Am I the only one who doesn't have 2017 figured out?

In 2016, I literally entered the new year moon walking. I was so sure of what I wanted to achieve that year. When I prayed, I prayed with a purpose. This year however I feel like I still haven't woken up to the reality that it is a different year.

Everywhere I look, I see people getting things done at a faster pace, I see people coming up with new projects and goals for the new year and all I want to do is sit on the couch and eat pop corn.

Whats even more frustrating is that my Bosses at work think i'm still lil ol' me who was so fired up about taking on assignments and new projects. This year I could care less about dead lines or writing wining stories.

I do have goals and expectations for this year I'm just not as fired up about them as I ought to be. I hope this is a thing, a thing that wears off more like a bug or may be a flu kinda like flu of passivity.

Talking about passivity I havent had a bath all day...yes I know, yuck! double yuck!

MMM Returns, Mavros in Kogi celebrate

Following the recent come back of controversial Ponzi scheme, Mavrodi Mondial Movement (MMM) over a hundred thousand persons in Kogi state who invested in the scheme were seen jubilating across various relaxation centres in the state.

Mr. Isiah Sunday, a retired policeman told Kogi Reports that he had been through a lot of anxiety in the last few weeks following the freezing of the site. "I invested about N50,000 into MMM and I fainted when I read on news sites that the site had crashed, I have been praying and fasting for many days, God has answered my prayers MMM is back" he said.

Another Mavro, Omoniyi Muyiwa who is a 200 level student of Kogi State University, Anyingba said  that he had invested his pocket money and funds he borrowed from friends into the scheme, all which amounted to N100,000. "My plan was to pay back my friends after I got my 30% interest and then use the remaing money to upgrade my room on campus, I have learnt my lesson with MMM, once I get my money back from MMM, I will never partake in any Ponzi scheme again".

Mr. Uchenna Okoye a businessman was seen celebrating with friends and well wishers at a popular drinking spot in the states capital, Lokoja. He revealed that he had invested N1,500,000 in the scheme. "I had almost become hypertensive when I had MMM crashed with my money, MMM na you biko! Jesus I thank you! he was heard to be saying.

However there are some pundits who still believe that that the scheme is time bomb living on borrowed time. One of those persons is Mrs Abigail Adukwu who believes that any business that is based on a Ponzi pyramid is doomed to fail.

90 Million women in Nigeria and none has a can of pepper spray

Of recent in Kogi State, there have been gruesome stories of girls getting kidnapped and raped. My mum came back from curch this evening and she tells me yet another frightening story of some girl who also almost got kidnapped fortunately she was able to escape from her attacker by throwing sand in his face.

The truth is, the recent developments with kdinapping in the state scare me a lot more than I let on. I am a Journalist for Petes sake and everyday I am taking bikes to cover assignments in places that I did not know existed.

So I started to think of a way to protect myself and then I remembered pepper spray, with all the stories of rape, domestic violence and kidnapping in the country pepper sprays should be one of the most basic commodities in Nigeria.

I looked up how to make your own pepper spray on wikihow and I realised that it was something I could make from the comfort of my kitchen. And then the entrepreneur in me asked, what if you made this commercial? what if you sold this to other young women in Kogi state who are desperately in need of a self defense mechanism.

Like Mo Abudu said having a great idea is one thing but it all boils down to execution. For now i'll start by making me by own personal brand of pepper spray and I hope it gives me some sense of security.

No child is a witch

If you grew up in Kogi State or even Nigeria at large then you can relate to the experience of watching Helen Ukpabio films with their religious plots and motifs of witchcraft, voodoo and the paranormal. I will never stop saying that those movies had the most grotesque looking characters I had ever seen. Our parents faithfully bought these movies because they were supposedly good for our spiritual lives.

          If movies like Kingdom of the wicked(the movie were child witches ate human flesh and murdered their parents) Married to a Witch and other so called films we were  subjected to watch as a kids did anything good for our spiritual lives that I wouldn't know.
What I do know is that those movies shaped our perspectives as individuals, we got brain washed. We started to see children who exhibited certain peculiarities that were different from the norm as possessed by evil spirits.

             Our house helps who had been brought from the village were instantly labeled witches who had been sent from the kingdom of darkness to wreck havoc in our homes. And so we swung to action and did what had been done to the alleged witches in the movies we had seen, we took them to so called prophets for deliverance and exorcisms where they were made to confess to all sorts of abominable atrocities like tying Madam's stomach in the coven so she can't bear children, or being the reason why Oga lost his lucrative Job with Savanna bank. Please bear in mind that these children who were mostly below the age of 12 were subjected to beatings and all forms of torture before they eventually made their confessions of witchcraft.

              We grew up with the consciousness that if you ate biscuits or ate puff-puff during a class mates birthday at school there was every probability that you would find yourself flying at night and chanting "puff-puff", "puff-puff" in your sleep (that had been a scene in the movie End of the Wicked) it was the classic example of how children got possessed. There was also the true life story everyone's parent seemed to know about but never whose story it was, it was the story of the child who didn't eat biscuits and sweets shared during a birthday but instead left them in the pockets of his school uniform where they metamorphosed into a dead human thumb.

           These stories that we had been told and movies we had watched made us acutely suspicious of everyone. Everyone was a potential witch or wizard, not doing the smallest things could make one become possessed by a legion of angry demons like not closing your eyes tight enough or saying Amen loud enough when an Exorcism (deliverance session) was taking place in your place of worship.

           You had to look as pious as possible, your hair covered up, any hair attachment or make up of any sort was prohibited after all they had been manufactured in the lagoon by marine spirits and Mammi water (mermaids).Using a colored lip gloss or heaven forbid red lipstick automatically meant that you had entered into a covenant with Lucifer and there where even deliverance sections (exorcisms) where people confessed to getting initiated by "pomade" to prove this theory.

             To tell you how much we had been brain washed after seeing yet another popular movie we also drew the conclusion that the number 666 (the mark of the beast)had been imprinted on certain house hold items from the underworld because Lucifer had an industry beneath the sea where he and his agents produced this commodities for public consumption.

          Looking back I am forced to believe that we had been brain washed and exploited by someone with an acute mental disorder and we had bitten the bait hook line and sinker. And like all cases like this there will always be casualties. The casualties were the innocent children who we quickly labeled off as witches, vulnerable children who had no means of defending themselves, children who quickly accepted the fact that they were witches to avoid further torture, we stigmatized the very children that our society was supposed to protect.

          When the Nigerian Video and Film Censors Board (NVFCB) banned all Helen Ukpabio movies in 2004 I was one of the people who shared the view that it was an act by agents of darkness to frustrate God's servant now however I know better. The NVFCB did all of us a world of good; they helped to prevent the death and maiming of a lot peculiar chilldren in our society who would have been quickly labeled as witches after getting inspired by the kind of content that we had seen on television. And to those of us out there who still believe that some of the children around us could be possessed and may be potential witches I want you to know that it takes a witch to know a witch.

Musings of an insecure wife to be

He proposed, I said yes! and then he gave me this beautiful 18 carat gold ring that he worked so hard to get for me. This wasn't what I envisaged in my fantasies of getting engaged, I wanted the classic princess cut engagement rings with huge stones that look like diamonds even if they are usually just sterling silver and cubic zircona. I wanted a ring like this.

• I wanted a ring that looked like what every other girl wore, I didn't want to be out of place. Being out of place has always been my worst nightmare. It didn't help matters that he put the ring on the wrong finger. It was a beautiful ring but it wasn't what I wanted.

With time though just like the way it was with him, I began to fall in love with my ring. I loved the way it sparkled in the sun, I loved the way it felt so right on my finger like it was made for that finger.

I realised that I had fallen in the love with the ring  the day I had to travel to Benin for a cousins wedding and I couldn't wear it or else I would attract the attention of the witches in the family  the prying eyes of concerned family members.

It's been two months since he asked me to wear this ring, there are days when I'm absolutely sure of my love for him and then there are days, days like today when i'm in doubt about the future. When my fears are bigger than my faith in our love, when I twirl his ring round my finger I am reassured that we will get through it all, somehow I know that we will be fine.

The things we see

 I sent a story of my NYSC experience on stella's blog which happens to be my favourite blog. I am obsessed with blogs infact I think I have an addiction problem. Well today my story isn't about my addiction problems.

     Well it turns out that people actually liked my story, my style of writing and I got good reviews. That just proves that I should take my writing more seriously.

     I remember when I was in secondary school and I ran a thriving love letter/poem writing business. People read my poems because they were good and people loved my letters because they were deep.

    Where did all of that go, where did those talents go. I wish I was committed to become better at writing or building my career as I am about the random inconsequential and toxic proclivities of mine that I indulge my self in.

So.... as I was writing this an old man walked into my office he looked derelict, his hands callused and brittle looking, his eyes held desperation and you could see the pain and hopelessness in his eyes.

He said he hadnt been paid at his place of work for over a year, he said he works with the ministry of Agriculture and that his family was dieing and hungry. He said he had children in higher institutions who had no hopes of getting their tuition paid.

I felt pity and so I gave him the little money I had on me, and then as he thanked me profusely a lot of thoughts crossed my mind. Thoughts like, why is life so difficult for some people, what if he is a ritualist, what if he was telling a lie and he tells bogus stories to get public sympathy which in turn gets him a few naira.

And then it occured to me, one would have to be really down on their luck to go around begging, here I was bemoaning the death of my writing abilities and out there somebody, a child may be had probably not had a good meal in months.

Not a very happy new year

In the last few years I have always been enthusiastic about starting the new year but for some reason, I feel listless and with no ounce of motivation to start the new year. I have also been lazy to the point of self disgust, I have the flu and i'm generally just depressed.

Looks like my colleague didnt get the memo because for some reason she suddenly thinks i'm her competition. Usually I indulge her but right now I could care less, right now i'm battling with demons that weren't there in 2016.

My Boss said every year is pretty much the same as the last year, it's what you do differently that makes that year new. To prove this theory he has changed the sitting arrangement in his office. I wish I could say the same thing about myself.

Getting out of bed is a chore, doing my laundry is a chore, I have laundry waiting for me since 2016. I have orders from customers I haven't touched.

What is wrong with me? what is wrong with me? this is a new year, I should have laid down plans for what I want to achieve this year by now. I should be battle ready, I should be in the spirit of hustle.

My faince (God bless his heart) has been his sweet self although he doesn't understand why I let my phone ring 5 times before I pick his call or why I always want to hang up after talking for a few minutes. I used to talk with him on the phone for hours, what's wrong with me. I used to love hearing his voice.

I'm not ready for 2017 but for some reason everyone is so excited about the new year. All this happiness is draining.