Usman Dan Fodio And The Staff of Office

2020 seems like an interesting year already, I mean we have not even gone half of the new month and we have so much drama to contain us for the better part of the year. 

First off I’d like to commend the Rivers State governor and his new found comical expression, giving us fresh memes to keep the January fun and going. 

While addressing the council of traditional rulers, well, I could say he resurrected Uthman Dan Fodio or was it Usman Dan Fodio as he called it, that should be when he was admonishing them on the use of their staff of office which he claims that is their symbol of authority and should rather go with them to every function instead of their mere canes (walking stick) until a certain traditional ruler was nodding to affirmation (probably he doesn’t like people shaking heads while he talks) and he went all out on him making snide comments about him and what’s not. Well, to many they felt he went too far with it or rather was just uncalled for but then if you see an Usman Dan Fodio won’t you give him the recognition he deserves. 

My opinion though which may not count actually, is that he would have save the tongue lashing for an off camera moment of rather the press their would have switched off knowing it’s not part of the official speech but then who doesn’t like a good publicity, I think if the governor continues in this light he may become an Instagram influencer with these videos popping up at every time he is set to make a speech. Remember he is not scared of anything and well, ntor to his haters. 

And for the records this is not a hate speech. 

Free and Fare Election

It is the election year in Nigeria and so far this has been the most dramatic and most exciting election thus far, with over 70 political parties whose acronyms went from A to Z (ok maybe Y) but then there were too many of them that you could bet in the near future there would be a Z and Q and an X party (not X-rated, just X) and different candidates indicating interests to become the number one citizen of the most populous black nation (at least that is the one thing we are leading and we aren't ashamed of it). One would think the election will be free and fare, a situation where you have to negotiate your vote with the highest bidder before selling it off.

After reading that last paragraph I'm sure you aren't happy with the idea of people selling their votes to a political party and not actually voting their conscience or as we may put it their preferred candidates, well, truth be told the election will be rigged anyway, so why not make a profit out of it and may the best rigger win ( I meant to say best man), so you see that way everyone goes home smiling, except for the parties that will loose, they don't go home, they go straight to court to challenge the results, but then that is none of your business, you have collected your own dividends of democracy, it is your legal right as a Nigerian (well, I don't know that for real), they should go and fight for their own rights and if the court cancels the election and fix it for a better date, well it's more money for you.

I don't know about you but I support the idea of a free and fare election. An election where you get paid to vote, I think that is what PDP meant when they say 'power to the people'. You will have to negotiate with the political parties with your will power and see who appeals to your conscience financially. After the elections it will take another four years before they come back to you again to give more unfulfilled campaign promises. Make sure you add VAT to the money so you don't get charged for not paying your tax.

Laziness Births Inventions

Since the inception of life and man being lazy has been seen as bad as we have been encouraged to work hard if we wish to amount to anything good in life and gain a successful status but at the same time as life progresses we have been encouraged overtime to become lazy as well, sounds crazy right?

Every invention in life that has been geared towards the progress of man kind has been borne out of laziness. This may sound awkward but it's a sincere truth. As we grow we have encountered inventions that has made life easier and simpler for millennials or the world at large.
I remember at a very tender age we owned a black and white TV (not the colors of the TV though but that's how the images appear on the screen), and to switch channels we have to turn a knob which helps us tune the channels we want, then my father came home with a colored TV and it came with a remote control, meaning from the comfort of where we are sitting facing the TV we don't need to walk up to it to tune the channel we wanted we could do that pressing the remote. Now who ever created the remote control thought of how stressful it could be to get up and change the channel and sometimes that knob could be a bit difficult to turn requiring extra extra strength which sometimes after searching for your required channel you might feel drained. So it was out of laziness that the remote control was born.

I could go on to site a lot of examples but then you can take a look at your immediate environment and count how many things you could do without lifting much of a finger. Like fastfoods, Uber services, your kitchen blender, gas cooker etc. All these things were as a result of giving us a stress free life, and these days doing the dishes after eating is not so important if you use disposable plates and plastic spoons.
I'm not writing this article to encourage laziness but think of it, the more we progress the lazier we become. You can as well do a personal research and check all the muscle pulling jobs around you and see how many machines or inventions have not made easy for you.
In conclusion I can say laziness is the bane of inventions that foster human progress.
(C) Nwachi Emmanuel

Comedy Geek, my journey and lessons

I've learnt so much about being a comedian, that being funny is not enough, you need to know the right things to say, the jokes for the right audience, have a definitive style that people can use to differentiate you from other comics and knowing how to land your punchline in a way it will produce humour.

Before I became a comedian I thought comedy was a fools business, it was all about foolery and dressing funny and making an ass of yourself until I studied the art of being funny and it became clear to me that you needed more wits than foolishness to actually erupt laughter as a stand-up comedian. My true motivation to do stand-up came after watching Daniel d' humorous perform on stage for the first time and i thought if it was this cheesy then I can actually try this out, but as I grow in the art I began to understand that every joke has its approach and comic has his/her style and I began to develop mine. It took me well over five years to definitively find my own voice as a comic and on that journey I wrote a couple of jokes which some I couldn't imagine myself doing them again and the ones I find my comfortable I held on to.

In my years of practicing as a stand up comedian I have been able to do four specials and one repeat special, and all through these shows I've been able to grow a personal fan base who understands my class of jokes. It takes me a year to prepare a one hour set and most of the jokes are either topical or observational, which means if I'm not picking a topic from current affairs or news stories I am talking mostly about my observations which most of the time I have to add a little twist to the story to get out the humour. In writing jokes I learnt to get at the punchlines first before developing a story to it and I like taking your mind through a journey of thought allowing you to wonder where I want to arrive at when I'm done with the story, this I learnt from basketmouth, but as I grow I found Trevor Noah more thrilling as he picks on topics and make light out of them.

The truth is anyone can be a comedian, but not everyone can do stand-up comedy except you have an exceptional gift in telling funny stories and picking at random topics. Before I gave myself the moniker 'Comedy Geek' I've always wanted people to see me as a smart person one who is not doing comedy because I was bored of life but one who finds fun expressing himself in an amusing way and sharing thought provoking jokes. So I became intentional, read more about comedians and comedy in general studied those whose part I wished to thread and i worked more on my presentation.
The likes of Chris Rock, Ali Baba, Dan' D humorous, basketmouth and bovi were my influences, I know you were expecting Trevor Noah but I am still studying him though, I watched these men and understood from everyone one of them I could pick style, delivery, content creation and fashion out how to write materials.

It actually takes hard work and dedication to do a comedy special, I have tried to encourage most of my friends and colleagues but then, you have to be determined from the inside, write jokes that could last you an hour set on stage and rehearse vehemently, in the cases where we don't have teleprompter you need to memorize your routine, so you can know how to move with the jokes so it doesn't look like you were just picking random subjects to share... the jokes have to co-relate with each other and if the next set won't relate with the last joke you have to prepare the minds of your audience so they won't look lost as to where you are heading to. N/B a comedy special doesn't have to be an hour but at least you need to have good materials that could keep you going and keep the audience engaged for as long as you are willing to stay.

Doing stand-up is more tasking than being a virtual comedian, in stand up you have to be sure the joke is funny before you tell it or you might end up bombing the set but being a virtual comedian it doesn't work that way, you can just share your video and wait for feedback or forget about it till someone comes along to comment whether it's funny or not.
I'll advise you read books and watch a lot of television, from news to everything exciting and even boring as well, pick on things that seems ridiculous to you note them down, open your mind to new ideas, keep an open heart during discussions, observe your environment and stick around people who makes you laugh more, these are the ways you could get your materials and when they come tailor them to suit your audience and always rehearse your routine.

Google search and Nigerian priorities

On Google search and Nigerians, we are wondering how we end up looking up such frivolous topics like 'how to prepare banga soup' 'who is the richest musician in Nigerian' 'how to dance shaku shaku' and many more insensible topics.

The truth is we are not wired for inventions, we would rather seek personal happiness than try to change the world, if you look closely at the topics most searched you find out that these things tend to create personal happiness to the search party than give them a sense of responsibility.

We live in a country where the order of the day is get rich by any means possible and how else do we get rich when the government is not providing an enabling working condition if not sticking to advance fee fraud or becoming a politician where your will to loot is greater than your will to serve.
So learning how to prepare banga soup will bring a momentary happiness that will last the pot of soup and we can continue the struggle to become great once again. If we can't become yahoo boys or politicians where we can make easy money then we should focus our energy on dancing shaku' shaku, trust me that dance moves is quite difficult, and now that the world cup is over I'm sure the premiership fixtures will take its place since football has been the only thing truly uniting us as a country.

I may not be making any sense from this but trust me if the search results get to reveal more you will find more things that will annoy your rich intellect than the ones put on display. Well if there is a better thing to search on you should see the trending topics on Nigerian twitter then you will know why we are the giants of africa.

STOP THE SOOT, JUST ANOTHER SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN?

Before the advent of social media, the only way the masses could get the government to hear them out besides getting the representatives at the house of assembly speak for them is through protests, either peaceful or violent, but I think the peaceful ones are the best call though. That way you have to match up to the office in charge or ministry or even to the government house just to get their attention and trust me this method was kinda effective, maybe not a hundred percent but at least the authorities involved get to respond to these protest which helps solve half of the problem then.
Then came social media where you can be anywhere and talk to the president which looked like an effective and stress free approach but then we all have to be sincere with ourselves how much of this have been very effective as it claims to be. Remember when we had the #BBOG (bring back our girls campaign) it looked effective, we even had the international community weighing in on it, people from all works of life and even top politicians who has no social media savvy even joined and played the card, I think that was one of the biggest hash tag trend out of Nigeria besides the big brother frabchise, but then it was just a social media drama that had Nigerians up and doing for some months and it died down immediately like one of those moments where the Viagra wears out (well if you know, you know).
Now don't get me all wrong I'm a big fan of hash tags and social media campaigns but this new one on the Soot in portharcourt I think we should go beyond just social media campaigns and trending hash tags but do a peaceful match to the government house or ministry of environment and get them to understand what it really is that is going on, I think hearing from the governor that this issue will be tackled adequately and maybe a round table meeting will be held with the perpetrators of this heinous act and see a way to curb the flames and darj smokes causing this, maybe a lecture on how to control these should be held too.
Trust me we can be more effective if we let go off social media for this and really come all out and make the move to end the soot, maybe this one can be more successful than #EndSARS which by the way did not even shake the table at all, except the people who still go about as SARS officials are really not that.

WHY CORPORATE BRANDS WON'T SPONSOR YOUR EVENTS

The challenge biggest most entertainers suffer from this part of the world is lack of sponsorship for either their career or event, and I don't mean dash money sponsorship I'm talking about corporate brands buying into their brands.

As someone who has been in the business and have helped organize

a few show I'll tell you the truth most of us have nothing to really offer. Often times when we approach these people and we tell them this is what we want to do and they in turn ask for a proposal we just go copy some other person's failed junk and send to the company. And what do we put as partnership benefits "I'll fly your company logo on all our publicity materials, and blah blah blah".

They probably are tired of hearing these stuff we should all actually come up with something better than that. Trust me you need to be a bigger brand to be able to promise another big brand visibility, you may call it publicity but it's more or less making them visible to a new audience. Let's take an AY live as an instance here, he is flying one of the biggest comedy brand in Africa and trust me any body will be willing to cash in on him, because they believe he already has an audience they can reach out to. You on the other hand besides your social media friends and the few people within your locality how many people can you really reach out to.

We really don't have the capacity to ask for sponsorship, because we can't really sell the brands we are approaching for these. Nobody wants to put his money in an investment that won't yield, so before you approach someone for sponsorship or partnership you should be sure you really have a good way to sell their products to your audience or you already have an audience they can't ignore. Write a good business proposal, state what you want from them and offer them what they will gain in return, trust me if we can focus on building a reliable brand than chasing money bags we will conquer the corporate market and they will come to us for advert placement.

It's not called show business for nothing, you show the people the business benefits of sponsorship and they will show you their money.