Living Abroad Is Not Immortality

Make love. Make friends. Refresh your spirit. Laugh. Cry. Move, Run. Look back. Look forward. Reflect. Think. Read. Watch. Live! Find happiness and motivation within and around. Don’t take good health for granted. Exercise your body, mind and soul.

Living Abroad Is Not Immortality

By Adeola Aderounmu

Let me drop these few lines from the perspective of a Yoruba living far away from the land of my ancestors. These few lines will be based on my personal experiences.

I met a guy in Sweden in 2013 or thereabout. Indeed, it is a mystery how I didn’t meet him in Festac Town, Yoruba Country before I came to Sweden at the beginning of 2002.

We shared common childhood friends like the Olisehs and he knew many of the guys I played football together with, like Ubaka, George and several more. At that time of my life, my football skills took me near his own place of residence in Festac town precisely along 711 road/ 24 Road. But we met first in Stockholm at the reunion of Festac people in the Scandinavian, the first edition, which I hosted. In the subsequent edition in Finland hosted by Ebunoluwa, he could not make it.

During my visit to Malmö in 2019, he came to my hotel room and as usual we spent some quality time together.

Onyebuchi had probably arrived from Japan in the early 2000s and he contemplated whether to settle in Sweden or not. A few years later, he sent me a private message thanking me for inspiring him to stay in Sweden especially after we met in 2002. If you asked me what I told him or how I inspired him, I have no idea.

I have listened to people saying I (Adeola) did this and I did that, but often I have no recollection of what they are talking about. I just do the things I do and always stay positive that everything will work together for good. I remembered someone said I gave him the opportunity for his first white collar job in Sweden. How was I supposed to know that? It was a job that we needed someone to do, and I found him suitable. That’s just it.

In 2019 I travelled alone to Malmö in Sweden. In fact, it turned out to be my last major travel before the covid pandemic, and the last time I saw Onyebuchi in person. I drove all the way and stayed at a hotel in the central part. But I was visiting 3 friends, all with Festac connection, and Onyebuchi was one of them. It was 2 or 3 days well spent during the summer holiday. Seeing Adex and senior Tolu will always be a pleasure.

If I knew Onyebuchi had issues or could depart so soon (around Jan 1, 2023), I would have strained myself to make another drive to Malmö. Who knows what would have happened? Together, we may have changed the sequence of history. He may still be with us today. But we are mortals. We will die. That we will exit this planet is the surest thing in life. Nobody will leave planet earth alive no matter how long/short, or how good/bad we live. Death is our common denominator.

It’s just very sad to die far away from home when life has not been fully lived, when that dream of growing old is cut short. I’m happy that Onyebuchi made Malmö his home and that he loved his young son with all his heart. The agony that is felt by the families we left in our home country is the sad aspect. It is therefore imperative that whilst we are alive, that we see ourselves as living things that want to survive, that crave for happiness and fulfilment but in the end, not afraid to die. It will happen anyhow.  

We left motherland to live in faraway places. Mostly it is in search of comfort, the pursuit of happiness and fulfilment. But our accomplishments of these feats do not make us superhumans. Those who left home to faraway places are not superior beings. They are made of flesh, bones and blood. They are humans living with pains, hope, laughter, good times, bad times, thoughtful and thoughtless times. They fall sick, they get depressed, they may be curable or incurable of their illnesses. It’s still all the same about our frailty and mortality no matter where we find ourselves.

The opportunities we have to succeed are also still relative. They depend mostly on our competences and then that element of luck or coincidence that place us at the right places at the right time. A sad outcome of chasing dreams far away from home is ending up worse than what you could have become elsewhere (home or another place).

Personally, I have no idea if being a professor of Parasitology in Yorubaland would have made me happier than my life in Sweden as a special education teacher (of mathematics). Can I still become a professor? Yes. Will I aspire? I do not think so because it seems I have reached a point where I do not want my knowledge about things and my ways of reasoning to be subjected to measurement any longer. I believe with the right tools; every person can see how infinitely the human brain can function. I have been infinitely influenced by a phrase I saw in my cousin’s hose in Ibadan around 1995/96. Bloom where you have been planted. How do you know where you have been planted though?

If you have family members abroad, you need to start seeing them differently. Indeed, there are several millions of Africans scattered around the world today and the reasons are no longer due to direct slavery (even if some circumstances are similar to it). Abroad is anywhere that is not home. So how many people do you have to take into considerations when you think of the people you know abroad or in different geographical regions from where you are?

People abroad are not superhumans. They will develop new ways of thinking and acting after a long spell in places different from home or birthplace. They will make mistakes; they will fall, and they will try to rise again. They may be out of jobs, and let’s hope that is temporary. Young people generally, will lose their minds and stability if they are out of jobs permanently. Some of us will be crossed due to unstable family relationships. Humans are social animals and any attempt to find a way around that socialization is unhealthy.

Whether we are at home or abroad, we should make efforts every now and then to reach out to another (but not in cases when reaching out can cause you trauma or discomfort). Make efforts to build a new bridge if the old ones get burnt. One of the harms you can do to yourself is to be static. Make love. Make friends. Refresh your spirit. Laugh. Cry. Move. Run. Look back. Look forward. Think. Reflect. Find happiness and motivation within and around. Don’t take good health for granted. Exercise your mind and body. Read. Watch. Observe. Live.

If you open your eyes every morning, if you get out of bed every morning, think about what you can do better this day than what you did yesterday. Think about newer opportunities and if there is a little effort you can make to achieve something great. Within the limit of your human capabilities, not doing harm to yourself, see if you can make a positive influence in somebody’s life. If you can do without a payback, ask them to pay forward. If all you can do at a certain time, is for yourself, to be happy, make it clear.

In the end, home or away, we are all mortals with the same basic needs: air, water, food, companionship, and shelter. The major differences in societies, mainly due to types of government and use of common sense, are access to these things and the infrastructure that adds quality to our lives.

Malmö 2019

adeola.blog

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This essay is for you Onyebuchi Echigeme. May the city of Malmö remember you. May your son grow to be strong and worthy. Farewell my friend.

Rest in power bro!

aderounmu@gmail.com

British-Nigeria: The Land Of Their Dreams

The British-Nigeria colony groom criminals called politicians who have the audacity to enforce poverty by enslaving the masses who in turn chose to be myopic, (stupidly) resilient, possessing a blackholed hope that deserve to be studied in anthropology worldwide.

The dreamers will go to the polls and choose among 3 major criminals in the land. What a country!

British-Nigeria: The Land Of Their Dreams

By Adeola Aderounmu

It is time to write again about the useless process (called election) that is about to take place in the British established colony called Nigeria. If someone had told me in 2018 that Nigeria will still be a country in 2023, I would have disputed it. The reason was/is because of the momentum that came with the aspiration for the re-establishment of the Yoruba Country and the Igbo Country.

These 2 countries that were destroyed by the British through colonization and deceits were on a run to self-determination again, but that positive aspiration was truncated when the Nigeria government headed by one Buhari kidnapped the leader of the Igbo Country, Nnamdi Kanu, in Kenya and forced him to an illegal trial in Abuja, Nigeria. To this day, the trial is ongoing and the travails of Nnamdi Kanu has now resulted in ill-health that may take his life, if unattended to.

The terror acts and gangsterism of the blood thirsty Buhari government were also unleashed on the home of the leaders of the Yoruba Country. Massacres were carried out at the home of Chief Sunday Adeyemi, aka Sunday Igboho but he escaped to Benin Republic which incidentally is part of the Yoruba Country that the French colonial burglars cut away from the main Yoruba Country that is concentrated in the useless country called Nigeria that was formed by the British. The madness of the Buhari-Osinbajo was extended to Benin Republic when the duo, with the help of terror-inclined Nigerian security forces, attempted to kidnap Chief Sunday Igboho but failed.

How can you (if you are normal) agree to go to the polls and choose between 3 criminals, who along with thousand others should be in prison for the rest of their lives. How?

The events that have happened in terrorists-dominated Nigeria since the truncation of the independence aspirations of both the Yoruba and Igbo Countries may have shown that more than 200 million people living across the British-formulated geographical area may have decided to live in Nigeria as it is, the country of their dream so to say. The most singular evidence that these people are living their dreams is their willingness to participate in the planned 2023 elections.

The elections would make it possible for these dreamers to choose among 3 major criminal elements in the land. Atiku, Tinubu and Obi are 3 major frontliners in the elections. We are at a point that I have argued about since 2011. We are at a point that I have written about for more than 20 years. Yes, for more than 2 decades, and I am still writing about it, the same thing. How do you rate my consistency? I have already given myself the award: The most consistent blogger in Africa.

How can you (if you are normal) go to the polls and choose between 3 criminals who, along with thousand others, should be sentenced to life imprisonment. Considering the amount of monies that Atiku, Obi and Tinubu have stolen together, with the consequences of more than 100 million people living in poverty, unsure of the next meal, the 3 of them should not even see daylight anymore. They are hardcore, unrepentant criminals.

So, we are back where we have always been. At a point when we can make life changing decisions. But these people called Nigerians have placed these 3 main criminals on a scale, they have rated their criminalities and found them desirable from different but mainly useless mentalities.

Listen to them. Obi is better, he is younger, he had not stolen so much as Atiku or Tinubu. The foreign report on his criminal activities do not count. It was ignorance, he was this, he was that, bla, bla bla. Nigerians will defend madness. Are they all mad ni? Tinubu used his money to develop Lagos. Are you mad ni? His money? He made men like Osinbajo, Aregbesola, this, that. Absolute nonsense argument. We may never even know who the original Bola Tinubu was. What we know is that this Tinubu threw away his own identity and stole another. A man nearer to 90 years than 75 may probably come to power to sustain the British colony, for the pleasure of the dead queen. No greater calamity on earth than any election in British-Nigeria.

Another criminal Atiku who single-handedly sold Nigeria to friends and cronies under the pretense of privatization during the corrupt Obasanjo (1999 – 2007) regime, will also attempt to keep the Fulani and the British dream alive. In several essays, I have described Atiku as the world’s greatest political prostitute. No one in history has changed political parties more than Atiku. His desperation for power is extreme and dangerous.

Even Peter Obi, a protégé of Atiku has followed that line of desperation, from APGA to PDP. Obi is now in Labour Party because of the desperation for enrichment and power. If he wins, his first assignment would be to pay huge reparation to the founders and stakeholders in the Labour party. Only idiots do not know that political organisations in Nigeria are investments of the Nigerian elites and the British gangsters headed previously by the late queen.

Under the political arrangements in British-Nigeria, the common people (especially those who cannot come in contact with influence to get good jobs or political contact) are destined to suffer for life, till death! I have also stated several times on “making it in Nigeria” which is possible but does not exclude anyone in that geographical area from living in poverty. For many years, my argument is the same: for as long as you are living in Nigeria, I do not see your escape from poverty. But it all depends on your perspective of the true meaning of life.

The British-Nigerian colony groom criminals called politicians who have the audacity to enforce poverty by enslaving the masses who in turn are myopic, stupidly resilient and possessed with a permanent, black-holed hope that deserves to be study in anthropology at every university in the world.

I do not know how else to express my permanent outrage on why a person will go to the ballot to choose a mad criminal to be his boss or so-called president. Even so, the only thing that validates the election in British-Nigeria is the participation and willingness of the people to be used. For, there could never be any validation or even any useless election if all the 200 million people decide that freedom is the only choice. Election results are already done even before election, but the validation comes from the participation of the slaves who think that their votes actually count.

Now they are under the stupid illusion that a plastic called PVC is their saviour. What an idiotic mentality? PVC? Really? What is wrong with these people? How many times can they be fooled in one life time?

A sane mind should be amused or confused in matters where 200 million people are zombified. Nnamdi Kanu was captured, and several million Igbo rallied thereafter behind Peter Obi, a representative of the establishment meant to keep them in poverty and underdevelopment. How? Millions abandoned the struggle that their leader gave his life for.

The human race will continue to suffer mostly because of treachery and treason amongst kinsmen. The kidnap and incarceration of Kanu would have been a catalyst for freedom if the people are normal. It means that they do not understand the meaning and purpose of life. They choose slavery rather than freedom. It is the same for Yoruba who aligned with Tinubu whilst Sunday Igboho is confined to exile in Benin. Yorubaland will not see progress or peace until the independence of the Yoruba Country is reinstated.

Of course, I do know that it is not that simple, that some Yoruba are in support of Obi or Atiku and some Igbos are in support of Tinubu and Atiku. Whichever way, that everybody slept with heads aligned in the same direction (as in looking forward to election in a slave camp/British-Nigeria) is absurd and abnormal.

I have also mentioned the enthusiasm with which I anticipated the 1979 elections. Yes, 1979! It is the same mad enthusiasm that several millions of Nigerians are expressing together. That means this generation of Nigerians will perish in a slave camp. Their children and grandchildren will be born into willful slavery. The same cycle will be repeated. Some will find good jobs; millions will live and die in abject poverty. Some will travel abroad where some will make it, and many will continue to live like slaves and still perish (even while abroad).

Therefore, not supporting The Yoruba Country and the Igbo Country is an aspiration for self-inflicted woes. Speaking of elections in British-Nigeria, participating in it, validating it and hoping in it is nothing but absolute madness. People who join in British-Nigerian elections are of different categories I have discovered. Some people will defend Nigeria to defend their “good” or “comfortable” statuses in the society. They are afraid of change and a system that will prosper all and sundry. This category are people with jobs, businesses and interests that must not be altered. They are insecure. They will support anything as long as it makes them feel good while the suffering masses remain poor and hopeless.

The political elites have remained the most consistent category since the invention of British-Nigeria. No matter their rivalry and hatred for one another, the political status must be maintained. In the end what goes round, comes around in the political circles. That is why the major political parties PDP and APC are in principle like identical twins. Never a love lost.

Then we have the foolish masses. If you want to know about them, please listen to the music of late Fela Kuti. They have been traumatized so much that they worship men and money. They are religious, hope for divine intervention even when all the powers (like abstaining totally from elections) are in their hands.

There is no time today to look at how the North, South, East and West differ in ideology. I have to stop writing somewhere. But you know surely that if the Yoruba Country and the Igbo country emerge, it will lead to the emergence of the Arewa Country, the Middle-Belt country and The Niger Delta Country. Just imagine the world we can leave behind for our children when all these independent countries compete for development and progress in infrastructure, education, medicine, sport and technology. Just imagine how prosperous your grandchildren would be in their time on earth, when you are gone. There is nothing sweeter in life than independence and freedom. Nothing!

This is what the choice is all about: living in slavery and transferring the slavery to your unborn generations, OR fighting/dying for freedom so that the unborn generations can live in a world of progress, harmony and fair pursuit of happiness in the various lands that their ancestors kept for them before the invasion of the British hoodlums created a disharmony that has now culminated in not just extreme poverty and penury, but a violent, intrusive terrorism that may not just wipe away your existence, but also the genealogy of your existence and the end of your type on the planet.

aderounmu@gmail.com