This is the minimum wage in some five Countries as at 2021
|
Country |
American Dollar Equivalent |
|
Nigeria |
$40.00 |
|
South Africa |
$179.00 |
|
Ghana |
$30.31 |
|
Ethiopia |
$10.79 |
|
Egypt |
$64.93 |
|
Kenya |
$91.21 |
 |
| Mohbad. Creit: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/ |
By now, everyone knows
Mohbad had reported that Marlian Records tried to end his life, following a
visit he made to Naira Marley’s house. Months later, he died. Right now, the
prime suspect is Marley and his close associates, one of which is a guy named
Sam Larry.
The point now is that,
when Mohbad died, there was no physical harm done to him –no gun shot, no stab,
no gore... What is suspected is that he performed somewhere in Lagos where juju
could have been used to end his life. But also, an ear infection is suspected.
The law works only in the real world, but not in the realm of spirits. So, the
possibility of juju as the cause of his death will definitely be thrown away.
If however, the prosecution lawyer can prove that Marley is responsible for the
ear infection or link Marley to other evidences that could come to the surface
in the course of the investigation, then Marley would have to pay for it.
Surprisingly, there are
protests globally for justice –we never knew he was that famous. However, in
death he became extremely famous. Another shocking part of his story is the
fact that he has a song that talks about his death and the rumors in the
aftermath.
Some media stations –radio
and TV– have banned airing of Marley’s music, concluding that Naira Marley is
responsible for Mohbad’s death. Among them are MTV Base and Sound City. I don’t
expect that from huge organizations such as these. At most, they could have
just kept quiet but prefer not to play the songs pending the outcome of the
verdict that is sure to last for months, if not years.
Anyone can be
responsible, assuming it is a case of killing in cold blood. It could be the
Marlian Record team, but it could be someone totally unconnected to these guys.
Sometimes, when you pronounce that someone is after your life, some other
enemies could take advantage of the circumstance and strike, knowing the law wouldn’t
look in their direction. But it could be
Marley and his team, using people who are close to the target to get him,
using, perhaps, a biological weapon like an ear infection. But it could be a
poison on a meal Mohbad was served. As a recording label, Marlian Records has a
lot of money and could deploy that to search for advance approaches anywhere around
the world.
Naira Marley understands
the place of evidence in judicial processes. When he was arrested for saying
that internet fraud is not really a crime, he was eventually released and went
on to sing a song with a line that says, “Am I a Yahoo boy? No evidence.” So, the
prosecution has a tall mountain to climb in order to nail Marley as the man who
ordered the killing of his former record company signee.
 |
| Da Patrick Mandung, late Gwom Rwei Kuru |
On Monday, 24th July, a young woman visited Dara Mandung, seeking financial help that concerns her tuition fee –the royal father was passionate about education. He requested her to return the next day. When she did, he kept his promise and gave away all he had that day. About an hour later, the royal father passed away.
The gesture of handing over all he had to a woman that wasn’t intimately related to him, other than the fact that she is also Berom and a subject of his domain, was an act of kindness for which he was famous in Beromland.
Before his death, Da Mandung was one of the longest-serving traditional rulers in the whole of Plateau State, having served for thirty-seven years. When he celebrated his thirty-fifth-year anniversary as a royal father, there were financial gifts from wealthy individuals. The traditional ruler shocked everyone by giving away all the donations to St. Dennis Catholic Church Kuru, where he was a member of the laity. The money was used to roof the church whose construction was on-going. As an act of giving-in-return, the church ensured it completed work on the cathedral in the three weeks before his funeral.
Da Mandung radiated the humility of a child, greeting everyone he met, young or old, tall or short, not minding his own lofty standing in Kuru and Beromland. As if that wasn’t enough, he formed the habit of taking part in night security patrols, until his subjects prevailed on him to withdraw, saying: it was for them and not for him to go out in the dark and eerie setting of nights for the sake of protecting the people.
To say the funeral of the Gwom Rwei was majestic was to say the least. On the penultimate day to his entombment, the corpse was taken round the towns that make up Kuru community, before it was left at his home for a night. This was in respect of his order that he should be given, at least, a day to enable him bid farewell to the people.
Mandung belong to everyone. There was the church but also traditionalists with Kuru overflowing with people like sand on the seashores. There were civil servants, serving and retired. There were royal colleagues from all corners of Beromland and beyond. There were politicians, business people, miners and just everyone.
Kuru is set in a picturesque enclosure of towering rocks that compare to anything else like Gulliver compared to Lilliputians. The palace where the royal father and his council sat is, in itself, set in a ring of some of some of the topographic prominence that is the face of Plateau State. Traditional Berom warriors, not leaving anything to chance, stood at the peak of the mountains, for a vantage view of the surrounding areas. Down below and beside the palace, the Gwom Rwei was buried in a mausoleum that exemplifies skill and craft that is deserving of a man of his regal standing.
Da Mandung’s successor will inherit a couple of challenges that include how to end a nasty culture of youths dropping out of school to pursue mining, how to end the culture of partying into late nights in an environment replete with endless episodes of horrific and tragic night killings, and how to end the reckless and regrettable sale of lands by subjects.
Dara Mandung was born into a royal family in Kuru on April 12th, 1943. He attended the Roman Catholic Mission –RCM– Primary School, Kuru, after which he went to St. John Vianney Seminary, Barking Ladi, hoping to become a priest, but –according to his son, Martin– his dad didn’t end up a priest. The tide of life reshuffled events so that his dad ended up with a mining company, despite having completed his course at the seminary. He later left to join the Nigerian Army, serving in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kaduna. With time, he resigned from the Nigerian Army –where he worked in communication and intelligence– to join Shell Petroleum. In 1985, though, he bowed to the authority of the Kuru traditional institution, when a delegation paid him a visit, requesting him to become the District Head of Kuru.
He left behind nine children.
Story: Souls of Small Places
Author:
Mame Bougouma Diene and Moppa Diallo
Country:
Senegal
 |
| Woppa and Mame Credit: Caineprize.com |
When Woppa was born, her mum,
conscious of the danger she faces, decided to protect her. But the protection
itself comes with extreme sacrifice –the girl will exist, but would actually
belong to the spirits. Woppa has a kid sister by the name of Awa. So, in the
real, the mother actually has one daughter.
Woppa’s ancestors, stretching
back to her great-great-grandmother are flesh-eaters, coming in their spiritual
form to devour anyone they deem fit. When provoked, their spirits rise to
attack victims, targeting their hearts. To the flesh-eaters, blood is as tasty
as cappuccino would be with us today. This is exactly what Moppa inherited,
albeit without knowing.
Woppa is held late by a
romantic outing. She, knowing she isn’t human, says it is more of a lustful
relationship. As she and Awa walk back home, she felt Awa’s hand slipping out
of her grip. She is prompted by the whispers of her ancestors. She swings into
defensive action. The result is a scene that is crimson-red with gory remains
of human bodies and scattered bits of human flesh.
In the process, Moppa becomes
unconscious, bouncing back only after nineteen days. She is made to believe
there was a stormy rain that unleashed a flood, wreaking havoc on the community
and throwing her into a coma.
Back in school, there is a girl
that wears a fetish pouch around her neck and sees beyond the ordinary, as a
result. She is able to see that Woppa is a flesh-eater. She uses innuendo to
refer to Moppa’s powers to Moppa’s and other kids’ hearing. Woppa confronts her
parents. They can help but admit the truth to get over it, once and for all.
From then onward, Moppa is fully conscious of her powers and her duty to
protect little girls from rapist herdsmen.
Woppa continues to defend the
girls in her village and the neighboring villages. One day, three herdsmen
tried to gain entry into a house next to hers.
She is hinted at by a chorus of voices, as usual. Swiftly, she comes out,
unleashing her powers at the men. She returns home as swiftly as she had come,
without anyone noticing. The commotion draws the attention of men on patrol,
but also her mum, who reaches the scene before the patrol team. The patrol team
arrives and mistakes Moppa’s mum as the killer. They descend on her, taking her
life.
Woppa’s father, devastated by
the circumstance of his wife’s death and the implication, –if people believe she
killed the men –commits suicide less than twenty-four hours after his wife’s
passing.
Awe is left alone, but does not
trust anybody –among her close relatives– to raise her. Her sister’s spirit
stands and watches the funeral of her parents. She whispers to birds who in
turn whisper to the wind, relaying a message to Awa and hinting her to come
over. Awa walks to the spirit of her sister who assures her that she will be going
nowhere and will be there to protect her, forever.
Mame Bougouma Diene and Moppa
Diallo’s innovative writing style delivers prose with embroidery of poetry in a
manner that is breathtaking. It announces their arrival so astonishingly that
we can’t help but notice.
The Soul of Small Places is a
story with a strong chance to clinch the 2023 edition of the Caine Prize for
African Writing.
Story:
Weaving
Author:
Yvonne Kusiima
Country:
Uganda
Yvonne Kusiima
Credit: www.caineprize.com
Thomasina –the younger– and
Jessica are little girls born and raised in Kampala by a wealthy mother who
suddenly dies. The two girls are compelled to move to rural Uganda to live with
a granny in a two-room shack.
Jessica cried the day Grandma
told them they will be weaving with her. For her protest, she is exempted.
Thomasina finds herself weaving plastic mats with grandma, every day. The task
is difficult and Grandma is harsh, flogging Thomasina with every single
mistake. As a rookie knitter, it takes Thomasina a whole year to weave a single
mat, while grandma’s experienced hands finish more than a dozen within the same
period.
It is time to market the mats
and Thomasina is made to sit under a hostile sun trying to woo buyers. It is a Herculean –most that come only watch and move on, never buying.
An American boy, whose mother’s
charity work brought them to the village, approaches and buys everything to
please Thomasina. He gets talking to ten-year-old Thomasina about what seems like
romance to her. While she thinks that love is in the air, the American boy has lust
in his mind, only interested in a hit-and-run.
In the evening, an American boy
walks her to the woods carrying the mat he bought from her. He puts her on
it, stealing her virginity. But then he turns back to his real love, a girl
with fully matured hips that is unmistakably adult. Thomasina is devastated.
Devastation is only a small fraction of her woe as she ends up pregnant.
Jessica and Grandma are divided
on how to deal with the pregnancy. While Jessica wishes that her sister be
allowed to keep the pregnancy and the baby, eventually, Grandma is against it
because it would mean an additional burden.
Grandma, however, had her way,
forcing Thomasina to take a native mixture that terminates the pregnancy.
Yvonne has a humble,
disciplined, and charming writing style that is sure to win her fans across the
continent. Through branches of her story, she is able to let us feel the mood
of rural Uganda: the modest understanding of rural people, the poverty,
gossip, superstition…
With her shortlist for the
Caine Prize for African Writing, Yvonne has pulled herself from behind the
horizon. With or without the prize, though, she has come and would shape
conversations on African literature as long as she stays in writing.
Story:
Daughters, by Our Hands
Author:
Pius Ekemini
Country:
Nigeria
 |
| Pius Ekemini Credit: www.Caineprize.com |
A mother, Eme, sells nine of
her ten nails. The sole nail in her kitty gives her a much-cherished daughter, Aniema,
who is cherished partly for the mundane benefits Eme expects to get from her nails.
But the Aniema has her own
opinion as to how she intends to use her nails –they will not be sold. She prefers
to donate them to poor sterile women who wouldn’t have been able to afford the
nails. But Eme still hopes her daughter will cave in.
One day Aniema returns home
with three of the nails gone and without money to show they had been sold. The mother
confronts her daughter who said she had donated the three to a poor woman she
met on a bus. Eme is badly hurt by her daughter’s decision, a situation that hurts
deeply their relationship.
The poor recipient of the nail
pays a visit to her “egg” donor three years after their accidental meeting. She
came with three beautiful triplets, reminding Aniema who she is and thanking
her for her generosity.
Daughters, by Our Hands, is “clean”
and makes for speedy reading, as such. The
writer shows an amazing descriptive power that opens the reader's eyes to
possibilities he may not have believed existed.
Any story that makes it to the
shortlist of the Caine Prize has a chance. A lot of times, judges often
complain about how tricky it is to come to a decision on who should take the prize.
Having read the other stories, I think that the judges will again have to crack
their heads to come to a conclusion as to who takes the prize.
Caine Prize for African Writing 2023 Stories
Title: The Tangible Thing
Author: Yejide Kilanko
Country: Nigeria
Yejude Kilanko
Credit: www.caineprize.com
The
Tangible Thing is yet another powerful entry for the 2023 circle of the Caine
Prize for African Story. It is scripted by a Nigerian, Yejide Kilanko.
This
Tangible Thing is a story of a Nigerian man who travelled home with his
daughter that was born in Canada but never visited Nigeria. She is a girl with
an identity crisis, given the racial bias, she suffers in Canada, where her
schoolmates refer to her as “a joke” –her name is Ajoke. At the same time, she
is a girl who never travelled to Nigeria to understand the culture and feel
Nigerian.
Father
travels home to Southwestern Nigeria with his daughter. A mistake that led to
the late arrival of luggage compels dad to return to Lagos. The daughter is left
with granny. While they await the return of the father, Grandma uses the chance
to get her granddaughter conversant with the Yoruba culture through folktales,
a history of the family, and everyday family rituals of the Yorubas.
The
story plays the Yoruba firmness of upholding the culture and a strong family
discipline that is typical of educated Yoruba families.
The
author creates imageries using simple words, albeit in a very creative manner.
However, it is common for an African to take a child home to enable him to learn
about his roots. It happens a lot of times. Thus, it introduces a tone of
ambiguity between fiction and reality.
Caine Prize for African Writing 2023 Stories
Title: Peeling Time
Author: TloTlo Tsamaase
Country: Botswana
 |
| Tlotlo Tsamasse credit: www.caineprize.com |
Motsumi
is a failed video producer who has, against the odds, refused to call it quit. He
resorts to the use of Muthi-tech to help him defy whatever forces frustrating
his success. Muthi is actually black magic that helps you achieve your goals.
In West Africa, it would have been called Juju-tech. In this case, it involves a brew that, when
taken, enables the separation of body and soul. Through this, Matsumi enters
the body of women, sucks their essence to recharge and build the power that
enables him to succeed as a movie producer. But the women will
experience problems in their lives such that anything they do fails.
Eventually, they end up on life support that drains the finances of relations.
In the end, relations cut off the life support so that everyone finds
relief.
Motsumi
believes that, given the sophistication of Muthi-tech, he is immortal. The
victims of Muthi-tech grow into a nation. They are able to find a basis to believe that Motsumi is mortal. They team up and decide to fight him. Sewela is the
most used of the victims. She leads the others to fight and overcome Motsumi.
The author
likens the story to a song. Thus, the plot is broken into intro, pre-chorus,
verse, and so on. If a verse discusses Motsumi for instance, it is said to
feature Motsumi.
The
story draws the strength of its fiction from Muthi-tech, which is delusory or a
conspiracy theory of sorts. The author’s creative use of words comes with a
monstrous girth and depth.
A
previous winner of the prize, Tope Folarin, believes the Caine Prize for
African Writing is the best short story competition in the world. It is
believed that the prize has recorded a level of success a thousand miles beyond
the dream of the founder, Sir Michael Caine.
It is stories like this that give credibility to this belief. Of the five shortlisted stories, only one
stays visible on the radar of history. The judges of the Caine Prize wouldn’t
want this story to be forgotten.
Sexually transmitted infections have become wider than they used to in the past decades. When one gets infected, it ruins not just his/her sex life, but he or she lives with the physical and, sometimes, emotional pains that come with an infection.
Predictably, people would get
treated by taking over-the-counter antibiotics. The problem with antibiotics is
the side effects of taking them, plus the fact that some cost a lot of money. Nothing
can be as beautiful as eating and getting cured of the foods one eats.
You will be surprised by how effective foods are in curing bacterial infections. It leads to the question of why can’t they be researched and documented formally so that we can know what exactly cures what. There is a conspiracy theory that, should that happen, a multi-billion dollar industry will collapse. So, the major drawback of using foods to cure bacterial infections is knowing exactly what cures what. It makes it easier to reach for a particular meal to cure your known problem.
It isn’t rhetorical when it is said that foods can heal many of these bacterial infections. This is important to build confidence in people so they can go for food when the need arises.
Without wasting much time, these are the foods that are known to be curative:
Dates Fresh dates (dabino in Hausa) are known to cure certain bacterial infections. Most times, people just tell you that dates can cure certain infections, without stressing that they have to be fresh. The problem is that fresh dates are seasonal. In situations where you can’t find your fresh dates, you then opt for orthodox treatment.
Ginger/Garlic: Ginger and garlic combinations are known to heal certain bacterial infections. It is common to see people selling juices made from crushing ginger and garlic. In some drinking parlors, it is easy to see this juice sold alongside alcoholic beverages. Drinkers often like to mix them with their alcoholic beverages.
Moringa. Moringa is sometimes referred to as a magic plant because of the broad range of infections it cures. Luckily, it is a common plant that one can find around him. All it takes is spreading the leaves on a tray in your kitchen (not under direct sunlight). When dry, it can be crushed into powder. The powder is added to drinks like tea, kunu or ordinary water. In supermarkets, one can find moringa teas that can serve the same purpose, but the homemade powder is preferred since it is self-made. Indoors, it takes a mere three days to dry.
Clove. Clove is another wonderful spice that is known to have antibacterial properties. It is known to cure E-Coli, a bacterial infection that has become resistant to antibiotics. It takes pounding it into a powder. The powder is then added to any drink and taken. Some prefer to pour the powder into bottles of water and allow the extracts to be extracted in a few days. The liquid is added to any drink. It is very easy to take in teas because of its high aromatic property.
Cabin Biscuits. Cabin biscuit cures a stubborn form of yeast infection (Candida amblicans) that has been said to be impossible to cure. This form of yeast comes with a hangover-like weakness that makes it difficult for one to get up in the morning, a weakness that is very similar to hangovers from drinking alcohol. All you need is to buy cabin biscuits and just eat normally. A pack with probably about fifty pieces of biscuits eaten within 72 hours should do. You can also add yogurt, but it is not a must.
Olive. Olive is also known to have curative properties for certain bacterial infections. The problem is that there are species of olive plants and the fact that olive plants are seasonal. But it cost nothing to just buy and eat olives when you see hawkers along the street.
Green Tea. There is a resilient form of yeast infection that gets women scratching until they bleed. Women suffering from it leave behind odor when they walk the street. For men, you experience itching as well as a severe headache when infected. It is highly resistant to over-the-counter antibiotics.
Yogurt. Yogurt is also another powerful antibacterial remedy that can be bought and eaten to heal certain infections. Yogurt is good because of the probiotics it contains. Probiotics or bio flora are bacteria that are present in our guts naturally and help protect us against germs. Even though they are present naturally, certain situations can sometimes lead to their depletion, making one vulnerable to harmful bacteria.
Cabbage. Cabbage is known as an effective remedy for ulcers. In the hospital, your doctor could prescribe omeprazole to heal your ulcer. But the chemical substance that omeprazole brings is naturally present in cabbage. You could blend the cabbage and drink the juice. Blending crushes the leaf thereby allowing the chemical to be maximally extracted.
In conclusion, it is advised that, when you have a defiant infection, form a habit of eating these foods.
Changchit Wuyep, Plateau Author Changchit Wuyep is an author with three published books to her credit. Her books include Offspring in Peril ...
