy venture he could invest in. This search took him four months before he was able to discover one. There it was, hidden in the open. He went in but there were some problems facing him. Those problems included not money but certain processes. He was asked to open an online account which he did with his debit card(MasterCard). Then the problems came:
1. Next was to fund that account, he started the process but along the way, his account was suspended due to security reasons. The Big problem now was to re-open the account since the funding process is already started and if it encounters any hindrance, there is probability of him loosing the money. He was asked to provide some four documents for the account to be re-opened. He tried all his possible best but it seemed that Lady-luck was against him. The first process was obtaining an I.D card.
2. Due to the unfavorable nature of situation in his country, that process took a very long time, almost a year. By then he had lost the money which was in funding process. One of the regulations was "One is not allowed to use the same credit or debit card for two or more accounts". He decided to get another debit card although credit card was more preferable because he could use it to receive money directly into his account. But credit card involved a much more difficult process especially for someone in his position(a student). So it was out of the option.
3. The following month he was able to obtain a new debit card(Visa debit) from his bank. Having learnt from his previous bitter experiences, he carefully opened a new online account. This time he was smiled upon by Lady Luck. With the money he funded, he started the online business. But will he succeed? if yes, to what extent? Only time will tell.

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The Departed Warriors

Few years back, I came home from school, played, ate, watched TV and slept off for the night. The next day was school as usual but that morning I noticed that as household was running slower than usual. I went to where my mom was at the varendah and I saw a great crowd gathered at the building opposite ours. I asked her "Mom, what is happening" She just looked at me, stretched out her hands towards me and held me in a huglike manner. As inqisitive as I was, I continued asking her what was happening in the opposite building. After about 15 minutes, she finally told me: "Nwa Ebony nwuru n'abali" meaning Ebony's son died last night(Ebony is the name of the man living at the 2nd floor of opposite building). I felt chill at that instance but I got over it immediately. I asked her again to be sure of what I heard and she gave me the same answer. I then asked her what may have caused that and she responded "fever". That was the first time I heard that a child died. Before then It never occured to me that a child can die and secondly that 'fever' can kill.
On December 24th 2013, I was putting some items together which will be used for the celebration of Christmas when I got a call from a secondary school mate of mine(I still call him my classmate even till this day) His voice was grave-like and barely audible. All I could make out was "Jasper is dead". I was shocked and a wave of chill passed over me. Jasper was the best chorister in my class then in secondary school. His real name Obimma Francis was rarely called. I personally call him Obamma(meaning machete sheath) I later got the info that he died in a motorcycle accident while returning from a visit to the classmate of mine who called me to inform me. This was the second time somebody I have come in close contact with and an age mate of mine died.
7 days ago, Saturday 15th March, A friend of mine whom I stay in the same lodge with knocked on my door in the morning. He practically woke me from sleep that morning. I was surprised because that was his first time of doing that. He just sat down on the opposite bed to mine gazing at me. I was still feeling drained from sleep. I just managed to ask him "Is there any problem?" He slowly and quietly responded "A lodge mate just died". The sleepy feeling disappeared immediately from my eyes. I asked him "Who died?" just to be sure I got what he said properly. He said that it was the boy by name Emmanuel living diagonally from my room. I was dumbfounded. Noticing my silence and maybe perceiving my upcoming questions, he went further to explain that rumor was that the boy traveled to his home town to see his parents and for some other unmentioned issues. That night he slept and didn't wake up. The funny thing was that before his death nothing peculiar or out of normal was observed from him. Although I didn't know the boy personally but I have been seeing him on few occasions therefore I knew him as a fellow inmate of the lodge. It shocked me till now that such a young warrior who has not tasted life is now departed from us.

LIVE YOUR LIFE BUT KNOW THAT YOU HAVE NO CONTROL OVER DEATH. IT CAN COME ANYTIME. RIP to all the departed souls especially to Emmanuel. I knew him not that much but many of my lodge mates testify to his goodness.

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"You should be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect"(Matthew 5:48)

In the passage, Christ calls us to perfection. He cites our father in heaven as the epitome of perfection. From many pastors and interpreters of the 'Word' what I've come to understand about this passage is that we should fight our human weaknesses like lying, lust, greed, and a lot more other vices. Thinking deep about Christ's statement, a question arises from within the recesses of our minds "Does Christ imply that 'We are not Perfect?'. In the book of Genesis in the Bible, after the creation, God looked up and saw that All he created was 'Good'. Secondly, he created them in his own 'Image'. 'Good' and 'Image' here represents Perfection.
Another noteworthy point is the rising craze in fashion. Today, any craze idea counts as fashion. People are increasingly going to the plastic surgeons' for various reasons like getting implants, transplants, skin bleaching, and the most recent and on the increase: Sex change. The question here becomes 'Are our craze for fashion(which includes the surgery craze, use of beauty products, wearing of clothes we feel makes us beautiful) in line with Christ's commandfor perfection?' In 1 Corinthians 6:19, St. Paul reminds us that "Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit" and therefore we are to take special care of our bodies. 
Question: Does that mean that when we take 'Special care' of our bodies that we are obeying the words in the Bible? (Special care applies to surgery craze, use of beauty products,implants etc)

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What the award winning writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has to day about Nigeria's Gay law

Article written by award winning writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie titled 'Why can’t he just be like everyone else?'  Find it below...

I will call him Sochukwuma. A thin, smiling boy who liked to play with us girls at the university primary school in Nsukka. We were young. We knew he was different, we said, ‘he’s not like the other boys.’ But his was a benign and unquestioned difference; it was simply what it was. We did not have a name for him. We did not know the word ‘gay.’ He was Sochukwuma and he was friendly and he played oga so well that his side always won.

In secondary school, some boys in his class tried to throw Sochukwuma off a second floor balcony. They were strapping teenagers who had learned to notice, and fear, difference. They had a name for him. Homo. They mocked him because his hips swayed when he walked and his hands fluttered when he spoke. He brushed away their taunts, silently, sometimes grinning an uncomfortable grin. He must have wished that he could be what they wanted him to be. I imagine now how helplessly lonely he must have felt. The boys often asked, “Why can’t he just be like everyone else?”

Possible answers to that question include ‘because he is abnormal,’ ‘because he is a sinner, ‘because he chose the lifestyle.’ But the truest answer is ‘We don’t know.’ There is humility and humanity in accepting that there are things we simply don’t know. At the age of 8, Sochukwuma was obviously different.  It was not about s*x, because it could not possibly have been – his hormones were of course not yet fully formed – but it was an awareness of himself, and other children’s awareness of him, as different. He could not have ‘chosen the lifestyle’ because he was too young to do so. And why would he – or anybody – choose to be homos*xual in a world that makes life so difficult for homosexuals?

The new law that criminalizes homosexuality is popular among Nigerians. But it shows a failure of our democracy, because the mark of a true democracy is not in the rule of its majority but in the protection of its minority – otherwise mob justice would be considered democratic. The law is also unconstitutional, ambiguous, and a strange priority in a country with so many real problems. Above all else, however, it is unjust. Even if this was not a country of abysmal electricity supply where university graduates are barely literate and people die of easily-treatable causes and Boko Haram commits casual mass murders, this law would still be unjust.  We cannot be a just society unless we are able to accommodate benign difference, accept benign difference, live and let live. We may not understand homosexuality, we may find it personally abhorrent but our response cannot be to criminalize it.

A crime is a crime for a reason. A crime has victims. A crime harms society. On what basis is homos*xuality a crime? Adults do no harm to society in how they love and whom they love. This is a law that will not prevent crime, but will, instead, lead to crimes of violence: there are already, in different parts of Nigeria, attacks on people ‘suspected’ of being gay. Ours is a society where men are openly affectionate with one another. Men hold hands. Men hug each other. Shall we now arrest friends who share a hotel room, or who walk side by side? How do we determine the clunky expressions in the law – ‘mutually beneficial,’ ‘directly or indirectly?’

Many Nigerians support the law because they believe the Bible condemns homos*xuality. The Bible can be a basis for how we choose to live our personal lives, but it cannot be a basis for the laws we pass, not only because the holy books of different religions do not have equal significance for all Nigerians but also because the holy books are read differently by different people. The Bible, for example, also condemns fornication and adultery and divorce, but they are not crimes.

For supporters of the law, there seems to be something about homosexuality that sets it apart. A sense that it is not ‘normal.’ If we are part of a majority group, we tend to think others in minority groups are abnormal, not because they have done anything wrong, but because we have defined normal to be what we are and since they are not like us, then they are abnormal. Supporters of the law want a certain semblance of human homogeneity. But we cannot legislate into existence a world that does not exist: the truth of our human condition is that we are a diverse, multi-faceted species. The measure of our humanity lies, in part, in how we think of those different from us. We cannot – should not – have empathy only for people who are like us.

Some supporters of the law have asked – what is next, a marriage between a man and a dog?’ Or ‘have you seen animals being gay?’ (Actually, studies show that there is homosexual behavior in many species of animals.) But, quite simply, people are not dogs, and to accept the premise – that a homos*xual is comparable to an animal – is inhumane. We cannot reduce the humanity of our fellow men and women because of how and who they love. Some animals eat their own kind, others desert their young. Shall we follow those examples, too?

Other supporters suggest that gay men sexually abuse little boys. But pedophilia and homos*xuality are two very different things. There are men who abuse little girls, and women who abuse little boys, and we do not presume that they do it because they are heterosexuals. Child molestation is an ugly crime that is committed by both straight and gay adults (this is why it is a crime: children, by virtue of being non-adults, require protection and are unable to give s*xual consent).

There has also been some nationalist posturing among supporters of the law. Homos*xuality is ‘unafrican,’ they say, and we will not become like the west. The west is not exactly a homosexual haven; acts of discrimination against homosexuals are not uncommon in the US and Europe. But it is the idea of ‘unafricanness’ that is truly insidious. Sochukwuma was born of Igbo parents and had Igbo grandparents and Igbo great-grandparents. He was born a person who would romantically love other men. Many Nigerians know somebody like him. The boy who behaved like a girl. The girl who behaved like a boy. The effeminate man. The unusual woman. These were people we knew, people like us, born and raised on African soil. How then are they ‘unafrican?’

If anything, it is the passage of the law itself that is ‘unafrican.’ It goes against the values of tolerance and ‘live and let live’ that are part of many African cultures. (In 1970s Igboland, Area Scatter was a popular musician, a man who dressed like a woman, wore makeup, plaited his hair. We don’t know if he was gay – I think he was – but if he performed today, he could conceivably be sentenced to fourteen years in prison. For being who he is.) And it is informed not by a home-grown debate but by a cynically borrowed one: we turned on CNN and heard western countries debating ‘same s*x marriage’ and we decided that we, too, would pass a law banning same sex marriage. Where, in Nigeria, whose constitution defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, has any homosexual asked for same-s*x marriage?

This is an unjust law. It should be repealed. Throughout history, many inhumane laws have been passed, and have subsequently been repealed. Barack Obama, for example, would not be here today had his parents obeyed American laws that criminalized marriage between blacks and whites.

An acquaintance recently asked me, ‘if you support gays, how would you have been born?’ Of course, there were gay Nigerians when I was conceived. Gay people have existed as long as humans have existed. They have always been a small percentage of the human population. We don’t know why. What matters is this: Sochukwuma is a Nigerian and his existence is not a crime.

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I need Approval

It is funny that in many things we do, starting from childhood,we constantly require approval to carry out all we do. Then what, we  courageously do the task ahead. That approval comes in many forms: mainly from external forces and then from within oneself. Come to think of it, have you ever done anything without requiring approval at least from yourself? Approval is when you need a go-ahead encouragement to carry out a task. I threw this question at a group of persons and most of them opposed my views. Then I started arguing with them and towards the end of the agreement most of them sided with me. Although approval is advantageous as a kid and sometimes as an adult, it has its downsides. 
1. A person who has so much gotten used to seeking approval will technically base all his actions on approval. Take for example: I had a friend in secondary school(high school). Whenever you see him, he walks with his head high(confidently). But the funny thing about him is that he cannot put on any wears that at least a friend will not approve. Once he's gotten the approval, he goes about in that wear confidently. The problem of approval got to an extent that during exams, he is not confident unless he has gotten an approval for the answers to the questions asked.
2.Another downside is that the Person who has so much gotten used to seeking approval immediately looses confidence once some other person discredits his opinion, choice of wear, decisions etc.
Summarily, the best kind of approval is that which one gives to oneself. This is because that kind of approval always make feel confident irrespective of contrary opinions other people may have. Although it would good to put to check the rate at which we depend on others for approval, we have to always remember the bible verse:"In his riches, man lacks wisdom" and not always do things like we are the wisest taking others' opinions as nothing.

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We think we know

"I live my life the way I want to". That's what many think. I think like that too. But sometimes I get myself thinking 'Is that statement actually true or is it a matter of 'The unwanton desires of man which twisted as they seem end their fated journey in the marked destination of the creator'".

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Just wishing

life's soo confusing. I wish that in life each person would have a particular person created specially for him and that when he/she sees the particular person for him/her, his/her mind would be soooo captured that he would see no flaw from that person even if his/her friends try to point it out for him.

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