MY CANDY CRUSH SAGA EXPERIENCE

This CANDY CRUSH SAGA game must've been meant to be played for life. For me the whole thing started on Facebook with invites from friends to play coming up frequently in notifications to my annoyance and frustration. I even had to block a friend at some point as the "invite" notification seemed to be the only activity he had on Facebook, besides the annual birthday notification. Such was my dislike for the game even before I saw what it looked like or had the opportunity to play it.

A female colleague at work played it to a fault, once she found free space off work. I don't know if it was because of the game, or for the fact that that was the only thing she thought worthy to use her high end HTC phone (at the time) to do that got me angry, and she continued even till now that she has an IPhone 6. All of that just put the game in bad light for me, and I would've stayed my anger had my wife not been stricken with the bug, leading to her making her phone her boyfriend, if not her husband, for all intents and purposes (and I wouldn't even want to further expatiate). This was CANDY CRUSH SAGA, CCS bringing the battle home to me I thought, but if the intention it had was to put asunder my fledgling marriage, then I was prepared to have none of it.

 

Before you begin to get the wrong impression of me, you must know that I am a gamer, probably not the "ghen-ghen" type, but I have paid my dues and still paying. From the SUPER MARIO BROS. (with "Ibè lo ma kúsí" sounds like those you'd hear in the old Ebenezar Obey and Sunny Ade Juju music albums of yore)  days, to Nintendo, Brick Game, before mobile phones came with encore Brick Game, to SNAKE XENZIA of those torch Nokia Phones, to Video Games and Computer Games, where my love was more with Car Racing especially the ASPHALT and NEED FOR SPEED Series, and now looking forward to my next birthday gift of a PS4 which I may gift myself, if after shouting myself hoarse, none of my so called friends haven't deemed it fit to take it up as birthday gift for me.  Only that I had determined to not make CCS a part of my menu.

Providence was yet going to bring Candy Crush Saga my way in much a direct manner than I could have ever imagined, and it came in the most unexpected of ways. Before the launch of WINDOWS 10, I had gotten a message from MICROSOFT that my laptop has been chosen as one of many worldwide that will be able to download the latest offering free of charge. When I was eventually prompted to download the close to 3GB program online a few weeks back, it came with it the game, as the only game in the package while other games where routinely advertised on XBOX, like they knew that there could be no way in Hell I would be made to download CCS from STORE if it hadn't been gifted me on a platter, except if I had a gun pointed to my head.

The fact that I saw it as part of the "Windows 10" baggage didn't even encourage me to play the game until a fortnight ago, after watching a movie on my laptop. I intended to have my bath that Sunday morning before planning how to lazily burn out the day, when in attempting to power off the laptop, my finger mistakenly moved the cursor to the CCS part, which didn't waste a second to come up and begin to load. I decided to play just one game and see the heck that drives people crazy about the game. One game, then two, and then I didn't have my bath at all on that day, took the next day off of work, only finding free time to do other things when I find it difficult to advance to the next stage, for which I call my wife (if at home), or my female colleague at work, to use their expertise to see me through, before I go back to the game.

It was the fact that besides playing the game for years and months on end, these ones were yet to finish it that made me conclude that it must be a game meant to be played for a lifetime. I have learnt not to always play the computers' suggestions  except where there are no other viable or better options, as well as the trick of moving time forward and then back to deceive the game when it tells you that you need to wait hours (even as long as seventy-two hours) before you can continue to the next stage or repeating a stage you failed to cross severally, amongst others. I had thought, in the early days, that I would never be like "CCS Believers" but with each passing day I find myself doing otherwise. Not even my refusal to download unto my phone has in any way abated my penchant for the game, and I hope that very soon I won't have to need rehab to be weaned off this game. Hmmmmmmn!

'kovich  

PHOTO CREDIT:
- http://fi.wikipedia.org

ANAMBRA'S SECURITY WOES

At no point in recent times has the prospect of travelling to the southeast of Nigeria in December been more fraught with danger as that of 2024. The level of insecurity had hit a more worrisome level, especially in Anambra State, unlike in the past when it was just limited to spillovers from Imo state to border areas like Ihiala, and the simmering embers in Anambra South. As the yuletide drew near, a member of the Anambra State House Of Assembly was kidnapped. Priests, reverend sisters, and many others also found themselves hostages in the camps of these men of the underworld. To this day, nothing has been heard from some of the them, a few found killed like the banker that was kidnapped in Onitsha, even after ransom was paid, while those like the reverend sisters managed to regain their freedom.

It is difficult to understand why the level of insecurity in Anambra State recorded a significant spike in relation to its neighbouring southeast States, moreso as most Anambrarians were gearing to go home for the yuletide. The abduction of clergy became norm so much so, that it necessitated fiery outbursts from a popular southeastern Catholic priest, popularly called 'Ebube Muonso", that was not taken lightly by the media aides of Governor Chukwuma Soludo, who felt he could've exhausted the private channels to the governor, rather than going public. Even if the priest's approach was considered an impropriety, it nonetheless couldn't be said to be an exercise in futility, as within days of it, the governor outlined plans to address the rising level of insecurity in the state.

It is only left to conjecture if the plan was already in the works, or it was ignited or given impetus by the reverend father's utterances. The time in between when the governor outlined his plan, to the implementation date however left people wondering whether it meant kidnapping activities could continue till the deadline. Meanwhile, social media continued to be awash with videos and audios of matters of insecurity, especially voice notes and videos of and from survivors. It soon started to become clear, even to those who felt that the insecurity in the southeast was perpetrated by external forces, that it was actually by actors closer to home, and that the criminals could just be one of their own. Indeed, in some of the whatsapp voice notes, except for those abducted in Enugu by suspected fulani herdsmen, the cases in Anambra is alleged to be masterminded by Igbo people. Indeed, a few of the survivors were let go after being dispossessed of their personal effects, because some of the abductors could not fathom shedding the blood of a kinsman.

The experiences of the survivors suggests that kidnapping isn't only for ransom, but also for organ harvesting, especially for those who couldn't meet up with the ransom demanded. Indeed, one of the survivors revealed that some of the youngsters thought to be engaged in cybercrime and internet fraud, have ditched that to serve as agents for these kidnap syndicate, either by providing information, or engaging in kidnapping themselves, in exchange for helfty financial rewards immediately, or after their victim's ransom had been paid. If this be so, then the current proliferation of most villages in Anambra State of Internet fraudsters known as "yahoo boys", foretell danger in the sense that the status quo will not only persist, but will escalate exponentially.

Sadly this is happening in the same period Lagos clubs and fun spots recorded a staggering revenue from "I Just Got Back", IJGB Nigerian funseekers from the diaspora, and the reason for that isn't far fetched. "Detty December", happened in Lagos because it is devoid of the kind of insecurity that's plaguing the rest of Nigeria. Wealthy Igbo people in Lagos who marked the season with the latest in advanced auto technology dared not take same to the east, except with extra private and state security apparatus, for which they required convoys of stern looking, gun totting men, some of whom have also come under fire when daredevil men of the underworld deemed their principal a person of interest. Some Igbo elite desirous of seeing the homeland, simply ditched their luxury brand for simple, sometimes beat-up cars that's trusted to move from point A to B, in tandem with their intention to keep a low profile, and ward off prying eyes. In the end, Lagos gained where the rest of Nigeria lost.

To be fair, the southeast did not just lie down to allow itself be raped by the monster of insecurity. Most villages and towns raised security committees, with their subsequent vigilante groups, to complement the efforts of state government vigilante groups, and other security apparati like Ebubeagu in Imo state and Agunaechemba recently launched in Anambra State amongst others. 

Sadly, these groups are handicapped by the lack of adequate weaponry to match what these non state armed actors bring to the table, therefore just like the state police, they are usually on the defensive. Their efforts have been limited largely to dismantling drug dens, and arresting petty thieves, that they post on social media in what many are beginning to see as content creation on the parts of either the head of the vigilante groups, or in collaboration with members of the groups. And this, while the main protagonists of insecurity remain without any sign of a decline in their activities, including the rising cases of cult related killings like the recent one in the Nibo area of Awka, as well as those by groups seeking a secession of the Southeast from Nigeria, who imposed and enforce a sit-at-home order every Monday, and any other day of their chosen in the southeast, with Igbo blood shed routinely to make examples of those who are considered to have disobeyed their orders.

These days there's hardly any difference between a wrong place or right place, as well as wrong time or right time, as one can only pray and hope that one be not on the roads on the day it is famished. Even if you travel by air, you still have to commute from the airport to your home, and the home is even where many victims have had to be unfortunately abducted, including the wife of a former commissioner of police, who was abducted right in front of her house in Ogun State. The police may have considered the act a slap on their face, that they deployed technology and manpower to rescue her within days of her kidnap, while dispatching two of her abductors to their graves. Two others were captured later with some of the ransom money recovered. A success story in the southwest, that one wished will be replicated in the southeast and other parts of Nigeria.

If information from the security agencies are anything to go by, the efforts by the military are beginning to pay off in the Northeast and Northwest, though the same cannot be said about Benue State in the North-Central, where fulani herdsmen continue to ravage communities at will, with their activities affecting the neighbouring state of Enugu in the Southeast. Governor Peter Mbah is known to be a man of few words but with visible efforts in the aspect of security, electing to fight the scourge using technology. I could see it in the serene atmosphere of Enugu 

compared to the tension you'd find across the border in Awka, Anambra State when I visited last December. Hopefully, all that's been put in place to ensure better security in Anambra will yield fruit, especially as the state's guber and assembly elections draw near, with its potential to escalate security situations, for political reasons.

'kovich