I Am Back In Nigeria

Sabella Ogbobode Abidde Please don’t mind me: I am a new arrival, a JJC to Nigeria after almost three decades in Yankee. Since my arrival, I tend to get things wrong in terms of my understanding of body language, meaning of idiom and parables, permissible and impermissible behaviors, fashion and music and how to approach women. I knew, but somehow forgot that the Western and non-Western world are worlds apart in terms of authenticity of language and nuances. You see, I have been cheated and taken advantage of so many times by taxi drivers, market women and by my neighbors so many times that it is no longer fun being a novice, a Johnny Just Come. In fact, I get too many things wrong so much so it is beginning to bother me as my mistakes and miscalculations generally open me up to ridicule and exploitation. Haba, what’s a man to do? Please help with these questions and observations. First, how do I get rid of my Yankee Accen...Read the full article.

[Gbolly]

My man, you did well o. Everything will work out well for you in Naija by the grace of God. You have made a bold step by returning home, the rest will fall into places. I wish you well!!!

[e-Shegz]

Dear Mr. SA

On behalf of the entire good people of this great Nation, I welcome you back to 9ja full time! We are happy to have you around and we hope you were not driven by the global meltdown or Mr. Maddof.

We are aware that unlike some people, you came back with lorry loads of dollars. We are here to take "care" of it for you.

As an omo onile who's been on ground, do listen to the following, it will do you a whole world of good..

1. Careful, your accent might earn you a kidnap, your name does not help matter and your carelessness (pardon me, but that's what it is) in changing 5000 dollars at a go might prove to be your undoing next time. Change in bits and pieces in very safe places!

2. Steer clear of the younger girls, its called "child abuse". And even with the older ones, please be protected, if not for yourself, for the other "customers". That's called Individual Social Responsibility (ISR)

3. If you must drink that much loved beer, please avoid just any joint. There are some organized ones. Even in those places, watch your back, watch your drink and watch your mouth!

4. Today's 9ja babes, safe for quite a few are "pretentiously" fashionable but genuinely hygienically clean (even Adaora, Amope or Amina, the beautiful help from up there!) many thanks to the proliferation of reality game shows, soundcity, nigezie, trace, mtv, channel o e.t.c. They are also receptive to edifying ideas. Do not hesitate to pleasantly mention your preferences "hairwise" to them. Do it at the right time, and you can be rest assured of the much sought after change. That's also part of your ISR.

5. I cant help you on the accent issue, time will help you-that i am sure of, but you really want to shed the accent as a matter of urgency? pay a consistent visit to public places like markets, parks e.t.c

6. Don't worry about your physical size, you will soon be thinner than "tina". These guys will see to that-PHCN,LCDA,LASTMA, NNPC,ASUU, FG,OGUN STATE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY, GOVERNORS, ARTISANS, DRIVERS,mobile networks,Pastors and Imams...ati bee bee lo

7. Your web warrior or is it internet militant tag better remain what it is and where it is-on the internet! You see, a policeman, customs officer or Immigration officer here is King,so when they talk to you, you "pipe low", cooperate sharp sharp! Forget about your constitutional right here! It is not Guaranteed except you want to be star like that Okere lady....That, too is not guaranteed, she is lucky to be alive to tell the story, you might not be that lucky!
Even if you see "guguru defence", please be a manly coward or better still, flee!

8. I know you write well. Good for you. There are so many governors, Lawmakers, Chairman LG, Councillors looking for Special Assistants, media aides and press secretaries, apply now, you stand a good chance of being taken..its just that you must be prepared, You apply for a Job, you will get some work! Still, they are your best bet!

9. Is it true that you are an atheist? Well, that could be a blessing in disguise, now you are free from tithe and offerings. But how far you will go with that in this county? ...lets wait and see!

10. Your dollars will be safest in these four Banks- GTB,First Bank, Diamond and Skye. Find out...If you don't trust them, then dig a huge hole in your backyard, pile the money there, and mark the place! Yes, it wont yield interest, but still, Hidden Charges will not take a huge chunk away from the lot. WARNING...As much as possible, Avoid "Hairy Banks"! They are ever apparently solid but eternally fleeting!

11. In this volume, i 'll end by saying, if you want your vote to count for anything Join PDP! Not that its an equivalent of Obama's Democratic party..hell no, its just that, its a party of Automatic Ticket. Automatic ticket to anything in the country.

I know some people will not tell you the truth. I have. Do all of these and many more that you will be getting to experience first hand, and you will enjoy this country much more than Obamaland!

Once Again, Welcome to 9ja in general and Lasgidi in particular.

Signed.

[Elemosho]

For Intending Returnees
================================================== =====

Before you relocate, make sure you have the wherewithal to get back to
where you are relocating from - just in case. The reasons are too many. But the first you would notice is how far high on the economic ladder your mates
have climbed. And as you know, economic progress has a twin brother
climbingthe same ladder - social mobility. Your contemporaries have moved and theydid so slowly but sure-footedly while you were gone. Your mates dine at themost expensive restaurants and drive the latest model cars - not on credit.

Your mates have bought up properties in the choicest areas of the land.
Your mates are to be found in, Wuse II, Asokoro and Maitama areas of Abuja. Your ates have occupied the choicest areas of Lagos, particularly the
picturesque sites of Lekki, Victoria Garden City - fancifully called the
VGC. Of course, your mates now use their Ikoyi and VI previous homes as
offices. It is no more fanciful to say I live in Ikoyi or VI. There are new
places of abode in the land - from Kaduna to Port Harcourt and from Enugu
to Maiduguri, and your mates have taken them up while you were gone.

If you left over ten to twenty years ago and you are planning to be back,
know that you have become unemployable. You have to be self-employed for a long while. Be sure you have enough resources to keep you going through the period it would take you to re-acquaint yourself with your "former" home.
Things have really changed - changed for good for those who did not jet out
and somehow changed for bad for those of us who took the next plane and
leftthe country.

In Nigeria, your mates in the public and private sectors of the economy,
particularly the banking and oil industry, have become highly placed. Most
earn the equivalent of between 200,000 and 300,000 dollars a year plus
other incentives to wit. There was an advert recently placed in one of the papers for a job opening which warned those not earning twenty million Naira and above, per annum, in their present job not to apply. Most have built their
own houses in Nigeria. Most have more than two cars in their drive way.
Most live in homes that smack of opulence, with every modern gadget ranging from large sized Plasma TVs to Microwaves.



If your mates joined politics, they have occupied the choicest of political
positions in the land and made new friends that will be hard to dislodge.
If you happen to have showed off to them in your hey days of "returning" from America, be rest assured they have not forgotten. They call us mercenaries in politics. It is now their turn to show you, that you can't have it both ways. They have built a barricade and insulated themselves from out side interests - you the returnee being an outside interest that must be
dreaded.
If you have real or passing interest in politics, you must show it with
extreme caution. They would like to invite you to political meetings and
discussion only to put you to size.

While not accepting everything they say, when making your presentations, or
contributions avoid using phonetics. Avoid such phrases as "if it were in
America or Europe." They do not like to hear that. One of them surely will
remind you "this is Nigeria" to the embarrassing applause of others, there
present. They see Nigeria now as a trophy. They labored for Nigeria while
you were gone. They suffered the June 12 crises together while you were
gone. They suffered the Abacha era while you were gone. While you were
gone, you probably had returned on one or two occasions only to scurry out soon after complaining of incessant heat, erratic power supply and mosquito
bites. At the airport, you must have been caught criticizing everything in
sight. They have not forgotten your new borrowed accent and the phonetics
that do not rhyme.

That you need a shelter to live in Nigeria if you planned relocating to
Nigeria is an understatement. There are many ways to do this. It's either
that you have managed to build something for yourself in the city you would
want to relocate or you could find an affordable apartment. With the kind
of money we make overseas from genuine everyday livelihood, it is almost next to impossibility that you could build yourself an abode commensurate to
what you are used to. If you find yourself in this position, don't worry, if you
endured the pains and worked hard and kept a low profile in order not
antagonize your former friends, within five years your will build your
self,your dream home.

You need to feed well. This too is an understatement. Avoid going to the
supermarkets to get your food - raw, processed or cooked. Buy from the
local
sellers at the nearest mammy market. Go to the supermarkets and shops to
buy the essentials. At the malls, you will find that while you spend a
miserable amount to buy your essential needs, Nigerians who are not been tos, buy up anything in site both the ones they need and those they do not need.

This people have so much money. How they make it, you will find out if you
endured. Closely related to this is your phone habit. It is very expensive
to use the telephones in Nigeria. As you know, telephone calls in the
western world are taken for granted. Here, while it's beginning to happen
as if it is for granted, it is very, very expensive. To Nigerians who are not
used to such freedom of expression, they are spending millions everyday to
make phone calls - to satisfy their newly found phone freedom. If you are
not mindful, telephone bills may cut into your feeding pattern. If this
happens, before long, you will become an object of gossip. You will lose
your complexion and weight and they will notice.

You need clothing to cover the body you have labored to nurture while you
lived abroad. This also, is an understatement. Nigerians pay too much
attention to dressing. Your dress mode can shut the door at you or open the
door for you. Avoid casual dressing, particularly when you are going to
meet with the Nigerian big man. He knows the stuff you're wearing and could
place you based on that. Be simple but neat if need be occasionally be
flamboyant.Express yourself. Speak good English, where there is a need, do not use slang such as I wana or I gonna….

Do not lend money. Give out only that which you could afford to lose.
Beware of relatives and the extended family system. If you manage to set up a small business, never employ those closely related to you. They will ruin you.


You must have at least two good cars. That car of yours, which you price so
much, is not fashionable in Nigeria. Here some people drive the next year's
model before they become common in Europe or the Americas. How they make
such money to pay upfront is still the mystery I am struggling to unravel.
The roads are so bad and the drivers so ill-trained that if you drove
yourself, and not being used to their adversarial/ confrontational pattern
of driving, your car and you would, in a very short while be a sorry sight.
They hit you and beg you. They hit you because you are conscious of driving
rules and apply it. They, who do not apply simple driving rules, rule the
highway in Nigeria. In a society not used to insurance, and where vehicular
laws are not implemented, begging has replaced insurance coverage. Even
passer bys would chip in to ask the offending reckless driver to beg you
and get on with his life. If they beg you, you must accept. That's your only
recourse.

To this end, you must have a good mechanic as a friend. He will introduce
to you, a good panel beater (your (n) used car will always need to be panel
beaten back to form after constantly being bashed by ill-trained Nigerian
road users. Most Nigeria drivers, I hear, buy their drivers license) who
will in turn introduce you to a vulcanizer and an auto electrician, here,
fancifully called a rewire. You need a vulcanizer because the roads are
bad. Flat tires occur very often here than usual. Of all the auto-related
experts you will work with, the rewire should be the one you must dread. He is notwell trained in the operation of modern day computer induced auto cars. Hismethod of rewiring has set many late model computerized cars ablaze.

[DeepThought]

Sabella you this pervert (says the pot to the kettle ), leave our girls alone O! Public kissing ke? For where? where do you think you are?

And if I catch you making eye at Sikiratu the daughter of the groundnut seller......

[Abraxas]

Hi, my buroda, Sabella Abidde!

'E done 'tay wey me sef relocate go 9jeriya. Since last year na 'inhm wey me I begin to dey circulate between Pitakwa (Garden City, alias Port Harcourt), Campos Square (via Isale Eko), and Abuja. Me-o, I dey enjoiy am well-well, sha, no be small: I am telling yoo.

If EVEN me sef, paa~paa, fit settle brekete, dey enjoiy jaburata for 0809ja, then, anybody fit do am too.

I beg, {enh?}, make yoo try see me for either Madam Automatic Food-Is-Ready Bukateria wey dey for Marine Base, or Creek Road, or Abonnema Wharf, for Port High Court, any time yoo land there-o, make we relax small, chaque small, enjoiy better amnesty budget, ojare. Life no get duplicate, my bros.

Muchas gracias.

Don Juan-Carlos ABRAXAS (III)

[Anioma777]

Enjoy Nigeria and the mistakes you make you learn from. Some very good advice by some posters. If some Chinese or Indian man can go to Nigeria and acclamatize why cant any Nigerian who grew up in Nigeria to the same.

A university friend's brother left Nigeria aged 5 years old returned 5 years ago aged 40. He visited Nigeria 3 times when he wsa 39 years and decided to move. Hearing this guy narrate his experience in Nigeria, Nollywood should have made a film about him called the 'The Original JJC'.

Imagine someone asking why PHCN does not have a "free phone customer services number" to call after 3 days of no electricity.

Venturing into Ajegunle and getting lost and stopping a policeman to ask him if Lagos has an A-Z map You can imagine the perplexed look on the typical Nigerian police officer

I can tell you guys more stories about this guy, its hilarious and many just told him he was lucky and should not have taken risks. Personally and he also echoed this. It had nothing to do with luck. He is now doing very well in Nigeria, but he maintains that those experiences although comical was what has helped him settle in Nigeria.

I think you can survive in Nigeria with out going to church, unless you are going to church to NETWORK or for BUSINESS purposes

Nigeria and Nigerians are addictive.

[Omowa2]

FACTION...you try my brother
How do you transport yourself between facts and imagination
You should develop these plots. Does any one recall your interview with that Governor?
You do well...

Omowa2

[emj]

Haaa, Sabella omo Abidde....your wayo too much even self gan phapha pasisi wayoguy hin own....na how many tymes/times u wan relocate? De last tyme u did, u zoomed back within 3wks...lets see how far with dis ur new dream

[DeepThought]

Thank you O jare EMJ,
O.K.
Lets have a lottery and see how long Sabella lasts this time around. My guesses are:

1. He will probably gave Sikira belle and be forced to sneak out of the country at midnight in less than 2 months, or else!....

2.Armu robbers go chase am out of town in less than a month.

3. He gets a job as special advisor to the special advisor to the senior junior special advisor to the special advisor and he makes numerous trips to the U.S to help launder money.

4. He impregenates the daughter of the same Baba wey take Sattelite swear for Forshow.... and takes Seme border out of Naija.....

5. He is repatrated back to America for urgent medical attention on account of acute and serious back pains incurred doing you know what...

Sabella, ai sorri for you O...

[kekerete]

You left 9ja after Secondary School, stayed in obodo oyibo how many decades and you still no marry? Or are you doing extra-curricular things? I pity you in that department as the women here will take you to the cleaners, that is if you are lucky enough to escape HIV.

[Dapxin]

that is if you are lucky enough to escape HIV.

And I suddenly get scared of that, that is to come tonight, from she that would be coming tonight...make I run ?

[emj]

Originally Posted by kekerete

You left 9ja after Secondary School, stayed in obodo oyibo how many decades and you still no marry? Or are you doing extra-curricular things? I pity you in that department as the women here will take you to the cleaners, that is if you are lucky enough to escape HIV.

Haaa....nah who tell u say hin never marry? He's been married for more than 5tymes and had 9 children with the 5..he's paying spousal support and even gan self alimony..or is it that they are paying him palimony...cant remember wich waz sha...either way, he's got baggage and does need several containers.
He at the moment imports containers every week(wich type of container depends on his cravings...dias, lepashandi, orobs, double decked etc etc ati bee bee lo)

[Ph3y]

4. He impregenates the daughter of the same baba wey take sattelite swear for forshow.... And takes seme border out of naija.....

Laff Wan Kill Me Die........

[WayoGuy]

Sabella, so na Naija you dey since since and we dey look for you before before?
I salute oo. This your tory make me laugh well well today. Thanks.

Me too I dey here for Owerri since Monday dey enjoy myself. That American 'whats-up men' stress no good for man pikin.

Sabella, which part of Naija you dey self? Omoge dey plenty plenty for Owerri city than any other Naija city. And every omoge for Owerri dey go school oo - IMSU, FUTO, ALVAN IKOKU. And our politicians here and local people no dey fight and kill people like other states oo. Na so so book we sabi here, plus Owerri bongo music and soup.

My brother, if you wan marry fine babe wey dey school and dey quiet, come for Owerri make I hook you up.

[denker]

My brother, if you wan marry fine babe wey dey school and dey quiet, come for Owerri make I hook you up.

Nne, WayoGuy, you fit hook me up with quiet and well educationed Igbo-Owerri-Lady...I dey for Portharcourt.

[WayoGuy]

Originally Posted by nigerdelta666

Nne, WayoGuy, you fit hook me up with quiet and well educationed Igbo-Owerri-Lady...I dey for Portharcourt.

Chei, my brother, this 666 for your name get as e be. Abi you be Ogboni? Amorc? You dey for Okija shrine fraternity? You dey worship devil?

Biko, no vex. I dey fear you oo. You wan use my Owerri sisters for money ritual? No vex abeg. Na questions I dey ask because of the 666. You sure say no be Abuja girl go fit you? No vex now, na question I ask.

I dey go come now now now.

[tonsoyo]

Sabella, good luck this time around o.

By the way, we no dey 'approach' women for Naija, na 'toast' we dey 'toast' dem. With your 80 pounds excess luggage and bear-bear, if you go 'approach' the wrong one before you know it, she go don shout 'ole' 'barawo' 'onyiosi' I doubt if your American accent will save you from the most likely result.

Public kissing is only welcomed at one place in Naija, in front of Kano Central Mosque on a Friday afternoon. Good luck as you try out my therapy


You must be moving with the wrong crowd, if they still talk about Mr. Biggs et al. Contact Uche Nworah or Mikky Jaga quick quick, I am sure those guys have the GPS to all Mama Put in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt on their heads. But make sure you have secured services with a very good hospital before visiting any of the cholera joints, your system don 'step down' after 30 years in obodo oyibo

Pleas do not lose your return ticket o. If you do not have any, go buy one, because I can see a return to America in your immediate and imminent future.

[Exponent]

80 POUNDS OVERWEIGHT


That's a damn shame!

[dem]

I just read this. I almost died laughing!

When in Naija and you want to hide your foreign acquired accent, the trick is to talk slowly and never talk when annoyed. Anger/frustration brings out the foreign accent like nothing else.

BTW, as EMJ pointed out, how many times this man dey relocate to Naija sef?