A Foreword to My Editorial

In Nigeria, Accidents have become ghastly daily incidents that culminate invariably in either threat to life or loss of life or both.

No one is spared in this epidemic span, not even the rich business executives: they also have plane crashes to contend with. No one is indeed exempted from the contagious grip of road mishaps and what is frustrating about them is that they can be averted.

These deaths are needless and if only Nigeria regarded data as a way of valid retrospective assessment, the statistics would not only be alarming enough to push government into action, it would also will even citizens into reaction.

I became obsessed with the idea of compiling an IFEMED edition on trauma before my first accident. And even after my second accident, I find the urge more irresistible especially as almost everyone has a sad story relating to road traffic accidents: from a co-passenger in an interstate vehicle who lost a younger cousin to a motor-bike mishap in Abuja to a respected obstetrician who remembered the many deaths that dotted his medical student days courtesy the old Ibadan-Ife road.

I am sure we are wont to say that there is a new Ibadan-Ife road but there are also new and perhaps more deaths consequently; every so often, a police area command Isuzu or more recently a F.R.S.C emergency van speeds into the O.A.U.T.H.C laden with casualties in its backseat. Nothing has changed.

Apart from the fact that it is mostly the active and independent part of the population that is affected, the funds, time and other resources (see orthopaedic wards as regards prolonged hospital stay) is in excess of the cost of prevention. Accidents have gradually progressed from infrequent life-altering encounters to daily collective suicides.(see F.R.S.C facebook group status update)

By compiling a multi-disciplinary approach on medical emergencies with an emphatic lilt on trauma, we have neither assessed nor changed the outcome of road traffic accidents, unarguably the most frequent cause of accident and emergency admission in our locality. We have only reiterated the principles of saving lives which every doctor or doctor-in-training must concern him/herself with.

And who says that we have done anything heroic? Or even relevant? As an aside, it is noteworthy that books are the most obvious hiding places for knowledge especially for Africa, how much more a specialised periodical? It is also noteworthy that there is no functional association that look into Medical emergencies in Nigeria be it a professional association, government parastatal or Non Governmental Organisation save the fatigued Red Cross Association of Nigeria.

Prevention is the most relevant trend which Nigeria as a nation and Africa as a gloomy continent are yet to adopt as their brain children. The import of good governance and consequent tremendous manifestations by way of good road and better transportation networks(see Ogere trailer park and other road-vehicular nuisances), foolproof legislations catering to the immediate and long term needs of transportation in Nigeria and CPR for previously vibrant organisations concerned with transportation and its intricacies cannot be over-emphasised. In my humble opinion, road traffic accidents should glean as much negative publicity as HIV/AIDS as in the last decade, perhaps then we would need to regard it with as much urgency and momentum, for indeed it kills faster than even the Hepatitis viral infection.

I have been a direct victim of road traffic accidents, I have been subdued under the influence of trauma and I have also found out that mistakes are just as inevitable as outcomes. Reckless driving and casual flouting of road signs and traffic laws are important causes of road traffic accident but they must not be marketed as though they are the chief reasons why road mishaps happen.

Portraying this rather myopic and insensate line of thought can be akin to treating symptoms instead of underlying causes, and this is nothing short of useless therapy, if that term is expressive of my ideals. The underlying problem with Nigeria is ignorance and its endless sequelae, malignant spread, which for the benefit of this essay, is not in tandem with my scope of discuss. (see Nigerian newspapers).

My objective is to right myself a motive behind channelling all the focus and funds at IFEMED’s disposal into the pursuance of what some have termed as an “echolalia” of better periodical contemporaries(see DOKITA, Ibadan). But to get a clear picture, a large canvass on which I can spot my thoughts is necessary, hence my endless purposeful digression on governance, transportation and all the major players involved.

The bottom-line assessment is that road traffic accidents have become a contagious disease been spread by a major vector in Nigeria, Ignorance and its octopodus manifestations, and if definitive plans of extinguishing this vector is not put in place, we shall be eternally busy as doctors treating symptoms and signs rather than diagnosis.

Lessons from the Brief Wondrous Life of Da Grin.

1. Chase Your Dream
Even a five year old knows what s/he wants from life, but it’s one thing to want something, it’s another thing to follow through. It is a popular misnomer that you must have all the ingredients and qualifications you need to get want you. Not necessary!

Da Grin is a quintessential. He did not attend any university to learn how to spit solid lyrics like he did in his lifetime.


2. Try Again
You might not get it right the first time and the sooner you get that caveat into your head, the sooner you understand the import of doing things again, be it the same way.

Still on the matter, Da Grin’s first effort could be discarded as ineffectual and if he had let it rest there, he probably would never have achieved the starling success of his second effort, the classic C.E.O album.

3. Stay on Point
And after you have done it right the first time. You must make a habitual repeat of success in every endeavour. This must be your rule of thumb.

C.E.O, hopefully, would not be the last we would hear from Da Grin, especially as his death occasioned the release of his “Before I die”. Easily he becomes the artist who foresaw his death and this is mastery, however you want to regard it.

4. Dont Drink and Drive
Life is short; it has no duplicate. This, perhaps, is the most important lesson from Da Grin’s life. No one is totally sure if it is his inebriation that led to the fatal car crash.
But there is something about fate catching up with you especially if you make a habit of drinking and driving,
most especially on Nigerian roads which, of course, have not earned the asphaltic right to be reffered to as such.Blame it on the politicians.
It is instructional that if you must drink you should have a spare teetotaller driver, so you can spare your life from death’s bludgeon.

5. Always wear a Grin.
Da Grin would be remembered for a whole lot. For his attitude to life, for his attitude to his craft, for his humor which, i think, is important to any artist.

The joy and fondness that comes from the way he portrayed himself in pictures would endear him to many, and many more.

Beyond Labor Pains

In the gathering of accomplished R&B musicians, Syleena Johnson is worthy of mention. Not just because she is has a heritage rich in music (as her father was Syl Johnson), but that she has carved for herself a niche in the genre in which she practises.

Her albums, for one, have been a musical documentation of experiences that draw deeply from love, relationships and other emotional details. And from the names she gives each effort, it seems she is penning the draft of a book and releasing them in instalments/chapters. To her credits are four chapters that plumb the recesses and permutations of emotional scenarios, and for the benefit of this review, I will write about the fourth chapter.

Chapter four is subtitled Labor Pains, and we have an opening interlude which is a rather unnecessary parody of Syleena’s acoustic plight as it negotiates its way through her birth canal. And there is another interlude worthy of mention, Redstorm Domestic Lesson, a spoken word session, which reprimands men who make women subservient to them. Very sympathetic to the female cause and 21st century-ish.

What I find remarkable about Syleena’s music is her depth. R&B is generally regarded as the genre that takes into account every gritty detail of emotion but Syleena liberates her brand and plunges it beyond the coffers of soft sentimental droll.

After listening to Labor Pains severally, I could marry the title, which I initially found rather unapt, into the core message and the looming theme that string most, if not every, song on this album together. Her Labor Pains extends beyond the gamut of a parturient; it morphs into a collective noun that capsulate the history and the reality of being black. The album confronts what it entails to be female, black and human respectively. Without being overly didactic, this album explores previous black experiences with much newer accounts and marries them together on the altar of Soul.

Easily, Syleena becomes the officiating chorister who sings into the depth of being black and her arsenal is not only her distinct voice, she also draws from the culture of Chicago blues. This album is tainted with the unmistakable quaint feel of the blues of yesteryears and this is perhaps why its reach would not extend beyond the hearts of true music lovers. It reaffirms that this album would not spill into pop charts or become an essential radio song.

Although there is the issue of unevenness of quality of the featured songs, this helps to jar at the hearts of Syleena lovers who would forgive rather dismissively. And one last thing, this album would be fondly remembered.

Saraba's latest effort: The Niger Delta Issue.

A man's thoughts and Mine.

A sixth studio album is no lean feat; it proves that whoever is on the other side of the speaker has consistency and substantial following as propellers. Well, Ginny as a lot more than that. He is a married father, “small town” dancing crooner with a lot of regard for his fans, hence each effort follows the slant of his musical career—not careening, just a slow lilt—and a rather remarkable thing about the guy is that he doesn’t have the delusion of the great R & B album being in his rather under-utilised vocal cords.
A Man’s Thoughts, no doubt, draws from previous efforts: upbeat tracks that necessitate slow movement, great love songs with a tinge of erotica and bland interludes. Personally, I think, Ginuwine should learn a lot from Carl Thomas whose interludes are short songs that sometimes outwit full-length songs in his album. It is worthy of note that these interludes are no audio movies, unlike The Senior.
I am biased to Ginuwine. I think his song writing is crappy, very below par in terms of intellectual engagement, but music is not “writing”, what makes a song or an album is appeal. A good album must appeal to several human conditions. I have found out that we humans attach songs as memory aids often.
So what do we have in this album other than good love songs that you can croon on the bed or in the car: nothing. But that should suffice, after all the album holds a shelf slot in the R & B department, the most mawkish of all contemporary music genres, and the direct consequence is that it must appeal to the lover, the loved and the bed.
Trouble is a great track, upbeat and all, but Orchestra is a personal fav(actually reminds me of someone). The song blows me away every time, the lyrics holds water. Show me the way has some recurring cords that surface in the most bizarre places e.g toilet. This album can best be described as a long playing continuum with several spots of brilliance and the rest is at best accounted for by mediocrity.
Anyway, I like it.

Saraba Issue 4b

Immigrant blues

A review of Segun Afolabi’s A Life Elsewhere
I find the title of this debut story collection A Life Elsewhere apt, for indeed what the author seeks to achieve with these seventeen stories or so is a literary embellishment of an anthropological concept. It is notable that there is no eponymous story which lends it title to the collection as trends demand. The title seems to be grafted from the motive behind each story: an exposition into the Immigrant Experience, a thematic concern most Nigerian writers residing abroad often flirt with.
Perhaps the sudden removal from their culture and their erstwhile homeland often metes upon them the desire to pose their experience as narratives. The bulk of Adichie’s short stories in The Thing around Your Neck dwell on this theme; Habila’s The Immigrant (check African-writing.com) also grazes this topic, although with less authorial imperialism; Chika Unigwe’s Phoenix about a Nigeria woman’s international marriage and consequences thereof…the list continues. In essence, one can make an educated guess that their accounts are autobiographic in its trappings (his short biography offers a glimpse at his itinerant childhood); but more than this, they are graphic in expression and intention to attest that it is indeed not a bed of roses as we are often misled by the gallant display of Diaspora returnees. Hence the stories are suffused with a strong sense of setting and estrangement.
Monday Morning, the Caine-Prize winning story, chronicles the tale of a refugee family particularly of a young son; their efforts to fit into the community that their homeland wars had put them. As you grope deeper into the narrative, Mr Afolabi recruits all sort of characters. This arrangement gathers little boys, overweight adolescents, religious fanatics and delusional pensioners—the characters own interesting profiles and engaging stories to dispense. They tell their tales with varying voices and point of view(s), assuming voices that would best suit their predicament and temperament. So what we have is an assorted delivery of similar vignettes.
Their narratives share a lethargy and vagueness, a sort of listlessness that is either an ingenious effort of the author or his signature style that would probably balk the aesthetics of his subsequent offerings. Be that as it may, this style suits the stories and if the readers allows themselves to be absorbed, they would come away with the contagious grief that is rooted shallow in the lives of the characters. So here is a sound off warning: detach yourself from these stories else you catch on the Immigrant blues.
However there are some stories that leave one wondering if the manuscript ever encountered a competent editor. Some hackneyed phrases and clichés, and even warped imaginations could have been cured with the slightest editorial pruning. Unimaginative descriptions like in The Husband of My wife’s Best Friend, a character’s face was described as an “uncooked doughnut “not only appalls and undermines the author’s creativity, it is a matchless evidence of the gaping hole existing in the chain of Book Publishing. But one cannot put this book down on this premise. Most, if not all, the stories of this collection have appeared in several international literary journals.
The book is indeed a panoramic survey of the Diaspora experience that leaves one with a lasting impression: that fiction is at its best when close to reality.