Seeking Beauty in the Metropolis: Females of Lagos 3: Random Illuminations

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

                                                                                          

Seeking Beauty in the Metropolis

Females of Lagos 3

Random Illuminations

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

Compcros

Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems

"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

                                       

At Art X Lagos, 2017

Taking a night walk along Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos, I was captivated by the rhythm of an expansive female backside, the central configuration stretching to embrace right and left with the fullness one associates with an endowed mammary zone, tapering upward in a slender song and narrowing downward in a tight grip on the two legs that stretched beneath, this exquisite expression of natural architecture replicating, in the lower regions, the structure of a superbly shaped upper female body in its undulations between expansion and contraction.

The Discovery on Allen

“I need to capture this moving symmetry for the Facebook group I run on female aesthetics, bringing a touch of the authentic, of real action on the streets, to the often highly staged offerings on the group drawn from professional photographers online”, I reasoned. She crossed the road and I followed discreetly behind with my camera, trying to capture the music of the walk without attracting attention to myself, the various kinds of commercial activity on the street bringing the darkness alive even as I pursued my private quest in which the figure of attention was implicated without her knowing.

Having tried a number of times to capture the plump shapeliness of what had been poured into those shorts she wore, I resolved to see if she would be up for proper photography instead of the unsatisfactory images I had got so far from the clandestine effort.

Walking up to her, I called her attention and she responded politely, reinforcing my experience of the amazing politeness of the people I have interacted with in Ikeja. Are these the same Nigerians of whom so many unsavory conclusions are drawn by people, I am still wondering. I complimented her appearance and she became wary. “Can we take this further?”, I enquired? "No!" was the forceful response I got as she entered into what was likely her house. No problem. I cannot blame myself for not trying.

Ogechi Uzoka at Mandilas Market, Lagos

Having taking the walk to a satisfactory point, exercising body, eyes and mind through the physical engagement with the rich life of the road, I turned to return home. Almost home, I saw another compelling one. This was a paragon of the balance between sumptuous fullness and exquisite rhythm in the flow of lines from head to feet. The short skirt tantalizingly revealed rich calves under delicate skin. A very direct approach is required to claim this price for my photographic archive, I was moved to conclude, since victory here would be most rewarding. “Can I take your picture?”, I asked, as she climbed the stairs to her destination. She looked at me with a puzzled look and declined.

No sweat. Perhaps with consistent effort I could become lucky.

Would these aesthetic embodiments accept payment for their photographs being taken by a stranger engaging in what someone called street photography? How much would be valuable in the puzzle of Nigeria's currency, in which large sounding figures are not necessarily a guide to purchasing value? At what figure does Nigerian currency carry weight for making purchases in Nigeria? At 5,000 naira, I was told when I later enquired. Should I offer that to prospective random models? What do I tell them I want to do with the pictures?

Ami Florish at Computer Village, Ikeja

Keeping one's eyes alive to beauty in all circumstances is vital for appreciating the wealth of the world. I am pleased to observe that a major champion of this form of beauty, the magazine Playboy, has announced it will bring back nudity to its content, having decided last year to discontinue the practice on which its brand was built in response to the flooding of the Internet with nude images, making images of naked women so ubiquitous as to be irrelevant in a for profit magazine like Playboy, they seemed to have reasoned.

A view I see as missing the point of what made the magazine unique in the first place, which was not female nudity in and of itself but the manner of its presentation, the framing of the erotic images themselves and their integration within the rich cultural context Playboy offered, stretching to include such such quality literature as the work of later Nobel Prize winner for literature Ernest Hemingway, the magazine projecting a world reflecting an idea of the complete lifestyle possible for the heterosexual man within Western modernity.

The female form, in any degree of clothing, or without, can never become jaded, will never fail to attract attention and compel payment of money for its display, regardless of the level of society’s saturation in exposure to that form. That is a biological imperative, deeply rooted in human being.

I intend to continue to share more of my adventures as my quest progresses in the great city.

Also published on Facebook

Other Photo Essays in this Series:

“Females of Lagos 1 : From the Sensuous to the Mystical ”

“Ogechi Uzoka : A Straight Line Drawn by God: Females of Lagos 2”

"Females of Lagos 4: Illumination at the Catholic Church"

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

                                                                                                   

                                                                     

      

Anti-Nigerian Ethnic Cleansing Drive in South Africa

The Economic Dimension

by

Sopuruchukwu B Ehidonye and Ani Nonso

With Pics

from Facebook posts of Jesse Nnaezugo Obinna and by Mazi Onukwube Ofoelue

Compiled by

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

Compcros

Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems

"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

Compilation by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju of Facebook essays by Sopuruchukwu B Ehidonye and Ani Nonso

With pictures from Facebook posts of 4th Sept 2019 by Jesse Nnaezugo Obinna and 4th Sept 2019 by Mazi Onukwube Ofoelue most likely sourced from various online sources.

Between Poverty and Anger by Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

I was deeply moved by the pictures shown below of South Africans looting shops belonging to Nigerians and perhaps other Africans. A sense of pain complementing the horror on the killing and burning alive of Nigerians by these South Africans.

Hunger can dehumanise. These people gleefully stealing such basics as soft drinks, small food items, carting them away like trophies, triumphantly hauling away freezers from looted shops in a display of power, are hungry people. Economically emasculated people.

People who do not understand the vast difference between the mentality they are demonstrating and that of the entrepreneurs who built the businesses they are stealing from, the difference between immediate gratification and long range planning, between a survivalist existence and broader economic strategies, differences on which the entrepreneurial mindset is grounded as an orientation to life that is not founded on ownership of property but on the management of resources to generate value, material and non-material.

Even more tragic, most of these people, smiling as they steal little items, destroying the work of years of dedicated business people, are young people, men and women, and even a middle aged woman is visible in one of the pictures.

When will they gain this knowledge, strategic for building an economy and even for all of life’s endeavours?

The tragically telling force of these pictures suggests a great divide among South Africans between present realities and the orientations required to build a thriving society, a gap pointing to issues about how to build and sustain an economy.

The pictures go well with the essays by Ehidionye and Nonso, two Nigerians. I emphasize their nationalities, Nigerian, like mine, so as to help map responses to this this tragedy from different nationalities.

Essays by Sopuruchukwu B Ehidonye and Ani Nonso.

Sopuruchukwu B Ehidonye:

2nd September 2019.

As the Children of Mandela Continue to loot ....

As has become seasonal, the children of Mandela have once again risen against African foreign nationals. Mzansi is consuming all and sundry that is not South-African-Africans. Political-correctors have embarked on their usual delusional manipulation of facts and realities on the ground and have chosen to wrongfully conflate same with feel-good rhetorics founded on Pan-Africanist and a non-existence African solidarity that abhors socio-economics and political realities but embraces a mirage and far-fetched African ubuntuism.

The killings, maimings, and destruction of lives and properties as being presently witnessed in South Africa is the sum total of the consequences of Nelson Mandel's post-apartheid neoliberal immigration policies. Very well-intentioned but practically unrealistic, especially when one's country is surrounded by atrociously economic-retrogressive neighboring countries.

Neo-liberal immigration policies that pander to flexible and open borders must also be commensurate with available economic opportunities in the destination country otherwise, all hell inevitably breaks loose at the long-run when foreign nationals and citizens shrug it out for the scarce economic goodies within a political entity. THIS IS A RULE OF THUMB. Mandela opened his borders while his successors continued to ruin the economic backbone of the country that would have sustained and accommodated the influx of millions of African from the countries in the interior of the African landmass.

The cobra effect of unsustainable feel-good immigration policies has as its consequences, the massive looting we have come to term xenophobia in South Africa today. Empirically, like it or not, citizens of serious political entities always feel disgusted by foreign nationals but their reactions are always determined by how wealthy the economy is with regards to how well it will sustain the unchecked influx of new arrivals.

Availability of economic opportunities ameliorates the focus of citizens on the new arrivals while the lack thereof makes the immigrant the scapegoat and sometimes, he may pay with his blood or sweat. The ruling ANC pays lip service to finding any lasting solution and this is simply because the attack on foreign nationals kind of moves the spotlight away from them and their incompetence. SO, DIE YOU BLOODY AFRICANS is covertly and overtly promoted.

Very terrible, but this is sociologically The Way of Man and no amount of feel-nice politically correct rhetorics can stop xenophobia in South Africa if her prevailing socio-economics status continues to suffix and foreigners continue to flood into their territory. You don't think so?

WELL, THINK AGAIN.

3rd September 2019

That you supported South African nationals by providing them with safe heavens and logistics worth billions during apartheid does not mean that you should all be allowed into their country in millions without any immigration safeguards and scrutiny to permeate.

That you offered a few ANC cadres assistance in your countries during does turbulent years they were in exile cannnot equate to millions of Africans trooping into their country.

Empirical evidence and facts on the ground suggest that South Africa, due to mismanagement and wholesale corruption, has squandered its economic base and as such, cannot sustain more influx of people.

The wickedness that is prevailing there with regards to the unnecessary but seasonal destruction of lives and properties of other African nationals is the direct consequences of an unsustainable neo-liberal immigration policy instituted by Nelson Mandela which has continued to backfire.

Feel-good pan-Africanist and Afrocentric musings lean more towards sentiments and emotions than reality. The situation in South Africa is very ECONOMIC-RELATED and has nothing to do with HATE or LOVE.

Nelson Mandela, bless his soul had good intentions but he failed to take into consideration other factors which don't pay attention to emotionalism and sentimentalism.

THE KILLINGS AND WANTON DESTRUCTION OF LIVES AND PROPERTIES WILL NOT STOP UNTIL THE RIGHT DISCUSSIONS ARE GIVEN THE REQUIRED PLATFORM

3rd September 2019

You see, we need to observe empirical evidence and then, embrace the fact that Neo-liberal immigration policies do not augment well with a very terrible economy. In fact, it backfires and counter-produces even when it is good-intentioned.THIS IS JUST BASIC HUMAN NATURE as competition becomes rife and unreasonable among competing interests. This has nothing to do with South Africans being xenophobic and or not as some people may opine.

What we like to call Xenophobia in South Africa will never end as long as the ruling party continues to misfire as they are presently doing. The foreign national, especially the African foreign national will remain the fall guy because he is easily accessible in his downtown or suburban centers of the big cities where they congregate and earn a living en masse.

The best option and longterm plan for African foreign nationals in South Africa is to have a relocation plan in the works, maybe not for now, but at the long-run.

Mark it somewhere. XENOPHOBIA IN SOUTH AFRICA WILL NEVER END. It serves a purpose for the stakeholders who are the political elite of South Africans. It diverts attention from the SA government's misrule and makes the foreigner the scapegoat of South Africans for relieving their frustrations on the atrociously underperforming system. It is a dilemma really.

Politicians have also started using these attacks on foreign nationals for political gains and vote maximization through rhetorics based on the same. When this happens, the problem doesn't actually get solved, it becomes a tool for playing politics forever.

If you can, PACK YOUR BAGS AND GO.. Things can only get worse and no amount of feel-good preachings or rhetorics can change this. The problem is way too complicated for Pan-Africanist cliche's. It is social, economical, and has also become political.

The solution to the problem is three-fold as far as I am concerned.

1) South Africa manages to re-engineer itself to an unprecedented burst of energy towards economic prosperity that produces surplus economic opportunities for its citizens that will make them too busy to even look the way of foreigners. Being African, I know how we roll, therefore, this as far as I am concerned is a pipe dream but a good one to have though.

2) Foreigners move out voluntarily and maybe, South Africans will begin to take out their frustration on each other or the government

3) South Africa must get serious about documenting foreigners that are already in the country while closing its borders tightly but allow a point-based immigration policy that recognizes the most skilled immigrants and encourages them to immigrate

It is either one of the above or the seasonal killings will never seize.

YES, IT WILL NEVER. 57 million South Africans will never start accepting African foreign nationals especially with the prevailing socio-economic situation in the country.

Yes, it is the TRUTH and I have just said.

Ani Nonso:

9/4/2019.

Unemployment rate in South Africa stood at 29% in the Q1 of 2019.

About 1.64million people out of the over 58million people in South Africa are migrants according to her population data. Ani Nonso do not subscribe to the infamous narrative that the late Mandela's neo-liberal cum pan-africanist policies of the post-apartheid regime made migrants and foreign nationals to flourish into the the country sitting at the tip of southern Africa,took over their jobs,court their women and spread crime.

The ANC Government for over 25yrs after the end of Apartheid embraced social welfarism as a policy of balancing the economic inequalities set in motion by the Apartheid regime. It is arguably true that this policy has helped to lift some poor out of poverty. However,it is untrue that interventionism will continue to sustain the lives of South Africans whom money grants have rendered lazy in the face of "successful" small migrant population.The rulling party in its incompetence has shifted this blame to the migrant community.

The South African population faces the problem of endemic mis-governance from the ANC who has reportedly incited the aboriginals against migrants and foreign nationals as this will greatly help in concealing govt ineptitude.

The people are yet to see this even as they clamor for acquisition of white-owned lands by the government for redistribution. This again will make the state more powerful and in due course tyranny will set in.

Xenophobia is the least we can get from the RSA of the above happens.

South African peoples like all other African countries prefer to vest more powers on the state which will now begin to use interventions to run the basic needs of people.

It is this simple;allow the state to own lands, capital and labor. The state should deploy same as it pleases it to raise revenues. Push these revenues as grants and cash transfers into the pockets of lazy citizens who are either lazy or lack the necessary Enterprise to till the lands and make taxable income from same. It doesn't matter that these grants and monies will get pilfered away by opportunists like Jacob Zuma who already has loads of corruption cases hanging around his neck.

South Africa is gradually sinking into a welfarist state and the resources can no longer go round because of the corruption that comes with governance by interventionism. A migrant population that is less than 5% of the entire population of 58m is not the reason why unemployment rate has risen to 29%. The rulling party is just who needs to be attacked.

Also published on Facebook and Nigerian Development blog