WORKAHOLIC PALAVA

There, I was rushing off to work....as usual a bit late. it was 7:35am on the 1st of July 2013 and my new month resolution was to always be on time. Applying lipstick as I looked through the rear view mirror, I knew it will be tough to beat the early morning traffic.

I woke up as usual at 6:30am, said my morning prayers and dozed for another 10 minutes before dragging myself off to the bathroom to perform my daily hygienic duties flipping on and off switches as I walked across the room. Thinking in my mind "God give me the luxury to one day be able to get out of bed at late afternoon on a working day" I rushed through my bath, clothing, hair and make up, grabbed a Muller corner yoghurt (my latest addiction) from the refrigerator, and my handbag on my way out the door. I looked back trying to remember if I left on any electric gadget.

Mondays are usually busy days and its best to start out early if I were to leave before 5:00pm.  I had three meetings lined up, and I was meeting some publishers at lunch time. Driving out, I decided to take a shortcut in order to avoid the traffic that I am sure must have built up. Taking a sharp turn into a dirt road that leads to a shortcut,  I nearly hit a stray dog."Gerraout of the way" I yelled, as if the dog could hear me though my wound up car windows. It merely took a step away from the looming car Tyre turn to look as me with big sad eyes as if accusingly, then limped away ever slowly, flies trailing in its wake, oblivious to my temperament.

I almost hit the car roof as the car dipped into a porthole. "Jesus take the wheel..." My muttering turned to surprise as I hit Teshie expressway and saw that there were no cars on the road save a few "tro-tro" (danfo/commercial buses).  The road was free! I realised it was the first time I had seen the road without a traffic jam since I relocated to East Legon in January. Singing along to Enya's "May it be" in my best imitation opera voice i felt like I had won the lottery. A trip that usually took anywhere between 30 minutes to one hour took a mere 12 minutes, and there I was at the office gate.

I realised something was amiss, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Driving down the road to my office the streets had seemed a bit deserted but I don't mind. That's how I like it, no crowds. I could hear the birds singing as usual, so it was not dead silent. I had made sure to wear my name tag before leaving home so that wasn't the problem. I looked at my feet to make sure I had not left the house in my bathroom slippers as I once did, I had on my favourite 'knock about pumps' so that wasn't the problem either. Unusually, there were no cars parked around the perimeters of the building. I looked at my watch it was almost a quarter to eight so I couldn't possibly be the first to arrive work. That will be the day! I looked up to see all three security guards looking at me strangely.

That's when I remembered that it was a public holiday.

FROM PUNTA DEL EST TO ACCRA...

Idowu Ejere: Tente Farms, Jos, Plateau state Nigeria

“It isn’t where you came from,
its where you’re going that counts.”
—Ella Fitzgerald


Few young people rise to a position, early in their career, where they can inspire others and make a change. For those who do, even fewer dare to take the risk then, to stand up, and push for changes.
Idowu Okheren Ejere is one of those few. As a young Nigerian diplomat and researcher, she is presently the Communication and Public Awareness Officer at FARA. Given the opportunity to coordinate the media outreach at the upcoming Africa Agriculture Science Week (AASW6), she took her task as an opportunity to use young people’s enthusiasm for social media, and pull them into the conference’s social reporting team.
One month before the conference, over 100 young professionals are now already part of this team, ceasing the conference as a way to learn new tools, and learning how to integrate these into their daily work.
This is a story how African youth can inspire people, when given the opportunity…
Meeting Idowu

Idowu holds a B.Sc in International Relations from Igbinedion University Nigeria, an M.A in Globalization and Development from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex (UK). She is currently studying for a PhD in Development Studies at the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich and an MSc Poverty Reduction at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). She also holds several professional certificates from Harvard University and China Agricultural University.
Her career spans the public and private sectors with a keen interest in the research on food security, resource management, conflicts, agrarian change and rural development.
Discovering the power of social media

As a born communicator, she held several social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogger, etc, but used them mostly for personal purposes until last year. In November 2012, she attended the Social Media Training in Uruguay under the auspices of GCARD2. Idowu says this was a turning point in her life as she realized the power of social media: How it could be used to preach the gospel of poverty reduction and food security. At GCARD2, she discovered how social media could foster the goal of Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) and specifically how social media could be used to get the voices of millions of people across the globe heard in high level discourses.
Implementing social media at the AASW

After GCARD2, she was part of the Planning Committee for the 6th Africa Agriculture Science Week (AASW). She realized from the previous AASW that one of the challenges was “getting the message out to people outside the usual audiences”, including policy makers, young people and the general public.
With the upsurge in the use of mobile technologies in Africa came the use of social media. Today Facebook is the single largest -virtual- nation outside any country with over 500 million active users. Twitter and Myspace are doing just as well. This “virtual nation” cannot be underestimated in the current architecture of agriculture and food security discourses.
With this in mind she suggested to the FARA Secretariat Organizing Committee to invest in bringing a group of young social reporters to the AASW. They would be trained on social media tools and would report “live”, from the conference. This onsite team would be supported by a virtual team, from all over the world, who would remotely assist this group of “social reporters”.
As great minds think alike, FARA teamed up with CTA, GFAR, CGIAR and YPARD with the common goal to build the capacity of young people as a voice for the role of research in African agricultural development. This “Communication Partnership” culminated in the AASW social media team we have today. This would not have been possible without the support of Prof. Monty Jones of FARA, Dr. Michael Hailu and Mr. Sam Mikenga of CTA, Ms. Marina Cherbonnier of YPARD, Mr. Piers Bocock and Mrs. Enrica Porcari of CGIAR and Mr. Peter Casier.
The role of social media at the AASW

The world is changing and we need to have people from all ends of the world contribute to discourses that involve their future and well-being. Africa is no different, and the 6th Africa Agriculture Science Week is no different: At the conference, social media will create an avenue for those who are unable to participate physically at the science week. Social media will allow us to involve more people than merely those present at the conference venue, especially the youth who are easily overlooked in global development discourses.
In this way, social media would allow inclusion, participation and collaborations to achieve the conference’s goal of “Africa feeding Africa through science and innovation”.
Get involved!

The AASW social reporters team is a fast growing virtual team. With over 100 people in the group already, we are already virtually working together to learn the social media tools. way ahead of the conference. The AASW social reporters are now organising webinars and peer-assist sessions, coupling the “experts”, with those eager to learn more. At the same, the team is preparing the conference’s social media outreach via a Google Groups email discussion forum.
Do you want to join this virtual team? Send an email to p.casier(at)cgiar(dot)org, the AASW Social Media Coordinator and we’ll gladly integrate you in our group!
Peter Casier

Original post was published on the AASW6 blog – Follow the conference via the #AASW6 Twitter tag, follow @FARAinfo on Twitter and on Facebook
Related posts:

DUBAI PALAVA

As we went through immigration formalities at Murtala Mohammed International Airport Lagos, my palms  felt clammy, my throat was patched like I had not had a drink in days. My armpits were soaked in sweat as I took shorter strides along the queue as if unwilling to get to the Immigration Desk. Finally it was our turn. My travel companion and elder sister Odion, thrust our passports forward towards the Immigration Officer, "where are you going?" he asked rudely. "We are going to Dubai" Odion and I answered in unison. The Officer eyed us with disdain, looked at one of the passports and said "Benin girls going to Dubai, to do what?" he managed to pronounce Dubai as "Dubayie". "Move there" he said, pointing at the general direction of his partner Desk Officer, then  shouted "Next!"

It was September 2005, it was my first trip abroad. I had heard so many horrendous stories about Nigerian Immigration Officers that was enough to both scare and humble a small town girl for a lifetime. But that was not the real issue. The issue was that the birth dates on our passports did not correspond with those on our visas.

Earlier in September my sister and I had decided to go into clothing retail business. The plan was to travel to Dubai and buy in bulk then resell to our classmates at the university campus at a profit. Since we had a ready market we were convinced buying from a duty free market like Dubai was the best choice. Armed with this idea and some guts, we went to discuss with our parents who not surprisingly had confidence in our business prowess and were more than willing to loan us some money. Owing that there was no UAE embassy in Nigeria, our mother who is a regular traveller to Dubai spoke with her local travel agent concerning obtaining UAE visas and return tickets for us. Everything went pretty well, we received our tickets and obtained our visas just two days to our travel date.

Then we discovered that our agents had taken the liberty to update our dates of birth in the visa application. It would seem that my final year law student sister was born in 1971 making her about 34 years old while I a 300 level student of international relations was just about to hit 31 years of age. It was not just hilarious, it was down right dumb considering that we looked younger than our ages, preposterous! Upon discovering this we had confronted our agents, mad that they had the audacity to go ahead with such sensitive matters without seeking our consent. Their explanation was that there were entry limitations into the UAE for women under 25 years of age and they wanted to ensure by all means that we were able to enter the UAE legitimately.

Odion, Dubai, UAE 2012, Photo Credits, Omon Imohi

Legitimately indeed! Our mother was livid and threatened them with all manner of lawsuits. I caught one of them "yimmuing" at her and made sure to tell her in our language (owan), this further exacerbated the situation and she seized their land line telephone to my gratification. In the end, since it was just two days before we were scheduled to travel and we had already purchased a non-refundable ticket, we decided to go ahead as planned.

Presently, the second Immigration Officer, a woman, said "what are you going to do in Dubai?" Again, Odion responded "holiday and shopping." "Hmmmm," she answered "two pretty Benin girls going to Dubai." She pronounced Benin as "bini". "Which school are you from?" she continued, this time I replied "Igbinedion University." Her already hard face became even harder "Na una dey chop our money!" she looked like we were to blame for all the troubles in her life and the country at large. Without even asking to see our visas, which were in pieces of paper, she stamped our passports mumbling "make una carry una wahala dey go". I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn't realise I had been holding my breathe. I couldn't believe the Immigration Officer had not even asked for copies of our visas.

It was a pretty much uneventful journey except when odion decided to deal with the woman sitting in front of her who insisted on reclining her chair so far back that for Odion to watch a movie she would have had to lie down sideways or recline her chair as far back too. It surprises me how some people travelling in the economy cabin want to travel in style as if they were in first-class. Anyway, Odion made the lady 'damn the day and sweat the minute' she decided to fly on that plane. My dear sister, after insistently begging the woman to straighten her chair a bit at dinner time to no avail, took laws into her hands. She used her knees to push and wedge the lady's chair for the rest of her journey. I laughed and laughed each time the woman stood up to threaten to beat Odion up. To our chagrin she kept saying "Do you know who I am?"  To which the young man sitting beside me finally couldn't bear it any longer and cut in "Who you be? Respect your age and sit down. This is economy if you want to sleep as if you are in your room, next time buy business class ticket." At this time everyone sitting close by burst out laughing.

We arrived Dubai sometime early the next morning and joined the rush to queue at Passport Control. I have to say that till date Dubai International Airport is still one of the finest airports I have ever travelled through. Before proceeding to passport control visitors to Dubai had to had to have an eye scan (Iris Scan). So my sister and I along with other passengers were guided to the eye scan machine by an Airport Official. This was my first time seeing anything of the kind. Even my novels and all the tales I had heard of travels never mentioned eye scan. The notion behind this security technology is akin to the thumb print thing, it is believed that no two people can have the same iris. Well I gingerly went over to a vacant Iris Scan machine where an attendant waited, he didn't say a word to me so I proceeded to do what I saw other people doing. I placed my face close to the machine and focused my left eye on what seemed like a camera lens. The machine immediately beeped. The next thing I knew, a man in an all white sparking robe and a red and white keffiyeh (Arab head dress), walked up to me and said in strong Arab accent "what is wrong?" I said "I don't know."

He looked into my 'blue' eyes and said in disgust "go and remove that contact lens, then go back to the scan." I quickly went to sit in the waiting area, luckily I had my contact lens solution and my glasses in my handbag. I took it off and went straight back to the Iris Scan machine. This time the scanner beeped more loudly and when the man appeared again and said "who are you?" fear gripped me. He collected my passport and copy of my visa and then said "follow me." By now I looked around for Odion but couldn't find her, I was abandoned to my fate. Tears rapidly filling my eyes, I slowly followed the man thinking "this is deportation, like I have seen in the movies." It was a long walk till we reached an office where there were about four men dressed in complete military attire. Sitting on a long metal bench by the wall were three young women and a man. The man was handcuffed while some of the women wore hair askew, they looked like they had been wearing the same make-up for days.

The man with the flowing robe handed me over to one of the Military Officers who proceeded to grill me, asking questions about who I am, what I came to do in Dubai and so forth. By now he had noticed that the date of birth on my passport did not correspond with the one in my passport. The man asked if I got the visa through an agent and I shakily nodded. He looked at me for a long moment and said "look at those people sitting there, we are deporting them back to your country. They are drug mongers and prostitutes. How am I sure you are not one of them?" If you have ever watched Border Control UK or Border Control Australia, you will understand my next move. I quickly started begging saying, "I am just a student who came with my sister  for holiday and to do some shopping, the eye scan did not work because I just took of my contact lens". I was begging not because I had done anything wrong or did not know my right but because I could just imagine being displayed on NTA news as one of the deported hustlers from Dubai...it would give me eternal disgrace!

The Military Officer picked up the telephone on his desk and called the robed man who had brought me in to inquire if truly I had been wearing contact lenses. He must have answered in the affirmative because shortly after he dropped the phone the Officer picked up my passport, flipped the pages, typed something into the computer and the next thing I heard was the low stirring of the printer beside him. I couldn't believe it when he handed a paper and my passport back to me saying "Be careful next time." I thanked him profusely and quickly left the office before he changed his mind. An orderly escorted me from the office back to Passport Control where he put me ahead of those on the queue. As the Passport Control official, a young lady dressed in black hijab stamped my passport, I heard a familiar voice coming from the next counter. I turned to see Odion arguing with the official saying "so what if I am 34 years old?" The female official was saying that even she who is 28 years old did not look that young. That she could not believe Odion is a day older than 21. By then my passport had been stamped so I had moved ahead to wait for Odion, praying that the lawyer in her will not cause her to argue to the extent that she'll be deported.

When she finally came through to arrivals the first thing she said is "Idowu I didn't know you don't have liver  o!"

And that was the beginning of another memorable experience.