I am not seventy, not even quite thirty years of age but I had a very eventful childhood: the kind that is filled with a lot of amusing reminiscence.
As an African child who grew up in Ibadan, the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa. I passed through different phases of development; mentally, physically, spiritually and metaphysically. My environment was a key factor in my developmental stages. Well, I mentioned metaphysically, yes it’s true and contrary to what many non-Africans and contemporary Africans believe, bizarre and unfathomable things still happen in our part of the world
When I was four years old, my family stayed in a flat in Ibadan, our landlady had two of her niece’s children staying with her. One of them was a girl named Wunmi aged five then. Her bother’s name was Koyejo, aged three. Omowunmi had the sickle cell anemia disease and was constantly sick. We were very close and as typical with kids, always played together. We attended the same school, ate and drank together.
One morning, as then was the norm; I went to call her so we could go to school together, but I found out she was seriously sick. I left and promised to see her after school. When I returned in the afternoon, my parents told me she had been taken to the hospital. By the evening, I had asked to go and see her about a hundred times. The mood in our house was a very sober one, everyone was quiet. I wandered into my room and stood at the window. I just saw Wunmi outside the room, at the window. I asked her so many questions at the same time- which hospital did she go to, when did she come back and all. She was just smiling and told me she just came back from the hospital. We had talked for about 5 minutes when my mum came into the room and asked me whom I was talking to. I turned my head to tell her it was Wunmi, I looked back and in a flash I did not see her again. My mum dragged me into the living room where I was quizzed about the bedroom chat with Wunmi. That night, though there was no rain but the wind was so strong.
The next morning, my parents tried in their best way to explain to my innocent four-year-old self that Wunmi died in the afternoon of the previous day. It wasn’t an easy task accepting that someone who still talked with me hours after she was supposed to have been dead. I fell sick that day and regularly saw her at intervals. My parents had to run from pillar to post before I stopped sighting her. And I regained my health afterwards, her plan being to take me along as playmate according to the post-diagnosis. Though I was young then, but I can never forget that experience and no matter my level of western influence, I believe in the existence of the unseen mysteries of our world and the fact that Satan uses different ways to scare us. It is thus very instructive years later to realise that the person I saw was not Wunmi but the devil’s trick to commit more crimes. It is such a privilege to be a believer now and understand the power of the spiritual.
My childhood was not only about mystical events; it was also filled with a lot of interesting scenarios. I fondly remember one day when our uncle came from Lagos to visit us in Ibadan. When he was leaving, he gave my sister and I, a one Naira note to share. Later that day, my sister demanded her own share of the money. I obliged her by simply tearing the note into two, giving her one. My dad almost laughed his head off when he found out what we did.
Or is it the day I came back from school and needed desperately to use the toilet. I met our door shut and while thinking of the net step to take, I let it all out. That day, I wanted the ground to open and swallow me because my mum came home that day with two of her pupils who were my age. It was so embarrassing when they saw me in that terrible state.
There were high moments too, moments of ecstasy and fulfilment. There was a quiz competition organised amongst classes four, five and six in my primary school. I represented primary four and the expectation was for primary six to win. But I proved soothsayers and bookmakers wrong by winning the first prize. It was such a sweet victory for my classmates and me.
Love? In our part of the world, most parents don’t believe that their under-ten kids do fall in love. When I was seven, a girl in my class got me thinking. I am the first born of my family, so I had no prior briefings about girls from an elder sibling. Since parents were not aware that it would be good for their wards to learn a few things, I had to rely on information I get from outside. So this girl in my class named Tope who contrastingly was the last-born of her own family came to help me out. She asked me to be her boyfriend and went ahead to explain all the technicalities of having a relationship. That marked the eating of the fruit of knowledge for me. Though I never accepted to be her boyfriend but that incidence made me understand what boy-girl relationship means.
If I look back to my childhood years; the kind of adventures that happened, some were very interesting and some were dangerous. I believe there is a guardian angel whose job is to prevent harms from being done to children. When I look back to those days, I sometimes want to re-live them and at times I shrink at the thought of those experiences. But I must say that it’s quite very wonderful growing up in Africa.

I wrote this piece back in 2005. It is fictitious but some of the events described were true. But some were just figments of the writer’s imagination. Enjoy it!

The scam and the man
Bode Adeigbe has just returned from an unproductive trip to the United States embassy. He was seeking a student visa to enable him pursue a masters degree in Information Technology at a University in the USA. Bode is a young Nigerian with a passion for Information and Communications Technology. He graduated from University two years earlier; his quest for more knowledge and expertise prompted him to consider doing his higher degree in the United States. The school had already offered him admission with half scholarship because of his high GRE scores, his parents have also promised to pay the rest of the tuition fees. It was therefore a traumatising experience for him when the uncooperative official at the US embassy denied him the student visa. In an attempt to take his mind off the experience, his parents and siblings encouraged him to seek employment in a good company in Nigeria, and maybe later apply to the embassy. He accepted their counsel and started submitting his resume to choice companies, his primary aim being the Telecommunications sector. Months after, he was still on the search.
One fateful day, he went out to check his email and got a message from a friend notifying him of an expatriate oil job vacancy in North America with mouth-watering offers. The advert specified that a consulting company based in the Netherlands was recruiting for the oil company involved. Bode was excited and applied for the job by sending an email with his resume attached as specified in the advert. Six weeks later, he received an email from the consulting company, inviting him for a job selection test in Cotonou, Benin Republic. It was indicated that he was going to be responsible for his travel expenses and other costs incurred coming for the test. He was however assured of a refund of such expenses if selected for the job at the end of the process. This triggered a series of questions in his mind. He wondered why he should leave Nigeria to go and do a test in Benin Republic, he was also curious to know why an oil company that is willing to pay so much couldn’t sponsor the trip. Finally, why would the consulting company not send the test invitation by land mail or call him, but chose to send an email, which is at a very cheap rate. He pondered on these thoughts and decided to investigate the authenticity of the consulting company.
He went to the Internet and browsed their website. The information on the website claimed that the company uploaded the website two years earlier. Bode as an Information Technology enthusiast managed to get to the image directory of the website and discovered that the website was actually uploaded just three months ago. He also noticed that there was no physical address of the company on the website. Prompted by these discoveries, he made up his mind to get to the root of the matter. He sent a mail to a newspaper publishing company in Netherlands seeking information about the existence of the consulting company. A reply came the next day confirming his fears; there was no company with that name in the whole of Netherlands after a search was conducted in the database of registered companies. The reply also pointed out the fact that the telephone numbers listed on the website are mobile phone numbers and not land lines. Bode was very disappointed about the issue. His hope of getting a lucrative expatriate job just fell like a pack of card, the most annoying thing being that he was taken on a roller coaster ride. He was only resolute on one thing: to fish out the perpetrators of the whole deal. He started smelling a familiar scent of advanced fee fraud, popularly known as ’419′ in Nigeria. He sent an email to the consulting company asking them if they have affiliation to any African establishment. He was replied with the answer that the company only has offices in Netherlands and Ireland and that they do not have any African connection.
At this point, he remembered that he could actually trace the organisation that registered a domain name on the Internet using a special online service. He visited a website that offered such service and in two minutes, he got the address he wanted. The domain name of the consulting company was registered to a company in Lagos Nigeria, a confirmation of his suspicion of online scam. He was so furious that many other people who were invited for the test would go innocently to enter the fraudulent trap set by the criminals. It was time to act fast since the test was to come up in a week’s time.
He gathered all the evidence with him and headed for the office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), an agency set up by the Government in Nigeria to handle such cases. It was a very happy Bode that saw the culprits arrested at their office in Lagos.
Interrogations that followed exposed the fact that the test would have held in Cotonou as arranged, then many of the candidates would get the purported job and would be asked to pay a sum of 1000 dollars to process their working permits after which the criminals will vanish into thin air. Bode felt very bad; he now understood why his country was announced as the second most corrupt country in the world. The corruption in the Government was disheartening and advanced fee fraud was growing. He also realized why his student visa application was rejected at the US embassy. Such is the fate of an ambitious Nigerian Youth.

I cannot imagine what more we need from God for Africa to be where it should be. I think the only thing missing in this puzzle is leadership! Leadership, 1 word, 10 alphabets but very profound and a very germane ingredient for building a great nation. I look everywhere in Africa and it is so clear that God truly blessed us with natural resources, wonderful climate, minimal hazards, good vegetation, e.t.c. Sometimes I wonder if God was not too kind to us, thereby making us lazy; but then I remember the kind of leaders we have unfortunately had to cope with and I change my mind. From Mobutu to Idi Amin, Abacha to Eyadema and even to Uncle Bob who has turned Zimbabwe into what it is today. I will focus more on the Zimbabwean dilemma because that is what it truly is.
Zimbabwe was once a pride of Africa, with Mugabe who was a major factor in the independence struggle. This was a man who gave hope to his nation and indeed grew the economy of his country. It is of note that Zimbabwe was very close to being what South Africa is now in the SADC region. So what happened? The same scourge of leadership seems to be the recurrent factor in the story of the African continent. A man starts well but later gets himself into a mess that will never be washed away for generations to come and it baffles me that this so called leaders are so selfish and stupid that they do not even realise when the drum stops to beat.
Once upon a time, the Zim dollar exchanged for 5 to 1 US dollars. Today, you cannot even do a conversion again because 50 Million Zim dollars will buy you 3 loaves of bread and that is even if you are able to get the loaves to buy. How sad? And all Mugabe and his cohorts could think about is import weapons from China, wow. And it is also sad that the Chinese government allowed the ship to leave the country knowing fully well the implications. These are the days when I wonder why their is a United Nations. I wonder if it is not really true that this due -licking organ of scarce funds from developing countries is not merely a puppet of the United States as it is claimed especially after the Iraqi debacle. By now I think the UN should have a stance on the ship issue but no, in our dreams.
Is it also not strange that a whole President Thabo Mbeki cannot have a real stand on this issue? He seems unperturbed by the happenings in Zimbabwe and I am wondering if this is not as a result of the help given by Uncle Bob during the apartheid struggles in South Africa. Remember that the ANC had a training camp in Zimbabwe.
I am really afraid for the future of our continent and more so for the new generation as they might also not be better than their predecessors. The examples being laid down by our elders stink and it might slip into our mentalities without any resistance. I just pray and hope that we understand what it truly means to be a leader.

About 2 years ago, a certain young and vibrant Nigerian – Mutiu Okediran interviewed me and the questions were great. I answered all the questions with an open mind. Today fate led me back to the website and I am amazed at how accurate everything I said is and I still hold on to the words I spoke then. Going back to read the interview also reminded me of the promise of my first solo book to come out this year. It is highly coincidental that while laying on my bed last night – the thought of the book came back. I will make sure the dream is restarted. If you are interested in reading the interview, please visit – http://www.mutiuokediran.com/Ayo-Oladejo.html

My blog is supposed to be the best place where one could follow up on events in my life but this has not been the case. In the beginning of the year I made myself promise to be more consistent with my writing but so much has happened in a little bit of time and I reneged on my word. So my blog and those who come with faith thinking something new is here – - – I apologise.
As I said; a lot has happened since March 12 when I did my last post. If there is anytime I have to be close to this blog, yes it is now cos my loved ones might find it a very good way of catching up with me.
I resigned from my job at Celtel Nigeria last month. Yes it was a very major decision as I had grown to love the company so much and almost found it hard to leave. To some people, I might not want to go and look for my cheese elsewhere. But it was really time to leave as I have in my opinion and in the honest opinion of my bosses done enough and made my mark in the unit God placed me. Looking back to 2005 when I joined the company; I can only thank God for everything he has been doing in my life. He added so much to me in the course of working for the organisation and also made me achieve a lot of firsts while at the company.
Interestingly on my last physical day at the company, there was a Group forum and there I was given an award as one of the achievers of the group. What more could I say but thank Baba God for his mercies and loving kindness. Some people leave companies and they are not even remembered but here little me was honoured even more ironically on my last official working day. My colleagues also surprised me by organising a send forth. I am surprised because they had just about 3 days notice from me as I had to resign with my leave in lieu of notice. Guys you are the best.
Where am I going? Or where am I now? Good questions both, yeah.
Right now I have just joined the leagues of expatriates. When we used to hear that word expatriate in those days; it used to look so evasive but God is a great God and we can claim it now. More details will follow though I can safely say that I am still within Africa. I must do well to always update so I don’t become so detached.
Cheers all …..