Blood, tears and confusion: Which way Nigeria?

For several months now, we have woken up to nothing but bad news in our beloved country, Nigeria. It is not getting any better either. The latest being the abduction of girls in Chibok, Bornu State. Young girls that did nothing but want to have basic education.

#BringBackOurGirls is a campaign got the whole world talking and offering help even when we can't say we know the whole truth about it all. What with the many conflicting reports that we hear daily. It is heart breaking to know that some girls are in some forest or some unknown place away from their families and loved ones abused, brainwashed and scared out of their wits. This amongst other things show that there are people in this country who think the girl-child should not be educated and this senseless act might just be their way of showing it.

#BringBackOurGirls because they are innocent and holding them and doing this evil won't do anyone any good or solve the fundamental problems we have in this country.

#BringBackOurGirls instead of making much noise and doing little.

#BringBackOurGirls by being vigilant and not the whole 'I don kia' 'No be my business' 'E no concern me' attitude we have about everything.

From the bombings, the kidnappings to the jungle justice that is still happening on our streets, (I saw pictures of a woman who was suspected of kidnapping some children. She was of course lynched and burned.) We need to not only pray, but to be our brother's keepers. We need to do the right thing and not just talk (scream, debate all day) about it. We need to do what we can as citizens to help and not spend our time and energy blaming the government for everything. (Don't think I don't know there are inadequacies.)

God bless Nigeria and give us the wisdom we need to tackle this situation.

Blessings.

Lily Johnson

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Rest in peace Amaka Igwe.

When I heard this news, I hoped it wasn't true. But it is and very sad. Amaka was not just a multi-talented producer and script writer who gave us good movies and TV soaps, this woman was a force! She will be greatly missed.

My heartfelt condolences to her entire family. May her soul rest in perfect peace.

Lily Johnson.

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Laserderm Clinics Ikeja, Lagos: My experience.

In a post I talked about visiting a clinic concerning those acne from hell I suddenly got. I had read about LaserDerm last year online and when I made a call and was told about some consultancy fee of N7,000, I was like ehh no. But since then till now I’m sure I must have spent like ten times that amount on products which were either doing nothing, hit and miss or even worsening the situation.
So I had another reason to give the clinic a try. My dear younger brother has severe acne and it was beginning to affect him emotionally. We both booked an appointment.

The Review

Customer service: If you have been in the situation where a customer service rep is extremely rude to you which happens sometimes, you will appreciate it when you get decent customer care service. The lady at the front desk at LaserDerm is very cool I must say. You’ll feel like you are talking to a friend. Cozy reception area too. It’s all about time with these people so when your appointment is for 1pm, get there by 12:50pm so you can cool off a bit.

The consultation/The Doctors: Ok, after filling a form that educates the doctors on your condition i.e, when it first started, the medications you’ve used you know standard hospital stuff, you still get to discuss your expectations and what is obtainable. They offer a range of treatments and run you through them and advice you on what’s best for you. At the end of the consultation, depending on what you came for, you are given samples of the products you are supposed to start using. A nice surprise. They can even work with your budget. Just be open and honest. The two doctors I met were very friendly, kind and very professional.

Today is my birthday...

Yeah, I got a year older today. I am grateful to God for all HE has done for me and I am so sure HE is about to do more because, well I have a few more that I am asking HIM for. [Baba God, You know how far o! Na Your own miracle pure pass]

 I followed my mum to a small village called Esepe around Oku afo area in Badagry where she is supervising a survey job. I took a few pictures.

The only church in the village i think. Check out the age of the founder before he died.

Happy New Year sweethearts!

Hello my darlings!

Happy New year to you all! I know today is the 18^th and most of you have even forgotten that you were in a church or park screaming the words 18 days ago but if you live in Nigeria, you would know that it is somewhat in order to say that now because of the crazy situation we found ourselves in over the past days.

Lame excuse I know. I haven’t even blogged in months. I have been busy with a lot of things and the fact that my sister accidentally broke my modem just added to the whole MIA situation. Right now, I am in a tiny and over crowded cyber café trying to explain this to all of you while trying to keep my legs away from the CPU that is blowing hot air on them.

I am so glad that I was missed! Che, thank you so much girl. Jerry, merci! I missed blogging and blog reading too and I will get back to that as soon as I can. And please if you are following this blog and I am not following yours yet, let me know in the comment space and drop your URL too.

I want to thank all of you for making 2011 a grand year and I believe this year is going to be great for all of us.

Thank you guys! Kisses!

Lily Johnson

Thank you kisses and farewell to Ojukwu

I want to thank all of you that thanked God with me in your comments on my last post. May God’s blessings continue to follow you and your loved ones everywhere you go..

My brother is doing very well. The dude is one of the nicest people I know though he knows how to get under my skin sometimes. I kept thinking to myself, Who was going to get under my skin if anything had happened to him? I appreciate life more than ever now and I thank God for life.

Meanwhile, I find myself calling ‘Jehova!’ more often than not these days. If I am in a bus and it makes an abrupt stop, this lady would call ‘Jehova!’ Watching Lagos ‘okada’ riders in action hasn’t made it easy not to. The peculiar thing is the way I say it though; in this ‘well rounded Igbotic’ accent! I just completely forget where I am and say it the way my grandmother would. I guess I am yet to get over the shock completely. But I will get there.  And I do need to stop stunning people when I do that. It is unbecoming.

I did weep a little when I heard of Odumegwu Ojukwu’s death. My mum used to sing us war songs that they sang during the Biafran war. She was a child then but was old enough to know how this man was respected. Some were songs in praise of the war lord. May his soul rest in perfect peace. Click here to read a short article about him.

Wishing you all a great week ahead.

Lily Johnson

This is who I am...

I am Lily Johnson

I am a Nigerian woman

I am against all forms of sexual violence.

I am against child abuse and neglect.

I am against human trafficking and slavery.

I am against terrorism. I am against jungle justice because it should be a crime to take laws into your hands.

I am against tribalism.

I am against all kinds of fraudulent practices.

I am against racism.

I am against the violation of basic human rights.

I am against the oppression of the poor and helpless.

I am all for supporting noble causes.

I am all for National and World peace.

I am all for empowering, educating and motivating women and the youth.

I am all for the true practice of democracy.

I am all for fairness, equity and justice.

I just woke up this morning and found myself writing this. I don’t know if it is because of the gist a friend gave me last night about a Chinese site that blocked his IP after sending them emails about a product or the not so recent travel warnings issued by the US [Click here][And who would blame them for wanting to protect their citizens] or the fact that so many things have been happening in recent times that beg the question ‘What is going on?’

One thing is for sure though, a lot of Nigerians would stand up for what is right and I am one of them.

Hope your week is going well? God bless you.

Lily Johnson

From the East, with pictures and a weird gist..

On the 27th of September, I and my large family buried our 90 year old grannie who had passed away a few months earlier. We had gotten past the sadness and all so we just celebrated the life of the matriarch.


Here are some pictures from the event which took place in Akama Oghe in Ezeagu Local government of Enugu state, Nigeria.



Mum, Berl, Lily, Dami[my bestie] and Ursula[at the back] Berl and Ursula're my younger sisters.



In my room after dressing up for the ceremony



'Abacha'. African salad. Yummy!




A cousin, Ursula, Berl, Lily and Andre[younger bro]



Dancing!!





The 'udu'




'Ogene' [Metal gong] and a drum




The 'Ichaka'





This guy can dance!




A sort of local gun or something called 'Nkpo na ani'



A Fulani woman turned Igbo



She danced vigourously with that calabash on her head and it didnt even shake!





Masquerades. I and Dami werent allowed to take this picture because we were women so we got Andre to do it.



The guy in the Tee shirt and brown trousers is the 'rainmaker'

However, I witnessed something really weird and thought I should share it with you guys. One of my uncles called a ‘rain maker’ to make sure that it doesn’t rain on the day of the ceremony. On the day before the ceremony, the man staggered into the compound like he was very drunk. My dad had made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with anyone playing ‘god’ so the man came to see my uncle. When I saw him, I tweeted ‘The rain maker is here’. The tweet to my surprise, didn’t post. This continued for a while. Then I tweeted ‘Rainmaker’. It appeared on my TL. So anytime, I added ‘the’ before ‘rainmaker’ , the tweet would disappear somehow. Twitter might have had problems then but it was weird that it happened only when the man was around and I did tweet about other things and they didn’t ‘disappear like those tweets had.


The rainmaker’s name[let’s see you disappear here] was Romanus. On the day of the ceremony, it was drizzling a bit. He brought out some herbs, put them inside water and started ‘chasing away’ the rain. It did stop raining a few minutes later. Throughout our stay, it only rained at night. According to the villagers, it was the ‘rain’ in his stomach was what was making him stagger all over the place and not alcohol. And when he sleeps at night, the rain would be released.

Dear reader, isn’t that one of the weirdest things you have ever heard?

We didn’t even know what to think about the whole things but allowed ourselves to be puzzled for a while. Like really? This guy is not a herbalist but he could stop the rain from ruining this day? Okay!



The man in sunglasses is my dear father.





Set for church service on Sunday




Monday morning. Waiting for the bus. Wearing hairnets, no make up whatsoever and as tired as hell!



We did have a great time anyway. And drank a lot of fresh palm wine too.

Hope you guys are okay.

Lily Johnson