23-12-2010

Guess I’m back to dating my posts. Today’s post starts on a sad note. Yesterday I read about the passing on of Mr Sam Mbende, a former employee of Ecobank Transanational Inc, in The Punch newspaper. I met him in a meeting, and he came across a a very reasonable person. My boss has few good words for Nigerians in business as a generality; he contrasted Mr Mbende with the run-of-the-mill Nigerian in the corporate world. We still quote something he mentioned till today in the office: “the dynamics of the enterprise”.

I’m made to understand that his death might have been avoided if he got access to medical assistance on time. Which brings me to ask one question among others: with Lagos (in particular) as crowded and as traffic-jam-prone as it is, how can ambulances get to — or from — accident scenes in time to save victims? Every time I’m in major traffic, I wonder, “what if there’s an ambulance trying to save someone stuck in this?”. Unfortunately, Nigerians have largely decided to ignore sirens, mostly because of abuse by uniformed personnel (the police and military in particular), and ambulance drivers generally have no weapons to threaten anyone. Add the fact that I doubt that any emergency service has any choppers or VTOL aircraft, and you might see my point here. Maybe we should reintroduce the old law allowing only vehicles with license plates to move on the roads on particular days, but I’m sure people will find a way to circumvent that. At any rate, it’s food for thought (someone who can pass this on to the Lagos State Governor, please do. I will assume he’s a person shopping for ways to make life better for the people).

On a lighter note, here’s a conversation I had just this morning (reproduced as accurately as I can remember it):

She: Where’s my Christmas present?

Me: What Christmas present?

She: It’s Christmas. where’s my Christmas present?

Me: You should ask someone who believes in Christmas.

She: So you’re an Eckist or a Jehovah’s Witness?

Me: Any one.

She: Blood of Jesus! No wonder we never connected!

Me: At least today you’re honest.

And there you have it. She apparently forgot that I’d lent her a book by the late Kenneth E. Hagin, Exceedingly Growing Faith, which I would most likely not have done if I were in fact either an Eckist or a Jehovah’s Witness.

I’d like to ask: who passed the memo that I was to be hounded by degrees into a romantic relationship? If the comments I’m hearing these days are anything to go by, there are quite a number of people praying for me…maybe they should stop, as it doesn’t seem to have done much good. And no, trying to hook me up with women isn’t the answer, especially asking me how I like random women passing by.

Later.