RELIGION AND THE HEAVY LOAD ON THE NECK OF AFRICA

In China, ten-year-old are already talking technology.
In USA, they can already find their way through the internet with computers.
In UK, they're already potential intellectuals with great political knowledge.
They're already learning self defense in Isreal while in Canada, they already have a good academic root.
You'd be shocked to know fifteen-year old Germans have become well versed in automobiles meanwhile in Afrika as a whole, we wake up talking religion and go to bed hugging religion like some moronic homo sapiens.

Exactly as I am doing. Right, exactly as we are doing and this malady progress, well, to old ages. From generation to generation in an endless circle like a decay in a bone marrow, clutching us in our balls and dragging us down to the ground in a never ending battle.

The brazen devotion and idiocy with which we practice this imported malady called religion is nauseating to a fault and calls for general concern because it's really one if not Afrika's biggest undoing.

I am asked here and there what religion should be replaced with in its absence because Afrika and Afrikans are so used to it that its absence isn't pleasant to imagine. Then I am forced to ask why we are not keen on replacing cured deadly ailments with other ailments?

Why rejoice you're free of cancer when you should be debating what your now dead cancer should be replaced with? Who wants a replacement for deadly viruses like AIDS and Ebola? Doesn't it feel good having them disappear and disappear for good?

This ludicrously ridiculous concept of religion is dragging us on the floor while hindering the progress of Afrika. Just the other day, I was denied a job I merited simply because I lacked the balls to pretend or lay allegiance to a certain religion sect.
When appointments are based on belief and direct sentiments rather than merit, we can only have the Afrika we have.

I've an online USA family friend we'd known for five years and counting who to date, have never bothered to care what religion I am of. However, they rather find the idea of Afrika and original Afrikan culture fascinating.
On the flip side, what mattered to them is that I am humane.

Yet the neighbors I met yesterday are so keen on having me join their religion bandwagon. They're so eager to see me wear those spiritual chain again and see me in that highly despised mental prison. To what end? To satisfy an ideology which originality have no true bearing with us.

The amazing thing is that once an Afrikan changes abode, their thinking changes. Yet, a Nigerian friend I'd known for some years who lives and studies abroad- has never queried me with religion. In fact it has never been part of any of our discussion for about five years.

That's just the case with lot of Afrikans in diaspora and we're still looking for a chalk-coured eye dibia to tell us what our ill is.

The god (God) and religion concept should be a personal experience and nothing to throw into the fulcrum of a society. Especially a wonky one like Afrika looking to stand up.

We should really go back to being humans. Really try and bundle religion back to the owners who unfortunately need it no more because it's as cancerous as it is.

THE MAD MAN CALLED 'A WRITER'

If he is fortunate enough, he has a crappy room to himself.

The room is stashed with books and papers; from the floor to the bed, to the cardboard and down to the top of his glass of drinking water.

Most of the books are opened to page 20, 100-80 and so, placed face-down waiting to be picked again.

Sometimes, he'd sleep with a pen in hand. Other times, he'd sleep with a blank page beside him and wake up with a bomb five-line poetry on it. He'd watch paint dry and call it art, watch a woman walk barefooted at the beach and call it novel.

His computer and phone is full of what could be junks to the average human being. They're full of information and files that only him could read meanings into.

Within a short time, his phone and computer storage space is filled up with his large accumulated junks.

On average, he has very few friends. He Has a strange perception of people he call friends. It might be that bloke wondering what he's doing in his life.
And those people who call him friends, to him may not be seen so.

Thanks to the internet, he has his own audience and some serious online like minds whom when he isn't in his rooms overworking his brains, he chats away time with. Here, he fare better than his predecessors who spoke to the walls and listened to the trees.

He's a chronic thinker. He never stops because he can't. His brain is always busy. And for a fee of I million Dollar, he can't get his head to rest.

More often than not, He's filled a thousand books with writing. Most of which will never see the light of the day. Most of which he'd be too embarrassed to look at tomorrow. He sees everything as story and everyone as a character.

In his head, a thousand stories line up unfinished. he have a big black board in his head where he records everything intellectual to the detriment of little details that could no longer fit in.

His head is so messed up he'd probably forget his birthday. His father's birthday, his mother's maiden name and the name of the lady he's crushing on.

He's got hundreds of contacts on his phone and when he scrolls through it, he's asking himself 'who is this?' and 'who is that?'
He'd ask you your name today, tomorrow, the next and the next. You could have a lunch with him today and tomorrow he's forgotten your face but he has the content of the book he read five years ago imbibed in his mind, word for word. He's that strange.

He finds himself in a crowd and he'll always manage to be alone. He didn't even know how but he always manages to find himself alone. He could stay locked up in his room all day and think it some kind of fun. He'd stare at the flowers all day and prefer the chirp of the birds to any other music.

He's going to somewhere, he lost way, the average normal human being would be panicky but not this one.

He's smiling. He's looking around and he's reading signs. He's picking up details and storing it out in his head. Before he know it, he's in another street and already given up on his original destination.

If he could, he'd even book a room and lodge for the night. He'll visit the reception at night and watch people living the life. He's grinning and laughing out the moment then the next minute, he isn't there anymore; his head has wandered out again.

It could be to the past, it could be an impossible future but then that's it. He passes the night and sets off the next day.

There's an accident on the road, people are shuddering and waiting but he is watching- he's taking mental notes; how disfigured was the car? What colour?

He's hardly sane. A woman is crying but he saw 'A hopeless looking woman whose left cheek was plastered by blood that trimmed down the little cut on her forehead. She was seated on her bag dumped by the roadside, a little further away from the crashed car, clad in half thorn gown, ripped down from her waist revealing a red satin undies which she didn't mind. Clasped between her hands was a breathless 3-year old whose eyes were shut and limbs lifeless, jaw knocked open through where red mass of shattered gums stared at the world...'

He's an idiot you know? He isn't even cringing. He's thrown his gaze into the bus, there's a sticker pasted on the windshield. He's reading the inscription on it, he's looking at the ghostly driver and he's calculating how many more seconds before the police car blaring its siren will arrive.

He has a very odd schedule; you could see him sleeping by 10 Am and eating at 4 Am.

You wake up by 3 AM to use the bathroom and there he is either seated and staring at his computer or his phone screen smiling foolishly at a joke you don't get.

Basically he lives in his own world. And he's created a thousand other words in his head which he always put down in writing.

When he finally present his works to the world, if he was lucky, the world would accept the strange worlds he created, the story, everything- otherwise they'd brand him the mad man he always is.

The truth is, he's not normal. Never was and probably never will. He's hardly sane and in some extreme cases could pass on for a mentally deranged.

He's talking to himself; it's a meeting, a conference and what have you. He's being the characters he created- the sane and the insane, speaking for them and sounding as stupid as you can imagine.

But don't worry, he's probably not totally mad but he's mad anyway.

WHY TALK TO A GRAVE?

Last week, I posted a documentary on Nollywood ace, Nkiru sylvanus on Igboist (BY Maria Ude Nwachi). Of the about 2k comments, hundreds of people had something demeaning to say about the post and I the poster. A lot complained what use the article was and how jobless could I be to be parading another person's story on social media?


The Next day, I posted another documentary on the same platform but this time, it was of a late Nollywood Veteran, Sam Loco Efe. There were over 1k comments and replies under the post, all expressing sadness, admiration and love for the deceased actor. Not a single person attacked me or queried the essence of the post.


I don't know whether to call it hypocrisy on our part or what to make of it. I've read that the only blameless man is a dead one, still why do we prefer talking to the dead than the living? On a personally conviction, why do people get overly emotional when death is a topic?


I don't subscribe to that school of thought that is against speaking ill of the dead. If I don't find it hypocritical, I find it foolish, extremely stupid to demean the living at the expense of the dead.

Recently, a young lady reportedly committed suicide and for a while, my Whatsapp status and Facebook news feed were pregnant with eulogies of her. Hundreds of tribute with her pictures littered everywhere.


It was then that I got to see some of her works shared by her supposed friends. It turned out that some close people to me personally knew her yet, as a struggling poet looking for a ground to stand on, none of her works crossed my part while she was alive while I was harassed with a hundred of them after her death.


None of her friends found her works worthy enough of being showcased about while she was alive but suddenly they had heightened zeal to share her works and talk about her when she died. How good she was. How strong she was. How much of a fighter she was.


The same thing happened during the tragic end of one promising Akachi. Today, a lot of Facebook people still have Akachi sitting on their profile as their DP. To what end?


You are busy sharing works and photos of celebrities unsolicited while neglecting the people around you. You really don't owe anybody any care in the world, but people like me find it annoying and embarrassing when you start acting the caring entity towards them when they die.


When you'll suddenly start dusting your gallery in search of a photo where two of you might have mistakenly appeared together or a conversation that happened eons ago so you can come here and tell lies that will sooth your conscience.


Why do we have so much to say about the dead but the living? Why would we rather talk to a grave than to the next person standing before us? Is it ego...or is it our ego that's blocking the way?


I really don't know how to play this extreme game of pretext that will have me wailing at the death of someone I really didn't care about. I don't know how to do it. I'm either talking about you while you live or I'm not talking about you when you die.


If you're beautiful, I'll tell you.

If I admire you, I'll let it be known or it would end at that.

If your works are good to me, you deserve to know or I would never pretend they were good just because you've beat me to that journey of no return.


Over the years, I've learned to appreciate the people in my life. Learned to look them in the eyes and tell them stuff. Just like everybody, I've been hit by the death of loved ones and I've realized that talking to the grave does nobody any good.


If I haven't said something nice to you, or done something fine for you, may our parts cross.

I celebrate the living. Not just the dead.

ANGEL COULBY

The 48 kg, 5 foot, 3 inches actor with a body measurements of 36-26-34 has one of the most harmonious body earning her the unpopular title of 'the sexiest actor alive.'


Born: 30 August 1980 (age

Angel Coulby With Bradley James

 39 years) in London, United Kingdom.

Height: 1.62 m

Nationality: British.


Coulby obtained a degree in acting at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh and achieved a first.


The Afro-Guyanese was first seen in an episode of Scariest Places on Earth as a student who had an encounter with a ghost. Her breakthrough came in 2001 with her role in the Johnny Vaughan BBC sitcom 'Orrible'. She was later chosen to play Gwen, a young maid also known as Guinevere who would later become Queen of Camelot, in the BBC One fantasy TV series Merlin.


Although the English actress is best known for her role as Gwen, she came into the spotlight in 2001 when she was portrayed as Shiv Clark in a British television sitcom – 'Orrible'– produced by the BBC.




Angel Coulby’s performance as Gwen was indeed her most famous role. …but she has also appeared in several other television series. You can find her as Katherine in Doctor Who. Recently she appeared as Jessie Taylor, Laura Roebuck, Julia Redhead, and Melina in “Dancing on the Edge” (where She took the star role of the jazz singer Jessie in the BBC Two Stephen Poliakoff five-part 2013)


She also stared in “The Tunnel”, “Undercover” and “Hooten & the Lady” respectively.


She was nominated for Monte Carlo TV Festival Award for her brilliant performance in Merlin, in the category of Golden Nymph Outstanding Actress for Drama Series.


Angel Coulby is a mother of one. She had her kid in 2019.


Though she's unmarried, little known fact is that she's been in a romantic relationship with fellow Merlin cast, Bradley James (Prince Arthur), since 2011.


Their real romance started following their act in the. BBC blockbuster fantasy, Merlin.


The actor is believed to be worth $5m with the majority of her earning coming from sponsorship.