Scalpeldiary

Something about a relationship based on trust,not just lust.
Something about having goals not just weekend plans
Something deeper than chats and borrowed words.
Something about a woman scolding her man to do right.
Something about growth,not just anniversaries.
Something about memories not just filtered pictures in a gallery.
Somethings run deeper than a pretty face and a handsome physique.
Somethings deeper than L’oreal.
Foundation that’s resist stormy weathers.
Somethings cut deeper than knives in cheese cakes.
Somethings cut deeper than wishes on empty promises.
Somethings lie beyond eyes lurking at forbidden places.
Somethings better than a man’s third leg.
Somethings far greater than curves in tight stitches.
Far greater things than our eyes can see.
Far better things than 10 minutes of moaning than soon turns to mourning.
Far greater things beyond the reach of human imaginations.
The Love of God who is love Himself.

Parkwat Walkyes Parky

The journey of life has a lot of twists and turns.
For some,it is a marathon.For others, it is a sprint and some of us have to cross hurdles.
It is the same road we tread upon but our paths are different.
We are on a journey.Sometimes we move in herds and sometimes we ride solo.
Some swim with sharks, some endure the quick sands of deserts and some find themselves on the trail of the himanlayas.
Sometimes a road is rough and it leads to gold.
Sometimes a road is smooth,but it leads to a dead end.
Our maps often times lead us astray,and even with a compass,sometimes is hard to find our way home.
But we have to keep moving, no one ever made it far standing in one place.
Parkwat Walkyes Parky

8th April,2019

It was the German director, Fassbinder that once said “ love is colder than death and the cinema is warmer than life”. For the many fans of Tyler perry, “Acrimony” was anything but warm. We have come to expect nothing but laughter every time we watch a Tyler Perry movie. If it is not Madea’s constant issues with the “popo”,it is the hilarious innuendos uncle Joe never gets tired of spitting. It won’t be out of place to say the name Tyler Perry is synonymous with comedy, but in Acrimony we are confronted with many issues that bring more tears than smiles to our faces.
The movie begins with the star actress Melinda Moore played by Taraji P. Henson falling in love with an engineering student Robert Gayle.Tragedy strikes and she loses her mother. Things move very quickly and they grow very close. Things turn sour when she finds him cheating with another girl after losing her virginity to him. She injures herself in the process of seeking revenge and her womb is removed.They reconcile and Melinda uses the money her mother left her to sponsor a battery project Robert has been developing.
It is a no brainer presenting the plot again in written form,I’ll leave that to the critics.And it will be also be irony considering the title of this piece. Acrimony plays with our expectations, starting a love story with fantasy and ending it with never happy ever after.True to our nature, we were quick to start an argument about who is to blame.Like kids seeking Easter eggs, we went on a search for faults in the lives of those on screen, and in doing so ignored so many lessons-the power of the people who we first fall in love with, the karma that comes with revenge and BPD. Yes, I know you are wondering what BPD Is.If you guessed “boyfriends play dumb” you’re actually wrong. BPD actually means Borderline Personality Disorder which is the condition Melinda was diagnosed with.Many people have watched this movie a thousand times, but have subconsciously skipped the scenes where BPD is mentioned. Apologies this is not going to be a piece about first love or revenge or a story about the power of chasing a dream and actualizing it.It is about seeking the transient lessons about our lives and how they affect our relationship with our families and loved ones.
BPD is also known as emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD) which is a long term pattern of unstable emotions,unstable sense of self and I some cases self harm.Substance abuse, depression and eating disorders are associated with BPD. If you’re wondering why BPD is important, it will interest you to know that 10% of people who suffer from BPD commit suicide and if you consider that about one million people commit suicide globally and about 10 to 20 million people attempt it, then you realise that more needs to be done as it concerns mental health..However,People generally panic when they grow a boil around their genitals and seldom rush to the ER to tell their doctor the forgot where the parked their car after leaving the market or how they had to collect five ATM cards during the year because they always input the wrong PIN. It is not surprising that people don’t pay attention to their mental health.

The World Health Organization estimates that about 450 million people are impacted by mental health. Depression currently ranks fourth among the top ten leading cause of disease worldwide. In Nigeria the statistics are even more gory. The Federal Ministry of Health reveals that about 20-30% of Nigerians suffer from mental illness. Several challenges are responsible for such high estimates.

Having a conversation about mental health with an average Nigerian, quickly reveals that the demonic theory of disease still remains popular among Nigerians. The belief among such people is that mental health is some form of punishment from God or a result of a legion of demons tormenting a weak spirit. Be that as it may, whether mental health is as a result of some “stubborn” neurons or a spiritual disorder, the problem with this kind of thinking is that it reduces access to mental health services.Cases exist of mentally ill people who go from prayer house, to ministry and even to the “babalowos”.When all is said and done,nothing is really achieved,Such patients only come to seek help in mental institutions only when the illness has gone from acute to chronic or from firing pan to fire as the average Nigerians will say.
Another challenge in addressing mental illness is the stigma associated with it.The general impression most people have about people suffering from mental illness is that of weakness or a consequence of a vice such as drug abuse. The cultural belief in some parts of the country doesn’t help. People deliberately refuse to marry from such families and because access to guidance counselling is challenging,victims are left to carry their cross alone.In Nigeria , most secondary schools don’t have guidance counsellors to help them make some of the biggest decisions of their lives.The advice of most parents is more of a command than a suggestion.Teenagers wishes and aspirations are bent by parents to suite their ego.Parents choose what course their children study, who they marry and even the number of their grandchildren. Over time these practices create a society in which there are many options but choice is a default. Frustrated by this illusion of free choice,many people turn to substances to cope.

If you’re familiar with the phrase “disease no dey kill African man” ,then you know that depression is a word that is alien to Nigerians as vegetarian. Although depression exists, Nigerians have chosen to pretend it doesn’t .Admitting you’re depressed is admitting weakness. The socio-economic challenges facing the country have made us adopt coping mechanisms. A sick Nigerian who is critically ill when asked he/she is feeling will reply with “I am fine”. Overtime, many Nigerians have become depressed but are not willing to seek help. The number of young people taking their lives is alarming. More worrisome is the fact that no one seems to be talking about it. In forums where mental problems such as depression are discussed, the conversation soon meanders to insults and all sorts of calumny against people with mental health.

Even without conducting a survey,it is very evident that at any given time there are more mentally challenged people roaming the streets than the ones in ‘yaba left’ homes.Government is already struggling to fund Malaria and HIV/AIDS programs and soliciting or expecting funding for mental health is a trip to the stars.However, hope is not completely lost.We the people of Nigeria have always been a people with initiative.We build our schools when government won’t fund its schools. We drink from our wells when the government pipes stay dry.We contend with the noise and smoke to generate our own electricity. Most times what people suffering from mental health need is love from family and friends and not even the anti-depressants. We need to erase our need to find satisfaction in judging others. Now is the time to always place a call to our friends who are struggling at different fronts,whether academic, a new found faith or dealing with the loss of a loved one.While we do that, we must not forget the ones who are always ‘fine’.Those friends who are always ‘lolling’ and the ones who are quick to put on a wide smile in the selfies.Las las we can’t all be mad in this country!

Parkwat Walkyes Parky

Wednesday, 20th March,2019

It was a bumpy ride from the dark hills of pankshin to the Sandy plains of Quan Pan. The contours on my grandma’s face was smoother than the pot-hole ridden road.At this point it was hard to decide whether it was the road that had holes in it or the potholes that had patches of solid bitumen. As we passed from town to village and from village to inhabitable wastelands, my mind kept kept playing several scenarios of how to greet my distant relatives after 3 years. Like most Mupun teens, we were considered ‘spoilt’ because we leant the white man’s tongue and abandoned the mother tongue. In my case, it was heresy for the son of Parks Jing to struggle to speak his own dialect. After a 3 hour journey, we finally arrived at Gidan-dabat.
The crowd that were present could suggest one of two things-a funeral or a wedding. Thankfully, it was my cousin sister who was about to get married. When God created Man, He created a woman to give him companionship and to continue producing his own kind. The instruction was simple. A man must leave his own kindred and people and stick to his wife. We humans took that simple instruction and interpreted it in diverse ways resulting in customs, traditions and even taboos. The customary bride price had already been collected by the uncles and all the items on the list had been checked.
We quickly settled to the subtle village life and enjoyed the cool breeze that was bellowing. Gidan-dabat was a calm place with people who led easy lives.They had no electricity or running water but you couldn’t judge that from their faces. Their faces were always lit with a smile and their arms were long enough to suggest they could take in foe mistaken as a friend. My facial muscles and particularly my obicularis oris were fatigued from constant response to numerous questions-how is school? where are your other siblings? I mumbled the responses as I went along and occasionally gave a queer smile. The weather in the south was beautiful at this time of the year but I am afraid I couldn’t say same for other parts of the year. We were here to perform rites handed down to us by our forebears. That night we were going to ‘se shik’.Although I was still a boy by traditional standards, my dad had made it his priority to bring me on this trip. Our version of the Mupun dialect was laughable and even when it was comprehensible, the accent wasn’t there. He reckoned that if he couldn’t make us speak the language fluently, we could learn other traditional rites every mupun man was expected to know. The ‘se shik ‘ was a marriage custom that required the eating of a goat presented to the bride’s family as part of the dowry. As I sat in the car playing with my phone, my uncle who retired recently from the police force, but still looked 40 yelled my name to come and join them on the traditional mat spread at a corner of the house. My dad and several uncles were already seated. All conversations were in mupun and the silence was cemetery grade. My uncle Senlong who was in charge of performing the rites talked with authority and invited the rest of us to wash our hands to eat the goat meat that was in a red giant flask. The rigors of 3 years of medical school and perpetual fear of pathogens quickly kicked in and I took the invitation with all the seriousness it deserved. I washed my hand as best as I could like a surgeon prepping for the O.R.I couldn’t eat with dirty fingers -Louis Pasteur would be turning in his grave.
An African adage says ‘a boy who must eat with elders must wash his hands very well’. However, when called to supper, food is not the only thing on the menu. You could wash your hands, but surely,you must also wash the foolishness that accompanies teenage innocence.The white man despite the many things he stole from us, couldn’t take our culture from us. His civilization is no match for our ancient wisdom and culture,albeit for some strange reason our ancient wisdom still didn’t translate into better healthcare for our people. And while kids go to bed in America on bedtime stories and lullaby, Ali must endure the torture of the orchestra of the female anopheles. We sat in the dark and the only other distraction was the women folk was sat in the corner and ate their own portion of the goat meat. Uncle Senglong reminded us of why we were gathered. He reminded us of our forefathers, pausing briefly everytime he mentioned their names.In that moment I felt a strange feeling rest over my shoulders. In this moment I was reminded of my roots and nothing else mattered. As I picked my first piece of the meat I could see my father’s face vaguely in the dark and I knew that look -it was the same look he gave me at my graduation from high school. It was the same look he gave me everytime I made him proud.
The texture and taste of the meat reminded me that to eat with elders you must have strong masticating muscles. The meat was anything but tender. Some were so fatty and I was tempted to tell the elders about the risk of atherosclerosis, I refused to take the bait. It was cooked with local herbs and no oil. The fat within the meat was sufficient for it. As I digged into the meat with all the strength my masseter and tempralis could muster I couldn’t help but wonder why we couldn’t fry or barbecue the meat. I ate in silence and listened as my uncles talked about tales of old.They talked about my grandfather whom I never met.They talked about the youthful days and in-between mouthful of meat,they joked about how quickly their hair had turned grey and the fate that awaited them-the fate of all men. I had just celebrated my birthday a few days back,but on that cold February night as I layed down to sleep, my eyes were not the only things that felt heavy. I could feel the weight of responsibility on my shoulders. My initiation into manhood had just begun.

Parkwat Parky

7th February, 2019

It was love at first sight, or so she thought. Everything just felt right. He was the type to make a boring Wednesday feel like Valentine’s Day. The gods must be smiling on this union. She had a fortress to herself, but now she must tear down her walls and build a bridge. Why wait for the end, their beautiful beginning was a fairy tale.But the more she gave herself away, the more her fears grew. The texts stop coming, the calls too. Another son of Adam took a cut of her heart and left. First cut they say is the deepest,but she could never get used to this kind of pain. How can one touch have the power to heal and bruise? How can just a single voice cheer and jeer at the same time? Why did she fall in love, only to rise with hate? She sat with her needle and thread going through her woes. Will she hang from the thread or to go out with her needle and pierce some hearts too? Cupid pierce the wrong heart this time!

How do you sleep at night?
I know your eyes close
But does your mind find rest?
I wonder if you have nightmares

Do you just win the case and justice lose its face?
What’s your definition of truth?
Is your weapon the wig on your head or the sugar, coated on your lips?
Your robes are black
Can you tell the colour of your heart?

You strike the gavel.
A man’s fate is sealed.
You win the argument
And another man’s life is stilled.
You open your books of many sections.
And you close the chapter on freedom.

You pass the sentence
And lives become mere phrases. I don’t know which I fear most, To wear the robe or to embrace the scaffold?

Parkwat parky

3rd February, AD 2019

Every New year comes with expectations, resolutions and even manifestations of the preceding year.And because human beings are creatures of habit, we write down new goals and pursue mostly old resolutions we couldn’t achieve in the past year.The resolutions range from the normal clichés to the “are you kidding me?” and in some rare occasions the outright outrageous.Some want to lose pounds or to be more appropriate weight; to avoid the over zealous “there is power in the tongue” people who might think we want them to lose the paper of many colours and dead presidents. Others just want to quit a bad habit and some just people just want to buy a Benz!
The energy that greeted 2019 was electrifying, almost nostalgic and a reminder that if you are reading this is not too late to take wind of that energy too.The year started on a positive note making me wander if Skepta’s song actually helped by keeping some the bad energy of 2018 far away for good.

While we can all agree that 2019 is all about good vibes and securing the bag ,not forgetting the good’ole German ‘Benzo’,we can also disagree to agree that the methods involve differ. Last year was great for young people. Many started businesses and some just just added titles to their names. Many new CEOs and aspiring ones are really eager to see the glad tidings this year will bring and many more are just waiting on ASUU to call off their strike .No matter the dream , the fact is many young people are making progress albeit the method some have chosen is strange and diabolical.
Here is a riddle- a female pant and an evil babalawo can get you a ? well, voodoo may have its origins in Africa but an ugly trend is rearing it’s head in Nigeria. Almost on a daily basis, the blogs and “copy and paste pages” keep us abreast with news of young men and women who have been caught with bags full of pants. Some of the perpetrators caught will not be recognizable anytime soon because of the street approach of facial reconstruction and will be needing a real plastic surgeon no doubt.Other times there were reports of ladies going mad after their pants were stolen.Despite a few arrest and jungle justice approach, the people carrying out this dastardly act seem undeterred.
The term “yahoo boy” is old as the email service provider itself although I wonder if there are no ‘yahoo girls’. Well,their activities in the past were mostly that of internet fraud and their targets mostly foreign nationals. In the past few years however, the yahoo boys desperate for a living and an upgrade have now resorted to human rituals to make a living. Those whose pants are not stolen go missing ,only to be found later without certain body parts. As gruesome as this may sound, in another part of Nigeria someone just bought a Benz and is about to call for a thanksgiving.The many nights thereafter are filled with partying, binge drinking and loathsome living.It is also at these events that aspiring yahoo boys get an opportunity to hunt their prey.

It has been said that it is not good to laugh at the hole in a man’s shirt if you can help him stitch it, but it is also wise to know how the hole came about.
According to Wikipedia, over 90% of the Nigeria’s population are youths. This would have been news for rejoicing if most of them were gainfully employed. This is not so. The Nigeria bureau of statistics, NBS reported that about 3.3 million Nigerians lost their jobs in the third quarter of 2018 adding to the pool of unemployed graduates roaming the streets on ‘leggedizbenz’ with CVs. The problem is further complicated by the quality of graduates that our tertiary institutions are churning out. The science laboratories are literally empty in our federal universities. A four year course lasts about six years. The mandatory one year youth service will help settle a few bills, but right after that becoming gainfully employed becomes a red queen’s race. Every time there is a recruitment exercise going on, the thousands of graduates who show up is a testament to the fact that the devil runs a very large workshop. Some unemployed youths thread the path of honour and acquire skills to become self-employed while others just go out of their way to sacrifice other humans like them.
In addition, if you factor in the craze of this generation to showoff, you’ll agree with Jamey Johnson that “a picture is worth of a thousands, but you can’t see what the shades of grey can cover”. Today, we young people spend a very considerable chunk of our time liking, following and commenting on social media. To be honest, it is not easy keeping our eyes off the Patek Phillipe wristwatches on the hands of celebrities or the mesmerizing interiors of the Rolls Royce. That been said, it is not bad to aspire to have these things. In fact it can be motivation for some people. However, while these pictures speak thousands of words, we must be careful about those shades of grey we can’t see. Some of the so called celebrities are just walking billboards for brands, some of the merchandise are fake and some are borrowed for photoshoots. Popular culture has also contributed in this ‘get rich quick’ mentality. Recently, a song by some Nigerian artistes seemed to glorify dubious means of getting money with lyrics such as “if I go get money, I go do blood ritual”.The song has been banned, but the damage it has caused can only be imagined. If you are not adding value or learning or making money online, now might be a good time to reprioritize the things that matter.

Here’s the ugly truth, not all of us are going to buy a Benz in 2019-not even a Toyota, but we can learn the virtue of patience as one of our resolutions for the year. Some may say,if stealing pant is out of the picture, what can one do? Well, you can start a small business, learn a new skill or pursue your chosen career path with vigor. For surely the Bible makes it clear that we should not despise small beginnings. There may be many ways to get rich, but one of the surest is to seek God’s Kingdom and be hardworking. We must not fall into the temptation of shouting loud amens if we are not ready to work.If something is not right, you must use your God given brain to solve the challenge instead of hopping from ministry to ministry listening to the ‘it is well’ gospel. And you can be sure that ‘the blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it’. (Prov.10:22).

Parkwat Walkyes Parky

1st February, 2019

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton