Oladipo Ademola Esq

I can not deny that I love banking with Guaranty Trust Bank. They do their best to make me happy. Even, commissioning Asa to sing their theme song, and its a lovely song.

You can get the song from here.

Wouldn’t you rather take my hand and let me lead. Wont you rather trust me?

Guaranteed to take the lead. Guaranteed to be the best in all that I do.

Cool. Relaxing. Asa, damn girl, you are good. 

Saturday night. My mind was set on spending a great part of it at Swe Bar and Lounge (primarily because I had heard that it is a cool place to while away time in the midst of drinks and flat screen TVs). But, sometime in the day, I lost the urge to give my liver the prime job of filtering alcohol, so I convinced my friend, Wale, to chauffeur me around town.

First, we visited the e-center at Sabo, but for a Saturday night, it was unusually dull. Sorry, it was UNUSUALLY DULL. (Emphasis intended). He received a call from a client to come to Victoria Island, so off we headed to the Island. In our characteristic manner, he called the client and postponed the appointment to Sunday. Perfection.

Still we were headed to the Island, so we agreed to just pop in to Swe Bar, but he doesn’t drink. Mind changed. Again. How about Feeds? He asked. I replied, no problem. We got there and I corrected him, its called Reeds and not Feeds. Correction taken.

We tried strutting in. Yes, I said tried. The security man wouldn’t let us in. My friend was in shorts. I was in leather slippers. I was ok, he wasn’t. Still we convinced him to let us in. And no, we did not bribe him.

Inside, I experienced some kind of serenity that was worth every kobo I spent there. You need to have a business dinner? This is the place for it. You need to impress that lady? (note: I did not use the word chick) This is the place for it. You just feel like lazing about? This is not the place for it.

I ordered a shot of Remy Martin VSOP. Needed something to start the night with. I called a lady friend of mine and she advised me not the get drunk. I gave a simple reply…with their prices, its going to have to be a very expensive drunkenness. Wale doesn’t drink, so we had to order food.

Nice looking menu. Then again, I am not used to restaurants of this class. All the items on the menu looked the same (save for the description of what was contained – which all still looked very similar). Good waiter, he helped me make a decision. I chose the Gai Pad Med.

(i didnt take any pictures, found these on the web. got’em from here and here. my order was similar to that in the distance)

It was a lovely meal. Period. Ordered a Fruit Punch. Wale ordered a Milkshake and a Chapman. I ordered the bill.

We left and headed for home. We spent about 2 hours there and enjoyed every bit of it. Now, I heard All Roads Lead to Bacchus down the road. Tomorrow?

A Nation’s Identity Crisis
By Reuben Abati
You may not have noticed it: Nigeria is suffering from an identity crisis imposed on it in part by an emergent generation of irreverent and creative young Nigerians who are revising old norms and patterns. And for me nothing demonstrates this more frontally than the gradual change of the name of the country. When Flora Shaw, Lord Lugard’s consort came up with the name, Nigeria in 1914, she meant to define the new country by the strategic importance of the Niger River. And indeed, River Niger used to be as important to this country as the Nile was/is to Egypt. We grew up as school children imagining stories about how Lugard in one special romantic moment, asked his mistress to have the honour of naming a new country in Africa. Something like: “Hello, sweetheart, what name would you rather give the new country that I am creating?”
“Let me give it a thought? , Awright, how about Ni-ge-ria darling?”
“That would do. That would do. How thoughtful, my fair lady? You are forever so dependable”

And the name stuck and it has become our history and identity. But these days, the name Nigeria is gradually being replaced by so many variants, that I am afraid a new set of Nigerians may in the immediate future not even know the correct spelling of the name of their country. For these Nigerians whose lives revolve mostly around the internet and the blogosphere, the name Nigeria has been thrown out of the window. Our dear country is now “naija” or “nija”. What happened to the “-eria” that Ms Shaw must have thoughtfully included? The new referents for Nigeria are now creeping into writings, conversations, and internet discourse. I am beaten flat by the increasing re-writing of the country’s name not only as naija or nija, but consider this: “9ja”. Or this other name for Nigeria: “gidi”. There is even a television programme that is titled “Nigerzie”. In addiiton, Etisalat, a telecom company has since adopted a marketing platform that is titled: “0809ja.” Such mainstreaming of these new labels is alarming.
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And to think that Trybe records started in Nigeria. Now Eldee is a “big boy”, his trybe gear is only shipping to US destinations.

Stock Photo - Couple, Sex

Before I go on, please note that this post is not a professional opinion, but it is my opinion. I intend discussing sex from my point of view. What has worked for me, which might work for you. I know I have discussed sex before, but now my eyes are open.

Sex is good. Good sex is better. I have had my experiences in the past, both good and bad. I decided to analyse my past sexperiences, comparing the good and bad, with the aim of discovering what made good sex good and bad sex bad.You wont expect me to disclose how many partners have had or who I have had sex with (but if they are reading this, you’ll know when I refer to you. The bad ones, I hope we’ll improve. The good ones, when next?)

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There will be no activity on this blog for a while, moving my efforts over to Music Naija (http://musicnaija.net). Please come visit us.

Before I start this post, please remember that tomatoes are expensive, so don’t waste them by throwing them at me.

I have not been able to make any post for a while, been busy. I was working on a site Shape-a-Life.  It is a portal for youth providing articles, programmes and mentors. They are working on the mentorship programme where youth can apply to be mentored, a mentor is selected and assigned to the applicant.

It is still a work in progress, and I’ll appreciate it if you take a stroll over there and please tell someone.

I have been in a lot of discussions with different folks over the issue of sex. I can say that views are highly divergent. Some folks swear by sex, some live for sex, some consider it a taboo of sorts, others fall into other categories. My view? Sex is highly over-rated.

Too many people place too much emphasis on sex. Even after 30 minutes of the most dramatic acrobatics, its over. Ever seen anyone have sex for 24 hours non stop. A friend of mine was said he would die if he did not have sex at least twice a week. Even he could not go 24 hours.

My question, whats the big deal about sex? Sex here refers to the act that occurs after penetration is made. (Sorry, no discussions about gay sex – though I think they should have some form of penetration too).

View this post.

Do not misunderstand me, Christmas is lovely and wonderful. I love it. I desperately love it. But folks nowadays have a tendency to overdo some things in the spirit of celebration.

Fireworks, crackers and as they are well known here – bangers. Why would someone light a cracker and throw it into a bus filled with people? Or light it in a shop?

Even I have had my fair share of misbehaving with crackers. December 1998, I threw a cracker into our toilet to see the effect of water raising from the explosion. I leave the rest to your imagination. No, I don’t. I’ll tell you what happened. I rendered the toilet unusable for days. Water was leaking to the flat of our neighbours living on the floor below us. I lost quite a lot of pocket money.

Last year, 2006, I had to get fuel for my generator. No filling station operating so I had to settle for black market. People were comfortable throwing bangers in our direction when we were tranferring feul from keg to jerry can. Haba, respect the power of fuel.

On a brighter note, I expect that you will send me my share of whatever you eat. Email it to me, zipped of course.  Wishing you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidys and a fulfilling New Year.

2am (I think). Friday 16 November 2007. Silverbird TV. Legends of Nollywood with Paul Obazele.

I worked through the night to get a demo of a website ready for the morning, the programme came on and I decided to invest 30 minutes into educating myself (yeah right!). Paul featured the director/producerof “Two Good Friends” featuring Mr Ibu. Blah, blah, blah. The part that got my attention was the point when he mentioned (I’ll try to quote that part)

• Q: is it true that your movie sold 70,000 copies
• A: a movie selling 70,000 is not considered a success.
• Q: so would you consider this movie a success?
• A: this movie sold over a 100,000 copies and i would consider it successful. we initially printed 20,000 copies for the first part, another 20,000 for the second part. later due to demand, we printed another 5,000 copies for each and later another 5,000 each. in all, we printed well over a 100,000 copies.

– imagine that. If a producer needs to consider part 1 and 2 of a movie released at the same time as counting to the sales of the movie, who are we fooling. IMHO, if a movie was released as part 1 and 2 simultaneously, isn’t it logical to slash the “presumed” sales figure by 2 to get the “actual” sales figure.

By his calculation, he indicated roughly a 100,000 sales figure. His figure. My figure, the guy sold less than 50,000 (don’t forget some copies will be given out for free).

This is the same mentality that other producers and directors have in calculating their sales figures.

Imagine the actual figure of a movie releasing parts 1 to 3 at the same time. Nollywood, truly Naija.