Funeral rumination…

  Death, especially the death of a loved one, purifies the thought. It distils life into clear distillates. The important from the unimportant. The permanent from the fleeting. You cogitate on the vanity of life as you sip a N500K whisky.  As I sat in the pew listening to congregants eulogise my father-in-law, the jocose philosopher in me took over.  …

“What is mine is mine. What is yours is mine.” Oh Nike!

Nike doesn’t like vanilla ice cream. It does not like safe. It likes Chilli Ginger Balsamic Swirl Ice Cream. Something to titillate the sense. It is the type of company that’ll put pineapples in pizza in Italy. It’s made specially for you. Hope you like it. And if you don’t, well, maybe you should try the cupcake from Lululemon.  “Am …

N10.6m for a bottle of Macallan? O Thunder, where art thou!

My father-in-law recently withdrew to more favourable frontiers. Tired of the earthly church, he decided to join the church triumphant.  I have so much love for the man. Without him, my wife might not have married me. He saw a son-in-law in a smoke-bellowing, booze-guzzling, jeans-sagging and dreadlock-spotting irreligious boy. He looked beyond the cover of the book. His death …

Who Is Thanos, ARCON or ADVAN? Part 2 (Ban of foreign models and VO)

In September 2022, ARCON banned the use of foreign models and voice-overs in advertising targeted at Nigerians from 1 January 2023. What the ban means is that Heineken or Coke or MTN can no longer expose in Nigeria the same advertising it runs in say Cameroon or South Africa, if the advertising does not include Nigerian models or voice-over. While …

Why are young guys so pathetic at dating and wooing women?

Today’s young men suck at wooing women. So complain the single ladies I work with. They say these guys can’t toast a lady if you gave them a room full of bread and a Deville toaster. They’ll carbonize the opportunity. Horribly. And by being such Dufuses at dating, they’ve left me with angry and frustrated ladies to console. That’s not …

Romance is overrated.

If I could go back in time and pick an era in which I’d loved to be married, I’d pick the days of the Old Testament. Those were the days! A man’s life was easy. Because I have no recollection of Adam helping Eve zip up her impossibly tight dress for Abel’s christening. Or Ruth belching rage because Boaz forgot their wedding anniversary. Jezebel …

“Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.”

“Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.” Robert Heinlein said that. Far from being a masochistic neanderthal, he actually means well for the pickneys.   I’ve got two smart and charming daughters. Pre-teens. Perfect peaches. I dote on them like the devil dote on sinners. They mean the world to me. I’ll hire the Mossad to knock …

A parliament of owls? A wake of vultures? English, bloody hell!

The last time I thought about collective nouns for animals was last year when my daughter was writing exams into secondary school (high school). She was impressed with my knowledge. Well, that’s what fathers do – know things.  But my esteem was bruised a few days ago when I was writing a blogpost and needed to use the collective nouns …

Our ethnic fault line and the keg of gunpowder.

Ingratiating commentaries are profitable. I’m tempted to get on that gravy train. But sadly, it is not for me. By a cruel hand of fate, it turns out I am allergic to bull. I tend to serve my juice without sweeteners. And as everyone with a sweet tooth knows, juices without sugar taste anemic. Truth is vinegary. Bitter, in fact, …

Thin line between prostitution and side-chick.

Right.  I crawled out from under my rock to hear the ruckus about a newfangled men association. Stingy Men Association of Nigeria. Quite unexpectedly, men have come to their senses and will no longer let their phalluses lead them to ruination.  Phalluses, by their unique biology, pay no mind to bankruptcy and good sense.  Once in the presence of a …

Ladies, cats are not witches. Witches like blood not milk!

Man, I like cats.  Not petrifying felines like Mufasa or Shere Khan. But felines like Garfield and Puss In Boots. Cats have my heart. Sneaky, disloyal and manipulative beauties. I’m particularly drawn to black furry cats. I like the outcast and the maligned.   Why do I like cats? Oh, cats live life on their own terms. They know they …

Paternity fraud. What makes a child yours?

  Your Wife and I.  Nigerians have the cruelest humour. We banter and satirize like no other. Pity such creativity seldom shows in our advertising.  In the last couple of days, Twitterverse has been awash with the alleged indiscretion of a bank MD. As expected of senior management, this good sir had spotted promise in a married employee. Since where …

Psst…aliens are here. Attracted by 5G

“Psst…have you heard? 5G tech caused Covid-19! It’s a ploy by the New World Order to get us chipped. Remember 666? The mark of the beast? That’s the end game!”  “Psst…the 2004 tsunami was caused by a secret underwater nuclear test by India.  US and Israel scientists were involved.   “Psst…Diana was killed by the MI6 on instruction of Her …

Sweethearts, if you keep your pants on, no one is going to be nicking them.

On my way home yesterday, I was listening to Classic FM. I heard, a rather preposterous report: an epidemic of female underpants theft in Nigeria. Grand theft of what we call pata or p-a-i-n-t in Yoruba.   Yup. Female pants are being purloined, shanghaied, abducted and misappropriated all over the land. This making away with underpants are sometimes surreptitious. At …

Pepsi’s ‘Naija All The Way’ spot. How I love a good marketing ambush!

The Pepsi Naija All The Way spot is the shiznit! Check it out below: Neat, isn’t it? It’s trendy, bouncy and pumps you up. Makes you want to believe in Nigeria again. The spot reminded us of one of the reasons we are Nigerians: bagful of self-belief and swag. Well, yea, the Naija spirit also sometimes turn into snakes and …

If there are no free lunches, how come we expect data privacy?

In the wake of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, I have thought about how much of my personal data is out there. Data waiting to be harvested by some sick psychologist or ethnographer and deployed to warping my mind. I like to think that I have an iron-clad mind. But at the rate I give in to pepperoni pizza, …

These ‘shithole’ outrage. Please, give me a break!

Aside from his use of an obscene term, I really do not understand the rage on the continent when President Trump referred to our beloved patch as ‘shithole countries.’ Emmanuel Macron yesterday said he shares the outrage of Africans on the disparagement by President Trump. Oh please! If by ‘shithole countries’ the man meant countries groaning under the weight of …

Robert Mugabe and Donald Trump. My two favourite personal brands.

Not so many folks like President Mugabe and President Trump. Not me. I’m their biggest fan. I’d give anything to be in the presence of their awesomeness.  I like the two for different reasons though. For President Trump, I like that the office of POTUS hasn’t sobered him up.  After all, he was Donald John Trump first before he became President …

Shooting Nigerian commercials out of Nigeria. What is true? What is bunkum?

A few months ago, the Minister for Information & Culture announced the government was going to ban the production of Nigerian movies, music videos and reality TV programmes outside the country. Such ban was to help grow the creative industry in Nigeria and to create jobs. Said the minister: ‘It is Nigerians that pay for the consumption of these products and therefore …

“The best time to go for broke is when you’re already there.”

“Look If you had one shot Or one opportunity To seize everything you ever wanted In one moment Would you capture it Or just let it slip?” Eminem – “Lose Yourself .“ (Soundtrack for “8 Mile.” ) If you haven’t seen Hidden Figures, you should. It is a biopic about African-American female mathematicians working at NASA during the Cold War …

The thing about loyalty.

“Look out for the people who look out for you. Loyalty is everything.” – Found Online I came across a YouTube video in which documentary maker Louis Theroux set out hoping to meet ‘MC Olu Omo.’ MC Olu Omo is the Treasurer of NURTW in Lagos and also the Chairman of the Oshodi chapter. According to popular opinion, he is …

Why approval by consensus never leads to great ideas

I have been involved in a few projects where approvals depended on a motley bunch of people, most of whom had little knowledge of the project, what it entails or what success would look like. It was decision-making by committee. A consensus-oriented process that seldom leads to great work, at least as far as great advertising or marketing goes. One of …

Sleep in the dark. You’ll get used to the monsters.

“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” – Jack Canfield.  There’s something decidedly hare-brained about jumping out of a perfectly good plane. A plane, if it isn’t obvious, is not a boat or a car. A plane flies. In the skies. With birds. There’s a reason we’re not birds. But man has never really been blessed with much …

New Airtel advertising. Must be the water in Banana Island.

There must be something in the waters at Banana Island. It was just a few weeks ago that I wrote about Airtel Nigeria’s Lost TV spot and how different and refreshing the spot was from previous Airtel commercials, and indeed from category spots. Lost was a marker set down by Airtel against competition, and unwittingly, against itself. The next spot …

All I want for Christmas is a warm ad

I’m a Christmas guy. I love Christmas. It’s my best time of the year. The harmattan. The lights. The carols. “Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen…”“Odun lo so pin O, Baba Rere…” The nice hampers. The dodgy hampers. The teeming malls. Bliss. Joy to the world. If only brands and companies will give us some really …

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