THE LOSS OF INNOCENCE

Recently I read two stories that broke my heart. They were the usual ritual tales of how unsuspecting persons are led to their deaths by people they trust. The reason these Nigerian ‘true’ stories broke my heart was because in both tales, children were the victims. One was a JSS 3 boy who was sold for a black nylon bag full of money by his classmates. By the time the curious Keke Marwa driver who had been chauffeuring them that afternoon got suspicious and dropped them at the police station to report the case, the victim’s head and genitals had already been chopped off. The second story was about how a 7year old boy was seduced with a N50 loaf of bread by a neighbour who beheaded him after drowning him in a nearby River. All this for a huge sum of money a ‘guy’ in Abuja would pay them if the fresh human head was delivered as promised. The first case happened on the 19th of July, 2012 in Lagos State and the second case reported by DailyPost online Newspaper on the 25th of July, 2012, happened on July 22nd 2012 in Nasarawa State (both states are in Nigeria).

Though I was saddened by the stories, I couldn’t help feeling poverty, lack of contentment and greed were to blame for such dilemma. What has our society become? When did the value for human life become nothing in the bid to make money? I know such tales have been around since before the British Invasion in the late 19th century but with global communications and advancement, one would think such desperate people would have been empowered enough to work hard and make their own money and name in life with clean hands. Such barbaric practises should have been disregarded by now especially with tales of how people’s talents and hard work have helped them rise above poverty. And how come children now feel the need to make money up to the point where human life has only monetary value? Aren’t parents supposed to meet the needs of their children when they are young and teach them financial accountability as they grow older?

Reading those stories forced me to instantly reflect on the Good Ol’ Days when I was a 7year old toddler and when I was in Junior Secondary School - JSS 3 to be precise. I could vividly remember how innocent I was. At 7yrs of age, I used to spend playtime in my neighbours’ houses: Uncle Papa, the German white man would give us chocolates; Origomisan’s mum would let us come play in her house while her daughter would babysit us in our parents’ absence. The Ekongs would let us hang out with their sons watching TV and playing with their aquarium while the Babas would allow us eat lunch, sleep over and enjoy their children’s company despite them being Muslims and we being Christians. We had no reason to worry - neither did our parents - that some harm would come to us from associating with neighbours.

In JSS 3, we trying to decide our future career path based on the choice of subjects we chose to focus our study on when we enter the Senior Secondary School, SSS1 to be precise. Emotionally we spent our time talking to our classmates over the company estate’s landlines about crushes, people that were dating, receiving and rejecting love-letters from admirers, not to mention how easy it was for the opposite sex to break our heart. Sure there was a financial social strata everyone fell into but rather than try to escape the reality of our parents’ financial state, we sort ways to be acknowledged. Sometimes we’d seek academic excellence, other times we would rely on our social skills or personality traits. The naughty ones would break school rules just to be the ‘badest guys’ on the block. We watched Tom & Jerry, Voltron, Disney cartoons etc and dreamed of living happily forever after. No one ever sought personal get rich quick scheme just to fit in. Where did the innocence of our childhood go and how can we bring it back?

Talk Movies (Movie review)

Imprisoned by the torrent of rains this rainy season, I was finally able to watch most of the block buster movies released in the first half of the year. I’ll mention a few and run through my opinions of them. First up on my list is:

The Avengers:- I remember being at the Cinema in May wanting to watch this movie and I can still taste my disappointment when I was told the ticket was sold out. It has been sold out for 2 weeks in a row since the movie premiered and getting a ticket was still hard. I finally had to settle for watching the pirated version and when I was done, I could see why the movie was so hyped.

It was action packed with humour and great visual effects. I was at the edge of my seat for this one. This superhero film produced by Marvel Studios (based on the Marvel Comics superhero team) and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures was worth the wait. Anyway with a star studded cast such as Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, and Samuel L. Jackson, it’s no wonder why this movie was such a box office hit. It’s currently the highest-grossing 2012 film, covering its estimated $220 million production cost 12 days after its release.

Lucky for me I watched Mirror Mirror (starring Julia Roberts as the witch) before I got around to this movie. If you didn’t, too bad. You might not be able to appreciate the humour of Mirror Mirror if you watched it after this movie. Back to the film at hand....*clears throat*.

Snow White and the Huntsman:- I totally adore this movie starring Kristen Stewart (Snow White), Charlize Theron (Ravenna), Chris Hemsworth (the Huntsman), Sam Claflin (William), Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Eddie Marsan, Toby Jones all as Dwarves. It was brilliant! The movie gave depth to the story while keeping all the elements of the story intact. The dialogue tight, Charlize Theron’s performance was on point, great unexpected twists, cool special effects and no wasted scene in this movie, although I agree, the scenes were poorly paced. The movie answered my childhood questions about the Snow White fairytale like ‘what was the hype about being 'the fairest of them all'?’ and ‘how come the queen kept snow white all these years?’. But what I loved the most was the redefinition of ‘true love’s kiss’. The only parts I didn’t enjoy was the end - the fight between Snow White and Queen Ravenna wasn’t up to par with my expectation and there was such a lag in the last scene that I was left wondering, now that she’s crowned, what next?

Wrath of the Titans:- Really? Do I have to speak on this one? I wasn’t impressed.

With a tagline: ‘Feel the Wrath’, I expected more devastation and challenges for Perseus (played by Sam Worthington) besides fighting the God of war Ares (played by Edgar Ramirez), a 2 headed fire-breathing beast and evading Cyclopes. It sincerely lacked a great storyline with humorous unforgettable characters besides Perseus. I admit it had its moments like Andromeda’s war cry after Zeus (played by Liam Neeson), Hades (played by Ralph Fiennes) and Perseus defeated Kronos; and the part where Helius (played by John Bell) told Agenor, Poseidon’s son (played by Toby Kebbell) that he heard he was a great disappointment and Agenor agreed that he was ‘great’ totally omitting the disappointment part. At least now the world understands why the Greek gods are no more and why it’s called Greek ‘mythology’. I’m glad the God I serve doesn’t die or disappear into oblivion when people stop praying to Him. He may have taken up human form like Zeus but only to conquer sin and death; before he transcended to the heavens where we go to join him when we die.

Safe house:- if you haven’t watched this movie, let me just tell you now, it’s the most realistic espionage movie I’ve watched this quarter. Ryan Renolds put up such a spectacular performance, I promised to never look at him and think ‘funny’ ever again. Denzel Washington of course, gave a stellar performance as Tobin Frost (the human asset manipulator). In the making of this movie, Ryan actually bashed Denzel’s nose in the car fight scene and the production had to be halted till Denzel’s nose bleed had subsided. Every time there was a fight scene or gun battle, I held my breath because it was brutally intense. Even though it was your usual protect the ‘guest’ kind of CIA storyline, it was quite entertaining to watch. I love this quote from the movie, “You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life”. Thumbs up to Daniel Espinosa for directing this action-thriller. It was a good one.

Safe:- I must confess, I am partial in my appreciation of movies especially when it stars people I love.

One of such loveable stars of mine is Jason Statham and this movie definitely got my attention. Playing an ex-cop (Luke Wright) whose past time gets him on the wrong side of the Russian Mafia and dirty cops, Jason’s character is saved from suicide by the sight of a little Chinese girl, Mei (played by Catherine Chan), in trouble. Two things in particular made me laugh in this movie 1. How he bad guys could always tell when Mei was lying and 2. How brutal Jason Statham was whenever he had to beat up anyone or take them down. So far, I think we’ve found the modern day Steven Seagal in hollywood. This movie might not have been a huge deviation from what we are used to seeing him do in other films like the Transporter, but that doesn’t stop this from being an enjoyable movie.

John Carter:- If you manage to start this movie and resist all attempts to get distracted, you won’t be as confused as I was when the story flashed back from what seems like modern day (just after the American Civil war) to the Arizona desert and then to Barsoon, which is actually Mars. The film is largely based on A Princess of Mars (1917), the first in a series of 11 novels to feature the interplanetary hero John Carter (Taylor Kitsch). Unlike most Disney movies, I appreciated the fact that with this movie, attention was given to Disney’s older audiences. Though it didn’t do so well in the North American box office, it was a huge hit elsewhere in places like Russia, China and Mexico where it remained nos.1 box office hit for two consecutive weekends. This sci-fi action/adventure movie is good for family entertainment.

Till I come online again to talk movies, enjoy your weekend.

Black Sunday

Today makes it exactly a month since the nation was thrown into a state of mourning. June 3rd, 2012 will forever be remembered by many Nigerians as the day they lost a loved one. In Northern Nigerian, Boko Haram struck in Tudun Yelwa, Bauchi State and in the South, Dana Air MD-83 aircraft crashed into a residential area in Iju-ishaga (Agege), Lagos. In one day, the nation lost over 200 lives due to preventable circumstances.

The death streak began at 9:15am when a suicide bomber tried to drive past a security checkpoint into Harvest Field Pentecostal Church which happens to be situated between two other churches, Living Faith Church (aka Winners Chapel) and Deeper Life. According to the Bauchi state police commissioner Mohammed Ladan, rumours of an attack on churches in that area had been received, hence the police set up check points close to the churches. The checkpoint helped to restrict the bomber’s direct access to the churches, thereby forcing him to ram his Honda car into the security gate where his explosives detonated causing the collapse of the wall of Harvest Field church and the deaths of members of Living Faith Church who were just closing from the first service and heading home. The Bauchi Chairman of CAN, Rev Lawi Pokti has claimed that 8 people were killed when the military came to protect the peace after the blast. In all, about 16 people (including the bomber) were killed and 61 persons were injured by the attack as stated by the the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Teaching Hospital (ATBUTH), Bauchi, Dr. Mohammed Alkali.

While we struggled to comprehend the reason for such a vicious attack on Christians the North, death was closer South than we thought. At about 3:30pm, eye witnesses say the aircraft was seen flying low and making some noises before its belly hit a church, a two-storey building, a printing press and a woodwork studio. The aircraft which was headed to Lagos from Abuja, was said to have issued a May Day call stating its engines had failed at 11miles from Lagos after the plane caught fire just before it disappeared off the scope of the Lagos Air Traffic Control and lost communication with the control tower, according to Nigerian Aviation News website. The distressed plane took down 153 passengers and crew including the American pilot that was aided by an Indian co-pilot and an Indonesian flight engineer. While on ground, about 40 persons’ lives were also cut short unexpectedly by the crash. Blackberry broadcast carrying the names of victims on the flight, sent even those who had no idea they knew someone on the flight into fits of tears as the tragedy was brought closer home.

Over the next few days, pain turned to rage as people sought who to blame for the tragedies. One of the rumours that circulated social media involved the information that a dignitary’s arrival at Lagos airport was responsible for why the plane could not land at the airstrip as at when due (http://www.nigeriafilms.com/news/17686/34/i-didnt-cause-dana-air-crash-presidents-wife-patie.html). Another information dispersed through social media was the history of the American-built aircraft and its numerous maintenance challenges which should have deemed it unfit to fly within the Nigerian airspace in the first place. While accusations, that the proximity of the police checkpoints to the church, filled the newspapers as the reason for effective attack on the churches in Bauchi. The Nigeria’s Civil Aviation Authority felt the blow the hardest as issues of unresolved inquisition into Bellview Boeing 737 airliner crash in 2005 resurfaced. It seemed despite the efforts made by both the Police and the Aviation ministry; tragedy was destined to strike that fateful day. Could anything have been done better to prevent those incidences from ever occurring again?

Prior to this occurrence, Nigeria had been granted top air-safety ratings known as Category 1 by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration because of its strides in aviation safety which included revoking the certifications for all airlines and allowing new airlines to take flight under increased scrutiny by a newly formed civilian aviation body. Apparently not enough had been done aggressively to take aging aircraft out of our airspace. This begs the question, what are our aviation regulatory bodies really doing? This is the 10th plane crash in Nigeria since 1992, do we always have to wait for a plan to crash before more is done to improve our aviation industry like decisively monitoring the state of airplanes allowed to fly in our airspace? In that fateful week, I too felt the loss experienced by most as a friend of mine died in a car accident along the Benin-Agbor road when her vehicle ran into a stationary broken down tanker parked along a winding road. These tragedies could have been avoided if monitoring and regulatory bodies did their jobs well.

Now the Nigerian people are left with what ifs. If only the high airfare paid by travellers were invested more into the maintenance of the air crafts and not into taxes paid to the government who are not doing their jobs effectively. If only the government took a more aggressive approach in curbing the menace of Boko Haram rather than telling us ‘...we are doing all we can...’. Even the US government believes the solution to the Boko Haram attacks involves a broad-based strategy that includes addressing national security as well as being involved in community development to eradicate poverty which feed the underlying grievances that promote acts of violence in the nation. The upside in all this was that for once, both north and south were one even in grief. For now, we can only pray that we never have to face such a terrible national loss again.