The scourge of anonymity

Lately, blogs that I love have been bombarded with some literary deviants posting rude and senseless comments under the name "Anonymous". While I am an advocate of free speech and I am always open to listen to opinions other than mine, I would like to ask that people refrain from using blog commentary as a means to defame someone's character.

If u don't know how to say what u feel in an intelligent and educated way, then keep quiet and move on. If I do not like something, I try to say it as politely as I can. Heaping curses and insults on someone ( whom you apparently do not know) is a characteristic of a lack of good upbringing. And that is why Naija cannot move forward because most of you with complaints are so busy insulting others and not proferring any solutions to what u consider the problem...

Racquelle-Cutie, Bella Naija and Babaalaye have had their blogs made victim to this waste of words. Let me say this: Not everything you read on a blog is true and so for those who have built this fantasy in their heads about whom the individuals behind blogs are, you might be pleasantly/ unpleasantly surprised to find out that the person is just an aspiring writer, scrimping and saving his income to pay for time at the cyber cafe so that he/ she can post his thoughts and ideas online.

Let's blog free and happy. Take from the writers the things that you can apply to your everyday life and progress with it. Some offer us humor as their all purpose elixir; others, their take on current events or their analysis of an issue of interest. I love blogging and reading what I like to consider the creativity of some of the brightest minds my country has to offer. If you do not agree, it is your right to do so. But as in all things we have to have some modicum of decorum and personal ethics when we sit at a keyboard and manifest our thoughts into words.

Remember (if we are to take the bible as a source), it was spoken words that manifested life.
The written word is just as powerful.

Dear Mrs. Jolade Ekeinde,

I just finished watching one of your movies "The Woman In Me" and I can rightfully say that you have put my over inflated impression of my butt to shame. What I used to shake with pride are mosquito bites compared to what you are carrying. I am a woman but GAD DAMN!!!!
I will appreciate it if you can tell me what it is that is part of your diet to result in that contraption that escorts you everywhere you go. I mean, you were in profile and had moved two frames across the screen and your derriere was still coming after you.
I am not even sure what the movie was about though it came in two parts and four cds. My aunt and I just spent over an hour discussing how we can elevate our "defense" status in the general direction of your stats.
We would appreciate any assistance towards the attainment of our above stated goal.
Thank you in anticipation of a favourable reply
Sincerely,
Catwalq
1-800-BUTT-GROW

Discard with...

No worries. Rayo gave me the hook up and so all the blogs that I stalk on a daily basis are listed on your right...

SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP

Can someone please show me how to create links to other blogs. U know, like on the side of your page where u can list all your fave blogs and u just click on them and be connected right through.
I have tried everything; maybe my eyes are not working but I cannot find anything in my settings to get it done.
Ehn, Biko nu

DARE OBASANJO AND HIS BREED OF IGNORANCE

I do not know if you are familiar with this picture/post and ensuing hulla-balloo http://grandioseparlor.com/2007/04/a-presidential-servant/. I am sorry that I have not yet figured out how to make short links to other posts. However:





Dare Obasanjo ( son of our about-to-be ex president) posted a picture of a domestic servant in the employ of his father at the presidential villa. the man looked dejected and deprived. the room in which he sat lacked even the most basic amenities required to make a room look like it was lived in. A mattress covered with a faded sheet of floral fabric lay on the floor and the man sat next to it under a window. In the caption under the picture, Dare referred to him as a "servant". The world took notice and people in blog ville started shouting.





I was not surprised that he had called the man a servant. The word servant has been made derogatory by man. God is the greatest servant of all but man has succeeded in dehumanising those who are in his service.





What I was more surprised about was that a servant living in our presidential villa looked like a homeless person and that Dare's comment on the backlash following the posting was that he hoped he had given people a chance to vent and that he was amused that they were all so concerned even though they had "abandoned their country".





I am glad this is a blog because in that one moment of reading that statement, resentment and disgust flooded my insides. I was not angry at him but rather at myself and the rest of my brethren. When we let thieves and rogues populate our senate, house of assemblies and gubernatorial positions, destroy our infrastructure and cause us to become second class citizens in foreign lands in our quest for peace and better futures, what do we expect as intellect from one of their children?





His father likes to think that he has done a lot of good and taken our country to another level. Yes he has. He has surrounded himself with alot of ass-kissing criminals that shade his view of how much the country has fallen apart and promoted the legalization of corruption. He is never quite aware of the gravity of the situation. Does anyone remember January 2002 when the explosions happened at the Barracks in Lagos and our dear president showed up surrounded by his retinue of imbecilic ministers and protocol officers completely decked in expensive lace to shout at the devastated families that he did not need to be there when they bombarded him with their cries of distress. Twenty minutes later, he was whisked away to another part of the country where he was wined and dined to the glory of his position and it was only when he saw the backlash that he was given a complete picture of what had happened and he issued a public apology. He has always had an over inflated view of himself (claiming he had to wait for God's directive to run for re-election; is he the only one that talks to God?) and so he has been easy to push to the role of a figurehead kept complacent and occupied with people who come to heap false praises at his feet. I wonder when he realised that he was seriously disgracing himself and his country taking international trips like no business and did any one ever hear the gists of Stella's pilferring.





Dare might not know and then again he might. Irrespective, he has been desensitized towards the bigger picture which is shame because I know for a fact that his father started off as a soldier and thus was not always wealthy. What makes me panic is that it is people like him that will be handed the reigns of the country by all their connections whilst those of us that really want to make a difference and just simply want a country where your efforts are rewarded equally and your aspirations have a chance of being realised.

My parents really were not going to send me abroad. The money was not there and at this moment, it still isn't and our prayers always ask for a legal miracle. After my mother witnessed how I was blackballed at my JAMB examination because I refused to pay the invigilators, she saw how futile her and my father's efforts to raise my brother and I in Nigeria to be upstanding and honest citizens were going to be. I left with money generated from the sale of our only house. I left as the older one to try and make a way for my family. I did not desert my country. It had no future ahead for me if at one point in time, I did not want to be caught up in social infrastructure failure, corruption and bribery, sexual harassment with no laws to defend my honour, marriage to fufil societal obligations and an every day struggle. I left because I wanted to know that there was a place were effort was rewarded in its exact proportions.

The white man's land is not really better. It has very little history that was not dependent upon the destruction and sabotage of others.

I am going to return. I only beg God that when I do, I do not have to deal with the Dare Obasanjos, his father's generation or others of the same breed of ignorance and self serving attitudes