What do people usually value more than your money? You! Think about it. What takes greater effort – writing a cheque or giving of your time and energy? Which shows a greater level of commitment? Take a moment and recall the people who’ve had the greatest impact on you: a teacher who helped you realize you could think, learn and achieve; a parent who loved you, sacrificed for you and gave you the gift of self-worth; a mentor who painted a picture of your future then equipped and challenged you to reach for it.
Next to your salvation, what could be greater? Ponder these words: ‘When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you brought to other people’s lives than from the times you outdid and defeated them.’ Too many of us see giving as more than just an act of love – we see it as a transaction – we only give to get! Sir Wilfred T. Grenfell said, ‘It is obvious that man is himself a traveler; that his purpose in this world is not “to have and to hold,” but “to give and to serve”.
There can be no other meaning.’ It’s so easy to live only for yourself. In fact, it’s one of our most basic instincts – one we have to overcome each day. But we can take another path – to be generous with our love and our time. When you give those gifts, you’re being as generous as you can be!
Once again I summon some guts to drop you a line and for a long time I wish I had done this but the writer’s block keeps holding me back.
I have been working hard on 3 new projects for the office and for my personal gains, yes it’s a year where you need to expand your coast and get things done as 2017 is still a turbulent year even as so many people toil harder to ensure they get a stable living. The odds remains against the average Nigerian who would battle daily for every basic amenity.
I ponder daily on the next steps for our dear Nigeria and wonder if it would ever get better for, the news of mayhem daily hunts us, from killings to kidnap, Naira fall to the dollar or police brutality. Recently I was thrown into fear with the news of a coup as I had earlier discussed with a colleague that I fear a repeat of the first coup in Nigeria which was character by mass looting and all what is happening today. We hear a lot about the recoveries made by EFCC and this brings tears to the eyes of the average Nigerian struggling for food and shelter.
We are expectant that the economy would eventually improve so there would be a bit of calmness in the country. It saddens me to know how much people spend to enjoy the basic amenities in life. I have to spend good money to power my house. The pain and anger of how sad things have gone just makes you cringe in fear of the unknown. I marvel at the level of mediocrity some youth have taken up. The sad part is there seems not to be a clear end to this as the more we go ahead, the darker it seems.
I would like to share some positive words here…
No matter how dark it is, there would definitely be morning, where it would all brighten up.
The past is gone and we only treasure today and hope a better tomorrow comes around sooner.
I hope for a better Nigeria where we move the world and change the way we are perceived.
Above all….stay positive and ensure to keep the light shining.
Welcome to 2017, it has been a long journey here today and yes I am sorry for leaving this page unattended to for months, you can say the pressures and demand of work has got the better part of me, you are so correct.
I’d say this again, welcome to my blog again and sincere apologies for the absence, It would certainly be better this year as I am starting off on a good foot. 2016 was a horrific year as many would say and to the best of my knowledge a whole lot of people have lost their jobs and the cliché now “The dollar is high” has taken over the airwaves thus we have lost the sense of our daily life, the economy is in a steady nose dive and all indices are not looking good, daily we hear news of millions of dollars looted by some of our leaders and you wonder how this country is still around amidst the mass looting.
I feel bad when I go out daily and the news is same, the dollar has hit all time high and very like Nigeria anything that goes up never comes down. So at this rate we are stuck on it.
From my previous post, these are the years of the biblical – years of lean, where we failed to save now we are reaping the fruits of failure to decide. Our leaders have failed to save, failed to invest, failed to plan for the future, now we are in the mess that seems to suck us all in.
Away from the failures of the leaders, this is the time to plan and position for the coming years of plenty, we would soon hit the boom and only the wise and the strategic would be the only set to partake in the boom, what are you doing now to prepare for the future? Are you still complaining and nagging about the old politicians? Are you still dwelling in the past and how the promises made are not been met? Then your world is slowly ticking away. Tomorrow is a factor of today’s decisions and when you make right decisions your tomorrow would be guaranteed. Continue reading →
Last week Kaduna State Governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufai held a town hall meeting and rolled out his plan for an exciting tenure. This I must say is a welcome development and it would help Nigeria return to the path of greatness..
Read from him…….
I welcome you all with humility and gratitude to the very first Town Hall meeting we are hosting as a government. It is not yet one month since we were sworn-in, but to the extent that it has pleased Allah to bestow His grace upon us, we have set about doing the work of change that you mandated us to do.
During the campaign, we promised that we shall be engaging and interacting with the public regularly. We pledged that we will provide you regular updates and listen to your feedback, including criticisms and suggestions. Here we are before you today to do as we pledged. As we have started, so we intend to continue, always striving to get better at achieving results.
Immediately after we were sworn-in on 29 May 2015, we reported for duty with the sense of urgency that you demanded. As we expected, we met a state that is broke, and whose schools, hospitals and roads are in poor shape. We knew that a lot of sacrifice will be required to restore the state to good health. This government’s priority is actually growth and development in a safe and secure environment; because we understand that the things that matter are the public goods of quality schools, decent hospitals and good roads; we know that leaders must pursue the creation of a climate that promotes security, social harmony and is therefore conducive to bringing jobs and economic opportunity. Thus our first step was to announce that the deputy-governor and I will be taking a 50% pay cut.
As we took briefings from the ministries, departments and agencies in our very first week, the depth of the financial problem became clearer to us as well as the impact the decades of impunity have had on the mental attitudes of the institutions that constitute the public service. As one astute observer of the situation commented recently, the public service does not serve the public; rather it considers itself as the public and thus serves only itself. Continue reading →
Once again I say big Congratulations to you on winning the Presidential election, achieving a feat no one has done in Nigeria or maybe Africa at large. I would have trekked all the way to Abuja to personally shake hands with you but the roads are not so safe and my Zulu is pretty young so I have to do this in writing.
However as I write you this letter, my keyboard is almost soaked from the tears dripping down my eyes, yes I write in pain as the task ahead of you seems like the steepest hill in our generation and the point where our country needs a total re-haul. You came in when the debt incurred almost towers the Kilimanjaro, like a sheep set for the slaughter you are taking reigns and like you have constantly reminded Nigerians that you are not a magician, and you do not have magic wands to turn us around in a flash. Despite your victory, it seems a little sour cos . “We can’t afford to do this again,” I said to myself, knowing well the energy and money I had invested in the electoral defeat of the incumbent president (mainly buying data to share my personal opinions on twitter, Facebook and my Blog).
I want to specifically remind you this on the eve of your inauguration that you have promised to CHANGE Nigeria and restore all the years of decay, yes you have inherited a broken country, a divided people and most especially a weak economy and yes we know it is surely going to be tough but please take it easy and from time to time I know you would ask yourself how come you struggled so hard to inherit this trash. Yes you have won, congrats but the only thing that would keep you there is performance and trust me in 2019 it would be easier voting you out if we don’t smell fresh air. I only pity those who also won in their respective states and refuse to move a muscle after 4 years, they would go. They also chanted CHANGE and promised competent governance, we would regularly update their scorecard for them. It would be most difficult for the likes of Akinwunmi Ambode who inherited a brilliant Lagos nurtured by an amazing Governor. Babatunde Fashola lived up to his promises by investing well in infrastructure and human capital; I almost forgot alternative revenue for the state. The reliance on the center was little. Continue reading →
This story has been making rounds for days now and typical of Nigerians, we make a joke out of everything, twitter almost went down the day the news broke and since then we have heard all sorts, well i read from Nigerians super writer Chimamanda Adichie and i could not help but share her piece on my blog. The below is her view on the sad comments from the Oba of Lagos.
A few days ago, the Oba of Lagos threatened Igbo leaders. If they did not vote for his governorship candidate in Lagos, he said, they would be thrown into the lagoon. His entire speech was a flagrant performance of disregard. His words said, in effect: I think so little of you that I don’t have to cajole you but will just threaten you and, by the way, your safety in Lagos is not assured, it is negotiable.
There have been condemnations of the Oba’s words. Sadly, many of the condemnations from non-Igbo people have come with the ugly impatience of expressions like ‘move on,’ and ‘don’t be over-emotional’ and ‘calm down.’ These take away the power, even the sincerity, of the condemnations. It is highhanded and offensive to tell an aggrieved person how to feel, or how quickly to forgive, just as an apology becomes a non-apology when it comes with ‘now get over it.’
Other condemnations of the Oba’s words have been couched in dismissive or diminishing language such as ‘The Oba can’t really do anything, he isn’t actually going to kill anyone. He was joking. He was just being a loudmouth.’
Or – the basest yet – ‘we are all prejudiced.’ It is dishonest to respond to a specific act of prejudice by ignoring that act and instead stressing the generic and the general. It is similar to responding to a specific crime by saying ‘we are all capable of crime.’ Indeed we are. But responses such as these are diversionary tactics. They dismiss the specific act, diminish its importance, and ultimately aim at silencing the legitimate fears of people.
We are indeed all prejudiced, but that is not an appropriate response to an issue this serious. The Oba is not an ordinary citizen. He is a traditional ruler in a part of a country where traditional rulers command considerable influence – the reluctance on the part of many to directly chastise the Oba speaks to his power. The Oba’s words matter. He is not a singular voice; he represents traditional authority. The Oba’s words matter because they are enough to incite violence in a political setting already fraught with uncertainty. The Oba’s words matter even more in the event that Ambode loses the governorship election, because it would then be easy to scapegoat Igbo people and hold them punishable.
Nigerians who consider themselves enlightened might dismiss the Oba’s words as illogical. But the scapegoating of groups – which has a long history all over the world – has never been about logic. The Oba’s words matter because they bring worrying echoes of the early 1960s in Nigeria, when Igbo people were scapegoated for political reasons. Chinua Achebe, when he finally accepted that Lagos, the city he called home, was unsafe for him because he was Igbo, saw crowds at the motor park taunting Igbo people as they boarded buses: ‘Go, Igbo, go so that garri will be cheaper in Lagos!’
Of course Igbo people were not responsible for the cost of garri. But they were perceived as people who were responsible for a coup and who were ‘taking over’ and who, consequently, could be held responsible for everything bad.
Any group of people would understandably be troubled by a threat such as the Oba’s, but the Igbo, because of their history in Nigeria, have been particularly troubled. And it is a recent history. There are people alive today who were publicly attacked in cosmopolitan Lagos in the 1960s because they were Igbo. Even people who were merely light-skinned were at risk of violence in Lagos markets, because to be light-skinned was to be mistaken for Igbo.
Almost every Nigerian ethnic group has a grouse of some sort with the Nigerian state. The Nigerian state has, by turns, been violent, unfair, neglectful, of different parts of the country. Almost every ethnic group has derogatory stereotypes attached to it by other ethnic groups.
But it is disingenuous to suggest that the experience of every ethnic group has been the same. Anti-Igbo violence began under the British colonial government, with complex roots and manifestations. But the end result is a certain psychic difference in the relationship of Igbo people to the Nigerian state. To be Igbo in Nigeria is constantly to be suspect; your national patriotism is never taken as the norm, you are continually expected to prove it.
All groups are conditioned by their specific histories. Perhaps another ethnic group would have reacted with less concern to the Oba’s threat, because that ethnic group would not be conditioned by a history of being targets of violence, as the Igbo have been.
Many responses to the Oba’s threat have mentioned the ‘welcoming’ nature of Lagos, and have made comparisons between Lagos and southeastern towns like Onitsha. It is valid to debate the ethnic diversity of different parts of Nigeria, to compare, for example, Ibadan and Enugu, Ado-Ekiti and Aba, and to debate who moves where, and who feels comfortable living where and why that is. But it is odd to pretend that Lagos is like any other city in Nigeria. It is not. The political history of Lagos and its development as the first national capital set it apart. Lagos is Nigeria’s metropolis. There are ethnic Igbo people whose entire lives have been spent in Lagos, who have little or no ties to the southeast, who speak Yoruba better than Igbo. Should they, too, be reminded to be ‘grateful’ each time an election draws near?
No law-abiding Nigerian should be expected to show gratitude for living peacefully in any part of Nigeria. Landlords in Lagos should not, as still happens too often, be able to refuse to rent their property to Igbo people.
The Oba’s words were disturbing, but its context is even more disturbing:
The anti-Igbo rhetoric that has been part of the political discourse since the presidential election results. Accusatory and derogatory language – using words like ‘brainwashed,’ ‘tribalistic voting’ – has been used to describe President Jonathan’s overwhelming win in the southeast. All democracies have regions that vote in large numbers for one side, and even though parts of Northern Nigeria showed voting patterns similar to the Southeast, the opprobrium has been reserved for the Southeast.
But the rhetoric is about more than mere voting. It is really about citizenship. To be so entitled as to question the legitimacy of a people’s choice in a democratic election is not only a sign of disrespect but is also a questioning of the full citizenship of those people.
What does it mean to be a Nigerian citizen?
When Igbo people are urged to be ‘grateful’ for being in Lagos, do they somehow have less of a right as citizens to live where they live? Every Nigerian should be able to live in any part of Nigeria. The only expectation for a Nigerian citizen living in any part of Nigeria is to be law-abiding. Not to be ‘grateful.’ Not to be expected to pay back some sort of unspoken favour by toeing a particular political line. Nigerian citizens can vote for whomever they choose, and should never be expected to justify or apologize for their choice.
Only by feeling a collective sense of ownership of Nigeria can we start to forge a nation. A nation is an idea. Nigeria is still in progress. To make this a nation, we must collectively agree on what citizenship means: all Nigerians must matter equally.
I am not a big fan of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan or his government, I have never thought this my Nigeria would get to where it is now of almost falling off the cliff, well this is where we find ourselves and I believe on #BokoHaram and Security GEJ has failed Nigeria.
I went through Facebook today and saw some annoying pictures, please please let’s stop circulating false pictures with the headline Boko Haram kills 2000 Baga or Muslims Burn Christians in Jos Massacre it weakens our credibility. I mean this picture below that has become the unofficial face of Baga originated from an Oil Tanker explosion in Congo that happened in 2010 but yet every time a tragedy happens someone digs this picture up and starts circulating it and people/media without fact checking just pick it up and spread it. I recall a picture sometime that went viral on Facebook claiming armed robbers kills over 100 passengers and drove buses on their corpses on Benin Ore Expressway. This actually happened somewhere in west Africa and not Nigeria.
Nigeria is in a shitty situation and we need REAL change … but yet we need to ensure that we are sticking to the facts and not helping spread shit! That’s it I am out…
I have struggled to write a post all day but the work load mounts, I stopped by at my favourite blog Ofilispeaks and as usual I was not disappointed, I am free to share as I have done credit to his brains. Enjoy….
Why Does Superman Wear A Cape? Nobody knows. Not even him. He doesn’t need the cape to fly and unlike Batman he does need it to glide. Maybe he uses it as a head wrap or perhaps a blanket to sleep at night…who knows.
I mean the cape does not give him any super powers or any particular advantages. In fact he can function well without the cape but yet he wears it! That red flowing cape that drives engineers crazy!
Especially when they realize that Superman can actually jump higher and fly faster without all the unnecessary drag caused from his cape flapping around in the wind and colliding with all kinds of air molecules … faster than a speeding bullet? Yeah right … more like dumber than a speeding bullet!
The red flowing cape that his enemies use against him on several occasions to fling, strangle and slam him all around Metropolis. Just check out this 2013 Man Of Steel fight scene where General Zod’s loyalists kick Superman’s behind by using his cape against him.
As you can see from the end, even Disney Incredibles know better! And that is that capes are a no no for any serious super heroes. But yet Superman wears it…
Maybe because he is so freaking strong that he does not realize all the disadvantages of having a cape. I mean he defeated Doomsday see video and even beat the Flash in a race see video so why take off the cape? Maybe it’s because he has always worn one? And that might actually be it, because all fiction aside…a lot of our businesses are like Superman with his useless cape.
We have systems just like he has his red cape, we don’t know why they are there or what purpose they serve, all we know is that it has been there from the start so why change it. Even when the illogicality hits us straight in the face we just stick with the red capes not realizing how much they slow us down. How much they hamper us.
If you have ever been to the Atlanta International Airport (I have been but it was a sad experience I almost missed my flight and my luggage did not make it to Nigeria), you will notice something peculiar. It consists of 7 concourses, concourse A, B, C, D, E, F and … not G. The next concourse is actually T, not only that but concourse T comes before concourse A. Which makes no sense at all, but why the illogicality? Why not make concourse “T” concourse “A” and re-arrange all the others to follow a logical A-B-C-D-E-F-G order?
The answer is as complex as Superman’s Cape. The illogical naming of the Atlanta concourses is a thing of legacy as described by David Zweig in his awesome book Invisibles: The Power Of Anonymous Work In An Age Of Self-Promotion. In the book, David inquired from Jorge Cortes the assistant director of Design Planning and Development at the Atlanta International Airport. Here is a summary of his findings:
“I later emailed … to get an explanation for why ‘T’ was first used and why it still in use now. Alas, the reasoning behind it is so layered and opaque, all I can say is succinctly is that it’s the result of repeated airport redesigns, additions and renaming’s dating back to 1980!”
Notice those words “repeated,” “layered,” “opaque” and “1980.”
All of them relate to that one thing that kills businesses and organizations, red cape systems that have become established simply because they were used repeatedly in the past and are now so enmeshed in layers and layers of opaque bureaucracy that is hard … almost impossible to remove … to change. So the company just flies along with the status quo, too un-bothered to realize or acknowledge the detriments of an illogical legacy systems.
But the red cape phenomenon is not just limited to Atlanta…it affects us here in Nigeria.
One of our many red capes are roundabouts.
We build roundabouts all over the country especially in Lagos. Despite the fact that it has clearly not worked in controlling traffic. I mean just check out Falomo at rush hour or one of the many Lekki roundabouts and you will understand the problem with roundabouts! But who dares get rid of the roundabouts? No one!
It is ingrained in our system, likely from the British who gave it to us in the early 1900′s. And boy have wee held on tight to it. Building roundabouts everywhere even when the evidence shows that it makes no sense to do so. I mean just consider the roundabout at Allen Avenue!
Where do I start?
Growing up Allen Avenue was the hit spot, the Adeola Odeku of the Main Land. But today due to population explosion Allen Avenue is packed … so packed that a permanent concrete barrier has been placed to prevent cars from making u-turns in the middle of Allen Avenue. In fact the only way you can turn is via two roundabouts at either end of Allen.
The more interesting roundabout of the two is the one close to Adeniyi Jones.
But before I start, let me explain that a roundabout is meant to function independent of traffic wardens. But this is Nigeria where the roundabouts get so congested that we need traffic wardens … not 1 but several of them. But what makes this particular roundabout crazily “red cape” unique is the fact that it has traffic lights in it! I have never seen a round about with traffic lights in it. The first time I entered that roundabout I was confused … I thought it was prank or some sort of joke. But it was real!
Why build a round about with traffic lights in it? What’s the point? Why not just remove the roundabout and replace it with a fully functional junction with traffic lights. And why do we still build roundabouts! The answer is simply this…just like superman’s cape, like the concourse “T” at the Atlanta International Airport and like many others things hampering businesses, it happens because of legacy, because that’s the way people have done it in the past.
Great leaders, great entrepreneurs are the ones bold enough, crazy enough to question the red capes and take them out of their organizations … because we like Superman don’t need capes to fly!
Stopped by Jide Salu’s blog and found this, thought I should share with you all.
I thought it was an ingenious poster. In this season of Wars, Boko Haram and What-have-you-atrocities…I thought this pic should bring much needed smile or laughter to readers depending on your humour level.
Feel free to send us photos you think will make us smile or laugh.
Over 2 weeks ago, 234 girls were kidnapped from a secondary school in Borno State, and till date there is no news on their whereabout, we have all stayed glued to our Televisions and radios sets expecting the big news of their rescue. No not at all, not in our Nigeria where the president parties all night when people are being blown apart on a daily basis, when over 200 young girls are left in the dark without any plan to bring sunlight back upon their faces, young girls whose destinies and lives would have been re-defined these few days.
I sit back after a hard days job and seeing all my twitter contacts tweet using the #Bringbackourgirls#, my friends on BB change their dp’s on a regular basis with faces or sad girls whose future once looked bright. I hear cluster discussions of people giving their suggestions on how best to rescue the helpless girls, I ask myself what kind of a country values human lives any less like Nigeria? I ask myself why did they have to go to school on that faithful day?
I take a few minutes to think; what if one of the girls was my daughter? And I am met with a hot eye almost misty with tears. I can only but phantom what the parents are going through, can a mother make a successful 10 hours of sleep with the thoughts of her young girls being molested (only to say the least) out there? Random thought sways through her angry mind.
But hold on, we have a President who knows that the girls have been missing for a while now, I recall the picture that went viral of the British High commissioner donating blood minutes after the Nyanya Bomb Blast beside a picture of the president in a party celebrating one of those who Nigeria is supposed to keep behind bars. For a nation with no intelligence at all, bomb go off everyday in different location and no one is ever brought to book for it. Is this a country? Can I be proud of claiming this Nation as my mother land? NO. the blessing of birth has chosen this once green land for me.
I recall the Boston Marathon when a bomb went off during the exercise, the world knew, the city was shut down, the President summoned security chiefs, the police was on guard, shops, malls, even animals were on standstill, and in less than 3 days the bomber was caught. Now that is a serious country, intelligence works, security is on point, the president knows it, here in Nigeria, bomb goes off freely in car parks and those culprits would watch the news by 8pm same day over drinks.
Where are we headed? The vice president looses his brother in an accident and the federal executive council meeting is postponed. 234 girls have spent the past 10 nights in a forest with strange man of the underworld and nothing is done, this shows you the value of some lives in my country. I wish I could fully pour out my pain and ache being a citizen of this country. Sometimes I wonder if we would ever get it right and if the light would come, but the next minute I look through the window and I see a poster and reads “Vote for 2nd term in office” in anger I ask myself why is mediocrity so neck deep in us?
I’m sure you heard about the ferry that capsized and lives were lost. Well let me tell you that the prime minister resigned taking responsibility of the mishap, in Nigeria the story is different, the presidency is their birth right. It is do or die. Nothing would make me leave the throne. People loose lives and nobody takes the blame even when the responsibility lies with them.
Mr. President, look through the eyes of the weeping mothers struggling to go through each day, look through the eyes of the fathers struggling hard to console their wives while they also nurse their pains, look through the eyes of brother who pay daily their sisters are found. Look through the eyes of the widow whose husband was cut short by the bomb of men of the underworld while looking for the daily bread. Look through the eyes of those who live their lives hoping to die tomorrow when the go out.
I got a broadcast on my phone today and it reads; if Boko Haram tells you not to come out tomorrow and the federal government ask you to come out who would you listen to?
Last week Kaduna State Governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufai held a town hall meeting and rolled out his plan for an exciting tenure. This I must say is a welcome development and it would help Nigeria return to the path of greatness..
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