We would move towards a better understanding of human relations if we stopped waiting on God and instead saw him in our neighbours. Picture appears courtesy of scari-nigeria.blogspot.com; but don’t be deceived, what it signifies is not really in line with the thrust of this blog post.

In a way this is a follow up to Some Penmanshit on the concept of friendship written almost two years ago. I hope to help you towards a better understanding of human relations by letting you into my train/chain of thoughts.

1) There’s nothing like one’s permanent enemies/friends. In most cases our enemies/friends are determined by our interest of the day.

2) At each phase of life we associate only with people that help us achieve our dreams. We only keep very few friends/acquaintances through the different phases.

3) Points 1 and 2 are buttressed by the fact that life’s a continuous rat race where it’s basically “all man for himself and God for us all, whoever is slow may the Devil take him”.

4) As situations in our life change (example: job change, house relocation) so do our friends. Old ones that we may never relate with again are discarded for new ones.

5) Point 4 is more clearly understood if we realize this sad irony of life: When we (you or I) celebrate our birthday in 10 years time our circle of friends then will most definitely be significantly different from the ones we have now.

6) More money equals more friends and vice versa. That’s because with more money there are more people to deal with in relation to the increased money outlets. Friendship is basically the selfish act of sticking with people for what we can get out of them (example; sex, food, fame, companionship to prevent loneliness etc).

7) Examples of situation 6 can be seen in actors, musician and footballers. They continuously come and go (rave of the moment ish), in between having their 20 seconds of fame.

8)) The 20 seconds of fame phenomenon in point 7 is illustrated by this line:

“Yo you in platinum, yeah that’s nice/now let me see you do the same thing twice/”

Nas in (in Kanye West’s “Air Force Ones’ Classic Nike remix”. Also featuring KRS-One and Rakim)

9) In relation to point 7 great men/women are those who stay relevant in the scheme of things for a long time. But this is not always true as the fact that some people are no more in the scheme of things doesn’t mean they’ve lost their greatness. It might just be that the nature of their new hustle doesn’t command front page headlines.

Voicing communications, crazy phrase innit? Anyway it’s used here to mean speech patterns as applied to the transfer of information from one person to another/other persons.

For this talk the first port of call is the news rooms. I’ve observed that the news casting voice…intonation…accent…pronunciation…or more particularly “stress on words” of our broadcasters (mainly from private stations; Channels Television being a chief example) sound so foreign. At times it’s often as if one’s listening to the BBC or CNN. What I want to know then is if it’s an industry standard or if it’s just another act in our endless imitation of the West. It worries me the more because on the other hand I listen to NTA and Radio Nigeria broadcasters and they do none of that yet they speak clearly in very good English. It’s a pity I can’t yet put up sound clips to drive home my point.

Cool FM Abuja’s broadcaster Benny Arc (I’m thinking his full name is Benjamin/Benedict Archibong) is the scapegoat at our second port of call. On air the brother is so loud…animated in an “uncool” sort of way. He practically hypes every word! I might not be a pro but one thing I’ve learnt about broadcasting is that on air it’s best to assume that you’re talking to just one person and not to a multitude. That way you’d sound more pleasing to the ears, confident and you’d have that personal touch about you. The personal touch is really great as it gets to and captivates the listener, making him/her feel like you’re there with him/her having a one on one conversation. If Cool FM’s on air personalities were on a reality show Benny would undoubtedly be the first housemate to be evicted. Enough said.

Ahide a Cool FM broadcaster posing with Bola.

At this last port of call I’m leaving you with these words of Toshmann. I came across them while snooping through the Nigerian Village Square. Reading it made me bury my head in shame because I realized I’ve been guilty more than a few times. I guess it’s a call to change

…our people seem to be proud to say “I can’t speak Igbo, but I understand a little bit”. What nonsense! this is something that one should be ashamed to say, yet people say it with pride as if those who speak the language well are “igbotic” and being “igbotic” is a bad thing…this is sad.