Akin Akintayo

Thought Picnic: Pedalling in veins

2012-02-29T15:06:00.000+01:00

Cycling again

Did I say I am back on my bicycle? In fact that was from Sunday morning when I thought I’ll reconnect the back carriage and straighten the handle bars before a careful probably 15km ride to church.

In the end, I probably did just about 60km on Sunday, more leisurely than muscle-grinding graft as each journey for the early and late services for the Lenten period took between 45 minutes to 55 minutes as I varied routes to determine the most optimal.

For the evening ride, I needed to fix the rear light that I thought required the replacement of electric bulb, thankfully, it was just the batteries that needed replacing because the lights were really LEDs.

Quite some damage

On Monday, I visited the hospital for blood tests in readiness for my consultant appointment which was rescheduled for the late evening of the same day in two weeks’ time.

The hand brake on the left handle of my bicycle which controls the rear wheel when applied created a rather howling sound, it was then that I noticed the accident I had just over the week before had broken the part of the fulcrum mechanism of the handle such that the brakes were applied too firmly than necessary – it works but should be replaced.

Getting back to cycling however is very helpful, it means I have the necessary exercise for increase muscle tone in my legs, strengthening my support and meaning I could do without my cane for longer periods of time.

Sides for blood

Then about hospital, I got there in the early afternoon, registered and once again I found myself a bit confused about which arm to put forward. It is strange that distinguishing between my left and right limbs gets me a bit flummoxed at certain times; I then presented my left arm.

I still cannot watch the needle go in but have to will the blood does not stop flowing into the partly vacuum primed vials, I do not think I could entertain another puncture wound as she easily drained out 7 vials.

I have not gotten to see the Catholic pastor for the best part of 7 months now; I hope to be able to see him when next I am in hospital.

Before I left, I went to confirm my rescheduled appointment which will be a late evening one; a Lenten bloodletting can presage delirium – God, give me strength.

Like the holiest Soy Sauce

2012-02-28T22:53:00.001+01:00

Tastes from many places

I have never had a Chinese partner, maybe I should have one or even one from Thailand or I could dare with Korea – I know a few acquaintances have expressed a fleeting interest in a relationship but it never really came to anything.

In another place, it is said that the way to a man’s heart is his stomach and I know the many cuisines that excite my taste buds from the Mediterranean coasts, through to Anatolia and yes, I have had Iranian and Afghan, I could not survive on Indian, then the carnivore-leaning omnivore in me desires meat especially if it slightly bleeds but these are not where I have the skill in the Kitchen.

I was schooled in Nigerian cuisine and when opportunity presents itself, you can bet I’ll be cooking up something for nostalgia and much else.

My Chinese palate

Back to China, I like a good Chinese meal, it could be filling but the multiplicity of taste is wonderful Peking Duck retains a name that has changed to Beijing but my starters where available is also wonton soup, shrimp dumplings in a clear soup with green vegetables.

Then I season the soup with Soy Sauce, lots of it that the colour of the soup is completely changed, that is just how I like it. Back in Nigeria we listened to the radio jingle about Maggi Sauce making a good meal taste even better. It probably did but tongues from my part of the world need serious stimulation with all sorts if strong flavours from sweet, sour, hot, salty, and spicy as well as whatever else will have many on palpitations bringing them close to the edge of their lives.

Standards of excellence

Now, I thought Soy Sauce was ordinary enough until I visited a friend who when cooking a stir-fry brought out a bottle of Pearl River Bridge Superior Light Soy Sauce [Amazon], however, what really caught my interest was the other label that suggested this leading soy sauce brand was brewed and fermented according to 7 exacting standards.

HACCP - Hazard analysis and critical control points addresses physical, chemical, and biological hazards as a means of prevention, this appears to pertain to the American market. One would expect that as a matter of cause.
BRC Global Standard Food – This is the British Retail Consortium set of global standards and this in particular is about Food Safety. The big supermarket chains are also represented in the BRC as much as the small shops.
IP Control Program (GMO-Free) – This is a standard that defines IP as Identity Preservation, foods that are natural and have not been genetically modified for all sorts of plausible reasons that make scientists what to push these products. This will appeal to Europeans a lot; we are so against the spread of Frankenstein foods on the mainland.
ISO 9001 – This pertains to quality management. To be honest, I never expected this to be on a food label much as it is a useful standard for the organisation behind the product.
ISO 14001 – As the organisation is trying to publicise that its products do not adversely affect the environment.
Halal – Suggesting this is permissible for use by Islamic law.
Kosher – Meaning this conforms to the regulations of the Jewish Halakhic law, fit to be eaten by those of the Jewish faith.

I would suppose, all these standards suggest this might well be the holiest Soy Sauce on the market catering for all persuasions and ideologies, I can only wonder where else I’ll find a food label like this.

Meanwhile, time to find me a partner from the East.

Nigeria: What The James Ibori Deal Exposes

2012-02-27T17:18:00.000+01:00

Others doing the deed

That it will take foreign countries to expose the rot of endemic corruption in Nigeria just shows how the system appears not to have the capacity to reform and divest itself of the problem.

This morning [1] James Onanefe Ibori the ex-governor of Delta State agreed to a plea deal accepting all charges of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud in the United Kingdom.

In Nigeria, despite the mountains of evidence that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had, it was literally impossible to prosecute the man, he gummed up the judicial process, employed militants to resist arrest by the authorities and successfully absconded from justice to Dubai hoping to have escaped from reckoning and accountability.

How the big fish was netted

Meanwhile, in the UK, his wife, sister and solicitor were fighting charges of money laundering for which they were all convicted but it meant James Ibori was fighting legal battles in at least three countries.

At first, he lost the battle in Dubai as a place of refuge and ultimately got extradited to the UK where the revelations today might just be a microcosm of gubernatorial excess in Nigeria, window into corruption and an introduction to how our dear country has been plundered for decades by our leadership who expect no censure or sanction because it has become the rite of passage for anyone near the cash till.

Born a criminal

James Ibori’s criminality goes back a long way and in the UK itself; he was convicted for stealing in 1991, then for being in possession of a stolen credit card in 1992; many of his sort have besmirched the name of Nigeria, disgraced us, creating for many honest Nigerians untold heartache, distress and difficulty in seeking access and opportunity abroad because of their dishonest and shameless activities.

We have had to work twice harder, produce more documents, jump through impossible hoops, aver until we were red in the face because we were deemed untruthful, dishonest, suspect and suspicious because the likes of James Ibori raised the threshold of plausibility even for the least significant issues – it is a travesty that those of his ilk still get celebrated, honoured and respected in Nigeria.

Despite the plea bargain, I am glad that the deal was not a sealed and confidential document; the prosecutor did not mince his words in laying out the depth of opprobrium James Ibori must accept and the inefficacy of the system in Nigeria to police itself.

The lack of checks and balances

James Ibori was to have earned $25,000 per annum as governor over the 8 years he was in the Delta State government house, which will come to $200,000 in total. I doubt the British police were plucking numbers out of the air if they are suggesting he stole $250 million during his tenure. In other words, James Ibori walked away with 1,250 times the money he was legally entitled to.

You have to ask what system we have in place in Nigeria that allows a government official or a politician with responsibility for an executive office to walk away with a multiple of 1,250 of his entitlements and still be untouchable, unimpeachable, feted in high places, having the adulation of the people and unaccountable to any authority.

The bigger Nigerian corruption problem

That is the problem Nigeria faces because the stolen $250 million is no doubt the tip of the iceberg in terms of how Nigerian has been plundered, raped and stolen from by a brigandage of leadership that still rules in our midst. He cannot have done this alone; most of this would have been facilitated by other accomplices and conspirators who have taken their cut and have blended into society as respectable and without blemish.

The numbers are in the news story, but in what really grates and shows that we are nowhere near resolution of the Nigerian corruption problem; the public gallery of the court was not big enough to accommodate the almost 30 supporters of James Ibori, some wearing T-shirts with the slogan “Free Ibori”.

Our fight

In all honestly, it would have been nice to have all those disgraceful, shameless, odious, dishonourable people corralled as promoters of corrupt enterprise in the UK, Nigerians who have been completely blinkered that even if the truth slapped them in the face and literally yanked their ears off, they will rather side with falsehood, shame and the disreputable.

The problem is more widespread beyond those who stole, we have grown to condone it, tolerate it, celebrate it and desire it. In some ways, James Ibori just foolishly got caught; we Nigerians who strive to build a good name for our country just have to work harder to ensure that the likes of James Ibori and their supporters do not become the enduring image of what a Nigerian is, either at home or abroad.

Source

[1] Nigeria ex-Delta state governor James Ibori guilty plea – BBC News

Nigeria: Prince Ade Adesanya is expecting your call

2012-02-25T22:11:00.000+01:00

Courtesy of @seunfakze & @olaoluwakite

Just what Twitter ordered

The picture above came up on my Twitter timeline; a Tweet by @seunfakze one of the highly commended minds on Nigerian socio-political commentary spearheading a number of future-looking initiatives for good governance in Nigeria.

It looks like it was originally posted by @olaoluwakite and shared at http://yfrog.com/ki3cfdzj

When I reTweeted it, I added the postscript, “Almajiri of the South”

RT @seunfakze: FRIEND OF THE GOVERNOR indeed. http://yfrog.com/ki3cfdzj *sad times* "Almajiri of the South".

Mustering disgust

Now, Almajiri means emigrant in Hausa, mostly spoken in the North of Nigeria and in the belt towards the West all the way to Ghana and possibly beyond.

In reality, the Almajiri today who are supposed to be young Islamic scholars are more or less hungry street urchins, beggars, easy prey for peddlers of influence in mobs or for abuse as depicted in this Times article [1] and a child rights emergency as I highlighted in this blog [2].

Nigeria is a country where titles matter, the moniker of Chief has become too commonplace, people now use the particular chieftaincy title they have received even if it is from a hamlet of 3 huts. Beyond that, religious titles abound from the Alhaji meaning someone who has in a majority of cases had a subsidised journey for pilgrimage to Mecca to Christian ones like Elder so-and-so who is a minister of the federal cabinet and not to forget the Dame, the wife of our President.

Heirs of royalty no matter how remote from the throne are styled Prince or Princess and this is where our Prince comes in, son of some royal father and no doubt an influence peddler who has printed a calling card that suggests he has the ear of the governor.

Pulling the governor’s ears

In our federation, states have a latitude of autonomy under the management of an Executive Governor [3] who is the patron-in-chief for a patronage system that supports an endemic corrupt enterprise much of which has been exposed in poor development and infrastructure for health [4, Graphic], education [5, Graphic] and economic growth [6, Graphic] despite the fact that the states share in the largesse of oil money that floods their coffers every month.

Prince Ade Adesanya exemplifies a societal malaise for sycophancy, nepotism, hedonism, prebendalism and neo-patrimoniallism all of which are tributaries for corruption in the most odious form.

It is interesting, that the Governor of Ogun State has not seen it fit to appoint his friend to some ministry, committee or advisory position, but the friend has probably in delusions of grandeur with the very possibility of being a confidence trickster printed a calling card with gilded edges, golden lettering and the coat of arms of the state – surely, there should be a few charges to decorate a rap sheet on sighting this card beyond censure.

Scam Alert!

Sadly, some gullible and naïve person will be presented with this card and assured of the ability to short-circuit due process for a fee just because Prince Ade Adesanya is a Friend of the Governor with the address of Government House – now, it is not clear if he is a friend of all governors, the past governor or the current governor - the fact the card exists is enough cause for excoriation.

Anyone with two brain cells will know that a yahoo email address on such real estate of identity name-dropping is as good as standing under a peel of ringing church bells, be alarmed and touch him not with a 10-foot barge pole and that is longer than a spoon to dine with the devil.

It is just so rotten and disgusting; we need to put an end to this kind of atrocious influence peddling and patronage that relies on circumventing every transparent and meritorious act necessary to make our democracy work.

Call him

The task is simple, Prince Ade Adesanya needs to hear from us all; call him and email him; let him know that this is reprehensible at best and nothing will be too extreme in making a public show of this nonsense just in case some other idiot is planning to print a Friend of Dog card to have a gnaw at the bone.

Prince Ade Adesanya can be contacted on princeadeniyiadesanya@yahoo.com and if you need a deal to make your eyes water before you cuss down the phone, call +234(0)8086683619 or +234(0)8098312640

Call him now.

Addendum: A news story in October 2011 here appears to suggest that the prince is the Special Assistant on Political Matters and is indeed a friend of the governor but it does not take away from the odious peddling of influence that informed the printing of that calling card. Such acts should be held in utter contempt at this time and any other time.

Sources

[1] Nigeria's Abandoned Youth: Are They Potential Recruits for Militants?

[2] Nigeria: Letting Our Children Live Like Dogs

[3] Nigeria: The need to manage the Emperors of State

[4] Healthcare accessibility and distribution by State in Nigeria – Courtesy of BBC

[5] Female literacy by State in Nigeria – Courtesy of BBC

[6] Wealth distribution by State in Nigeria – Courtesy of BBC

Thought Picnic: FGM - On my use of "Clitoral Disgust"

2012-02-24T16:25:00.001+01:00

Courtesy of UNIVERSAL Health: Female Genital Mutilation in Africa

Why the title?

Soon after publishing my blog about FGM in Nigeria, I entered into discussion about the title I had given the blog with the view that I review the construct and possibly the wording.

FGM in Nigeria: Raze the Abattoirs of Clitoral Disgust

I am sure most of us know what Female Genital Mutilation is, it is also called Female Circumcision and it is evident what the practice entails; the mutilation of female sexual organs.

In coming up with the title, I could have used one of seven easily mentionable names of the object but I chose an adjective which contextually was already attributive and followed that with the noun form rather than the verb form of Disgust to create an adjectival phrase.

This in my view captured the fact that butchering exercise redolent of abattoirs was in traditional disgust of the object that was only mentioned in my blog within the types of FGM that WHO indicated.

Between abattoir and surgery

The use of the word abattoirs cannot be faulted if one views the implements used in this exercise which are by no means surgical by any stretch of the imagination and primitive in the extreme. The victims of FGM do not have the luxury of anaesthesia when then these caveman procedures are done apart from physical restraint and it is unlikely that the practitioners are trained to handle emergencies if they do occur.

If we can move beyond the title which at worst should be forgiven for taking artistic licence and read the story, it is of a girl, Joy Youmgbo who went to visit her grandmother for Christmas, she was mutilated, suffered great agony for days and died a horrific painful death that medical records cited as a result of post-circumcision haemorrhage.

Face up!

We would not have heard of this criminality – and I say criminality because no such operations as cutting the flesh in tender areas, no matter the traditional expertise should ever be conducted outside hospitals, in this day and age – if the other sister had not run away from home in the fear that the same fate might befall her.

Now, this topic is controversial and there are those for and against FGM, in my view, if the practise cannot be stopped, then the theatre of that practice must change.

If FGM must occur then it should only be in hospitals under strict medical supervision all the parties involved having undergone essential counselling and therapy before the decision to cut is made.

In the end, I stand by the title I chose, it in my view conveys the complete context of the blog that follows and the sooner we called a spade, a spade, we can start digging.

Thank you.

Reference

UNIVERSAL Health: Female Genital Mutilation in Africa

FGM in Nigeria: Raze the Abattoirs of Clitoral Disgust

2012-02-24T12:43:00.000+01:00

Note: On my decision to retain the blog title see opinion.

This discreditable practice

This is 2012 and I find myself writing about acts in parts of the world that belong in a museum of antiquity long before mediaeval times as types of torture that defeminise women in a manifestly atrocious cultural or traditional rite.

Female Genital Mutilation [1] (FGM) despite the international activism against it is still rife and it does take lives without consequences for the perpetrators who do it still with impunity in their quest to hold on to their Neanderthal customs.

In this case, the news [2] in Nigeria is of a 17-year old girl who fled her family home and has been declared missing having witnessed the painful and agonising death over days of her younger sister who was grievously mutilated on January the 15^th 2012.

Embracing shabby traditions

This reprehensibly irresponsible act was coordinated by her grandmother who corralled the family into participating in this rite of torture and enduring grievous bodily harm and what is almost unbelievable about this is the parties involved cannot be so matured in age to be oblivious of modern thinking.

The girls lived in Lagos, a sprawling metropolis and had returned to their homestead for the Christmas holidays in Ijaw-land, which happens to be the place from which our current highly educated, PhD holding President hails. Though from research, this practice is not restricted to that area, it is quite pervasive and it cuts a swathe through the whole south of West-Africa and parts of Chad arcing up through Sudan and Egypt to the north and through Ethiopia and Somalia to the east and horn of Africa where the prevalence [3] is up to 95% like a plague.

Types of FGM

The WHO identifies four types of Female Genital Mutilation [1] which intensify in the incredibly macabre for each more intrusive act that could involve cauterisation; it is almost unreadable for the horror of the exercise.

Type I: removal of the clitoral hood, the skin around the clitoris, with or without partial or complete removal of the clitoris;

Type II: removal of the clitoris with partial or complete removal of the labia minora;

Type III: removal of all or part of the labia minora and labia majora, and the stitching of a seal across the vagina, leaving a small opening for the passage of urine and menstrual blood (infibulation);

Type IV: other miscellaneous acts, including cauterization of the clitoris, cutting of the vagina (gishiri cutting), and introducing corrosive substances into the vagina to tighten it.

Abattoirs of clitoral disgust

These are at best radical surgery, if tradition or custom and in some cases conflated with religion so dictates that this practice is essential, important and of the highest priority, they must be conducted under strict medical conditions probably under general anaesthetic and these village abattoirs of clitoral disgust must be razed.

The barbarity of this exercise is in the fact that seeming knowledgeable people aware of hygienic needs for surgical practice engage in the use of crude implements and unschooled hands hoping to be vindicated by long held traditions and the evidence of those who barely survived the ordeal.

It might be difficult to criminalise FGM in the many societies that practise it but all the charlatans who engage in the mutilation of genitalia outside of accredited modern medical facilities most be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and made a public example of.

Much as one will prefer that this practice be totally outlawed and completely stopped, if that is not possible, then this event must only occur in a hospital under professional supervision after extensive counselling of all parties involved.

This was murder

However, back to the case in Nigeria, the news story says the victim “suffered severe excruciating pains for days after the mutilation of her genital before her death.”

It is very likely that after the mutilation she suffered severe bleeding and the perpetrators waited too long before they took her to hospital, by which time little could be done to save her life and that medical reports indicated she died of a “Post Circumcision haemorrhage.”

She basically bled to death.

Now, one can understand the sadness that accompanies the loss of a child, a grandchild, a sister and being back at the homestead, a close relation. It would appear that death did not remove the blinkers of absurd traditions from the perpetrators that they were ready to butcher the elder sister.

One cannot put it beyond these evil people that they were afraid that their heinous acts will be exposed that they could have schemed to sacrifice two young girls on the altar of tradition in order to cover their criminal enterprise – that calls for an intervention, it is an emergency that calls for justice to be expedited so that Joy Youmgbo would not have died in vain.

Arrest, indict, prosecute

The medical evidence is there, she died of a Post-Circumcision haemorrhage, it is now for the police to go after the grandmother and all her accomplices and pursue at the minimum a charge of manslaughter against all these people.

We have to come to a point in our society where no human being stands the risk of being sacrificed with impunity and with no consequence on the altar of custom, tradition, practice, creed or any belief system and civil society is able to protect the absoluteness of the right to life and happiness without anyone being subjected to the unpalatable for the preservation of the censurably odious.

If anything, the untimely and avoidable death of Joy Youmgbo must lead to greater agitation to stop the practice of FGM in Nigeria, one death is already one too many. I can only hope that Patricia Youmgbo finds succour for her pain of loss and protection from what those demons did to her sister.

STOP FGM NOW!

Sources

[1] Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Wikipedia

[2] Girl, 17 flees home over forced circumcision | Premium Times Nigeria

[3] Prevalence of female genital mutilation by country, Wkipedia

Nigeria: Letting Our Children Live Like Dogs

2012-02-22T14:54:00.000+01:00

Touching the untouchable

This is probably one of the most difficult issues to raise in Nigeria but one that requires objective and intellectual engagement more than anything else.

The systems that we have adopted that are inimical to progress and development and a good deal of them need to be abrogated, probably proscribed, in some cases strictly regulated and brought under the purview of the civil authorities so as to eliminate the bias and the sentiment that tolerates abuse.

The Time magazine published an article last weekend about Nigeria [1] and what jumped out at me was the Tweet posted that was used to bring footfall to the story.

I wept

“Sometimes they fight dogs for food.”

I guessed things were bad in Nigeria with the poverty, health and security situations but not this bad that children will be jostling with dogs for food with the risk of getting bitten and all the attendant issues that might follow like contracting rabies and much else.

There are serious humanitarian and child welfare issues that need to be addressed with urgency, if only those who matter can allow themselves to be moved with compassion above all else.

In the wrong place

The first paragraph alone presents a setting that is almost primitive and it is mediaeval; beyond the religious accoutrements on the walls is the sad story of a very ill boy of 15 with his younger brother nursing him, if there was anything he could do in the situation apart from providing comfort by his presence.

A child in the 21^st Century ill with malaria and typhoid fever should be in hospital being tended by modern medicine with the hope for recovery. The story is he had not eaten since the night before and the only hope for food was from leftovers in a neighbouring house.

The unwritten part of this travesty is if the sick were going hungry, there is no telling what will be the case of the nominally healthy and if the many were going hungry you can imagine after scrapping with dogs with the scratching and bites it will take the unusual milk of human kindness for that food to be given to the weak.

Where is our heart for the children?

The plight of children in Nigeria is a serious one and we need to put away many of the preconceived notions build on long held views to deal with what is both shameful and disgraceful – no creed or doctrine can be seen to condone or tolerate this, talk less of revel in this unconscionable evil masquerading as schooling for some higher purpose.

There should be no reason for children with living parents to live the existence of those deprived of love, of care, of consideration and the basic elements of food, health, good education and access to opportunity that many others take for granted.

It is incumbent on the elite and the intellectuals of communities where these activities thrive to excoriate the system in totality, condemning the perpetrators and offering progressive steps to child welfare should take priority along with adequate resources to redress the situation.

An unsure future

The more one reads into the article, it is evident that this is an emergency. Children hundreds of miles from their homes in squalid surroundings and unregulated institutions that portend to offer the kids a future though none of which is evident from the training or the activities they are forced to indulge in to keep body and soul together.

Begging in the streets, no matter how palatable the promoters try to make it is a low esteem complex that reaffirms a state of destitution, a lack of opportunity and a pliable mob that could be conscripted into nefarious activities of unscrupulous lords.

Besides, these people, children and by all standards citizens of Nigeria for the failings of their families, their communities and their governments are easy prey for all sorts of abuse from the basic withdrawal of support through physical abuse and the absence of essential care to sexual abuse and possibly murder which can happen with impunity; they all need to have their rights championed and asserted by all well-meaning people throughout Nigeria and beyond.

We need to talk

For a country so great and resourceful, it is a shame and disgrace that our children live in these conditions from day to day and there is no telling how many more in the name of evidently bad traditions have lost their minds and lives to untold destitution and the indifference that has made this evil an untouchable minefield.

It is time to talk about these matters, some practices need to be outlawed, others proscribed, some institutions need to be regulated by unbiased secular authorities, there is no doubt that some sacred cows will need to be butchered without mercy and the conditions in these environments must be raised to meet standards of boarding schools that provide proper meals, a strict curriculum, vocational training and proper inspection regimes.

Children should not be on the streets begging and proprietors should be held responsible for ensuring that when their wards are externally graded, they are within the aptitude and abilities of their peers in other public institutions.

We have deferred too long to systems that offer no functional development in our communities, regardless of our persuasions, service still matters and there is dignity in labour but that requires we train up children to be productive members of their communities at first and hopefully to the nation at large.

Source

[1] Nigeria's Abandoned Youth: Are They Potential Recruits for Militants?

Thought Picnic: Caught at the end of a CV review

2012-02-21T15:57:00.001+01:00

Stacking the shelves again

Putting yourself back on the market for a job after a break can be a daunting experience. Having accounted for your absence you are left with how to make recruiters interested in your skills, all acquired over time and packaged as experience.

Sometimes, what your CV was so good at doing at a certain time of your career may today be doing a less effective job and this requires that you have other people critique and review your CV – an experience that could be quite bruising but helpfully frank too.

Malleable CVs

The mistake many of us make is to turn our CVs into tablets of the law delivered from the mount when they should be as flexible and directional as a wind vane, catching the blast of the air and showing where it is going.

One truth I realised so recently was that your CV is not a one-size-fits-all for the jobs on the market, each time you have to skew your experience to match the opportunity which will allow the recruiter to immediately see if your skills match an opportunity on their cards.

For so long my CV was more suited to my professional network, it worked in the hands of people who already knew me, my work ethic, my abilities and potential. As one expert in the field put it, I had a social CV – that was a tough indictment.

Engage with the familiar

He went on to say my CV was telling stories that very few will have the time to read if I was not already known or somewhat recommended. With the competition on the job market and the attention spans that last less than the times to skim of the top page of the CV, one had to radically change the complete package to elicit better responses – my CV had to begin to target people who will only notice me from familiar things they see on my CV.

For that to happen, I needed things I have for long considered anathema in a CV but for the recruiter and manager are crucial – keywords, buzzwords, jargon, spiel and clichés.

The conservative mind in me with the well documented use of prose and language was now being asked to pedestrianize my CV for the lowest common denominator to order to have the eyes, then the ears and hopefully the role at the end of it.

Motivate interest with motivation

Another aspect I cannot say I am good at but I find is literally mandatory for when applying for a job in the Netherlands is the motivation letter or what the English will call a cover letter.

My friend offered these basic tips, if you know about the company; flatter them, then be excited about the role, tell them why you are well suited for the role using words or paraphrases from the job description and do not forget to include other virtues you might have boasting of your abilities and talents.

Use the active voice and ask them to call you providing your number within the letter, but even before the letter might have been read, call them too and ask questions that will compel answering services to pass you to the principals.

These are extraversion attributes I will have to cultivate, difficult as they might seem at first, it is war out there and you just have to be more than prepared to take the market on and work the system.

And much else

Along with this, position yourself for opportunities, show flexibility and broaden your view by including yourself in what you have the aptitude to attain rather than limiting yourself because you have not mastered a skill.

Much as you might want to tell a lot about yourself in your CV, leave space for the imagination and the desire for the recruiter to want to learn more about you by meeting you.

Between writing and speaking

One particularly fundamental lesson I took away from the review of my CV was to write about all my strengths but only talk about my weaknesses or vulnerabilities if the issue comes up.

HR departments on sighting a chink in your armour will most likely give you a wide berth than find ways to accommodate you.

As my preconceived thoughts about CVs got jettisoned and consigned to the scrapheap of the ineffectual, I can only hope that my new marketing literature, having excised the superfluity of the inconsequential will present interest, engagement, acceptance, consideration and contract.

Editorial: Nigeria - The North, Religion and Politics

2012-02-21T00:30:00.000+01:00

The incessant debates

Many a time in the discourses I have had on Twitter on that enigma of a country called Nigeria the politics of religion and the religion of politics have been so conflated that it permeates all facets of life with either associated or distant consequences.

It is quite debatable that many of the problems the country faces are political but the infusion of religion either as political tools of cohesion or ways of tapping of the innate docility of the people opiating them against agitation for lasting change can presage interminable arguments with every view containing nuggets of truth.

Religion and State

I have long advocated a genuine and complete separation of religion and state [1]. In the case of Nigeria, the fact that even the distinctive core religions which are Christianity and Islam are splintered into factions of adherences, creed, persuasion and passion is enough to put forward an strong argument for a purely secular state, religion being confined to the boundaries of the places of worship.

There are many factions of Islam just as there are many denominations of Christianity, the introduction of Sharia Law in the Northern States of Nigeria does not present a uniformity of access to fairness, justice or mercy as a secular civil law requirement will provide. In fact, it will be disingenuous, dishonest and naive for anyone to suggest there is any homogeneity in the North in terms of religion, ethnicity, politics, education or wealth.

The demographics of Nigeria

North of the rivers Niger and Benue you see such an ethnic diversity [2, Graphic] that sadly gets subsumed into the majority Hausa-Fulani linguistic group [3, Graphic] and consequently is presented as predominantly Muslim North – this is far from the truth as the graphics show.

However, much as there are many who might not agree to the idea that religion conflated with either politics and/or traditions has contributed to serious inequalities around the country especially when it pertains to critical fundamentals for economic growth [4, Graphic] as female literacy [5, Graphic] and health [6, Graphic], the correlations in parts of the country cannot be easily discarded with.

Beginning the analysis

This is not the complete picture of the how and why of troubles that Nigeria faces but it presents a starting point for honest discourse of a complex issue that is for long lacked objective truthful and searing analysis that could lead to addressing the problems and creating solutions.

The state maps should already show that beyond the much documented failings of the federal government, the state governments and local governments have hardly really suffered the necessary scrutiny and engaging need for accountability to force them to commit to serving their people – those inequalities are majorly the responsibility of leadership closer to the people than from the centre, it does not however absolve central government from inspirational leadership and infrastructure development necessary to tap healthy and educated human resources.

The cases being made again

More and more we hear from learned people about the need for religion to be personal rather than public. Senator John Danforth [7] of the United States of America has both been a senior politician and is an ordained Episcopalian priest, he probably has devoted a good deal of time considering the issues of religion and politics in society especially in America where an almost implacable activist conservative fringe is gaining undue vocal advantage in the politics of electioneering.

He had this to say about politics and religion [8].

“The language of politics is different than the language of religion -- politics is not religion. The language of religion is based on creedal affirmation, while the language of politics, when it works, is the language of compromise. To confuse politics for religion results in gridlock from the political perspective. To confuse politics for religion from the religious perspective is idolatry.”

In short, politics requires compromise which religion does not condone else you end up in gridlock and idolatry – he cannot have found a better choice of words to address this matter to Americans at first and then it should be amplified in Nigeria too.

Avoiding democratic faux-theocracies

Religion and politics can work together if in the service of humanity where the respect of humanity derives from religious persuasion of whatever sort and the politicians are statesmen with a purpose for progressive change – much of this almost sounds Utopian where selfish interests of leaders in either religion or politics comes before service and allows for the propagation of false doctrines and corruption in public office.

It remains the goal of many voices speaking up for change and coming out onto the streets in protest all around the world for more accountable representation which provides for equality untainted by the influences of religion because as the aptly named Lord Justice Laws of the UK once said [1] in a judgement:

“We do not live in a society where all the people share uniform religious beliefs. The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic.”

And of theocracies, he had this to say [1]:

"The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments. The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law, but the state, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself.”

In other words, a genuine democracy has to be devoid of religious or political ideological influence for the people of any state to be free. The need to abrogate the religious sway over politics has only become more urgent.

Sources

[1] The case for State law over religious guidance – AkinBlog.NL

[2] Nigerian Ethnic Groups – Courtesy of Fairfield University

[3] Nigerian Linguistic Groups – Courtesy of Fairfield University

[4] Wealth distribution by State in Nigeria – Courtesy of BBC

[5] Female literacy by State in Nigeria – Courtesy of BBC

[6] Healthcare accessibility and distribution by State in Nigeria – Courtesy of BBC

[7] John Danforth – Wikipedia

[8] Paul Brandeis Raushenbush: Rick Santorum's Political and Biblical Mistake – Huffington Post

Other references

Nigeria – Wikipedia

Perry-Castañeda Library - Map Collection – Nigeria – University of Texas at Austin

Federal Republic of Nigeria - "The Oil-Rich Cinderella State That Still Hasn't Quite Made It To The Ball" Julia Macina

Nigeria – A Divided Nation – BBC

CIA – World FactBook on Nigeria

Thought Picnic: Chronicling the sudden end of bicycle journeys

2012-02-20T14:59:00.002+01:00

Bicycle accidents

In my first year in the Netherlands, I had 5 bicycle accidents. Some were avoidable but only two involved other parties. A tourist had just walked into a cycle path without looking, it was impossible to stop without hitting him.

As I got up, I was both apologetic and angry, though on realising his folly, he was more apologetic and thankfully, not too much damage was done to either of us. Last year, I had a similar accident, the lady coming out a shop just walked onto the cycle path without looking – there was just no way I could avoid her as I knocked her over, all her shopping splayed on the ground, I was not going at a high enough speed to be dismounted.

The worse accident I had wrote off my bicycle, the front forks holding the wheel were so bent backwards there wasn’t much that could be done to repair the bicycle. I was about to turn into a side-street and I did not see the cyclist coming towards me so we collided and that was the end of that journey.

In another case, this man on a scooter was definitely drunk coming round a curve and just came straight for me, that bicycle was completely written off too.

Not nice on ice

A few years ago, as I rode in winter, there was still some snow on the ground and one had to be careful to avoid the slippery icy parts. About 15 metres before my fall, I could already see myself having that accident, I do not know if it was prescience but I got to that bit of ice and probably did 5 metres of traction or lack of it after my bicycle and I were separated. Thankfully, the only thing that was bruised was my dignity and though there were onlookers none came to help.

Since then, I have avoided riding my bicycle in the snow just for the fear of falling and coming a cropper.

Yesterday looked fine enough, it was sunny, and though cold it did not appear to be freezing, so I got on my bicycle for a ride without much of a care about it.

I was just about 250 metres from home when I took a turn I usually take to on the long stretch of road that leads to my block, something I have done hundreds of times before but this time as I took the turn the tyres lost all traction and there I was on the ground, literally in the middle of the road.

They walked on by

I could not think of why I had an accident there as it took the best part of 10 minutes for me to get my bearings back, pick myself up and then get my bicycle. The two people who passed me must have thought I was drunk, but I don’t drink and none even cared to be concerned.

It bothers me because it is very unlikely I would see such a situation and never get involved, it is just not my nature to “Walk on by” but that is the community I live in and I have noticed that striking difference between Amsterdam and even Cologne to the South in Germany.

Having another look at the area, I saw the glistening reflection of what could only have been ice; innocuous and dangerous – it is what is known as black-ice, usually hardly visible on macadamised roads but treacherous at best, if I had fallen in front of a moving vehicle, their brakes would not have helped. That was close.

Fixing the damage

In any case, when I picked up my bicycle, I noticed the rear light had stopped working; probably the filament in the electric bulb had broken, then the handle bars were no more at 90 degrees to the front wheel – there wasn’t much I could do about that then and the carriage at the back of the bicycle had come off just below the back of the seat as if two bolts had been broken off.

As for the damage to my person, I was quite bruised in a couple of places around my legs but my left knee seemed to have bled through my trousers showing two big red patches.

I hobbled slowly to my home, chained up my bicycle and then inspected the bodily harm done. I did have methylated spirit but the big-baby in me could not contemplate the pain so I cleaned the wound with hydrogen peroxide instead.

Then I found myself riffling through my box of dressings, I learnt a lot about dressings a few years ago and now I was spoilt for choice. In the end I applied a silicone film to the wound, then an absorbent dressing and bandaged the knee. It is still a bit painful and I have a bit of a limp but I think I will be fine.

I should be back on my bicycle in a few days, I hope.

My bandaged knee.

The Churches of Strange - A short story

2012-02-20T13:36:00.000+01:00

There they stood

“What is all this?” He said in amazement almost bordering in stunned amusement to his mother as he made to leave her room. It was one of those bizarre events that would almost read as too good to be true, it had to be the figment of an imagination in overdrive looking for the incredulous to offer as fact.

Somehow, there seems to have been a disconnect between mother and child, for all the tradition and culture she knew that she hoped to instil the greatest fear and dread in her son, one can only say she had cried wolf one too many times already.

The church of the bizarre

The boy had his problems, many could not be attributed to the usual adolescent issues, they were much more troublesome and she had resorted to remedies in African-initiated churches to deal with possibly mental, maybe psychological and generally termed spiritual problems.

The raison d'etre of these churches were of an almost macabre ritualistic creed that bore very few similarities to the established church which Africans generally never felt tackled the vague dread of the supernatural and superstition that held mind and reason hostage to agents of demonic and devilish persuasion personified in some close blood relation who was either envious or jealous of a person’s circumstances.

It allows for every misfortune to be blamed on some unnamed enemy or some hapless powerless victim that cannot fight back against accusations of sorcery or witchcraft.

The hold and the sway

Much as the bible appears to be their source inspiration, the powers of the churches derive from seers or prophets if you like and people convulsively possessed of influences that portend to prognosticate or exhibit telepathic or clairvoyant tendencies. This provides a great draw that one might well find of the terror of shamanism.

In the process, people who have bought into this religious chicanery are literally fleeced by these “false” prophets whose church establishments have all the trappings of some outward show of holiness and purity but are bastions of the occult gaining some Christian legitimacy by excitable references to God and Jesus along with even more violent exertions in battling Satan as the prophets operate like modern-day Levites and the laity recite the Psalms repetitively with Christian numerological symbolism of threes, sevens, twenty-ones or forties.

Many religions of Christ and others

You can imagine the confusion of “Christianities” the boy had, as his mother took him to strange prayer meetings before he was 5 where the family friends were bedecked in flowing white robes and red sashes, candles taking a prominent place in the homilies, those were seemingly secret liaisons.

Publicly, the family was Anglican though his dad had dabbled in bizarre animist rituals for protection and other life needs. However, every religion was tapped from medicine men through witch doctors to Islamic mystics. In the case of the Islamic mystic she used an episode in the boy’s life of terror and fear to warn him off telling anyone they had been seeking help there.

It was a nasty thing to do but with hindsight the boy felt mother hens will do anything to protect their chicks and this was just a personification of that justification.

The boy deciding

By the time the boy left home, he joined up with what was at that time termed an extreme Christian fringe which brought quite a bit of friction with his parents because they were at variance with other Christian practices.

Meanwhile, in that boy’s life, he had been cut many times, incisions made on the scalp, on the check, on the face with all sorts of potions rubbed in, he had bathed in forests, drank the most dastardly concoctions, seen the indescribable, experienced a lifetime of Steven King kind of horror and to culminate all, had eaten and swallowed razor blades; all in the name of protection, safety and help.

Then came this day as he returned from his church, she called him into her room and after much railing and agitation she cursed her child telling him, if he returned to that church again, he will not find his way back home again.

What is right?

It could have been literal but elements of the child’s upbringing meant that this act will hold less significance as it might have held for someone else steeped in their culture. The rationality of doing this unclothed never dawned on the child for his Christian persuasion at that time put him on a trajectory that gave him a sense of safety from that episode.

The child is then left with many questions on what really is Christianity from the established versions through the African-initiated ritualistic establishments to the ones steeped in dread of evil and a brand of ultra-evangelical exuberance whilst at the same time, he is yet to find his way back home – all because the conflicts in doctrine that govern all these congregations sometimes persuade people to do the most unlovely and inhuman things.

That is the story of a boy and the many “Christianities” that vie for his soul and claim to offer him protection.

Social Media Engagement: Attributes observed playing games

2012-02-17T17:35:00.000+01:00

Another observation

Obviously, it is unscientific of based a whole set of presumptions on an experience that has hardly lasted 24 hours, but one will be hard-pressed not to draw conclusions already.

As I returned home yesterday from a lovely rendezvous with my growing circle of friends made from social media activities that included the rather usual lunch that had a fine lady exhibit her mastery of Nigerian cuisine, she not being remotely African, I reminisced about the many people I have met in person through blogging, tweeting and on Facebook.

Scrabble in motion

The train journey back to Amsterdam was uneventful until at one of the stops a passenger boarded and as he was fiddling with his phone as everyone who has a smartphone does nowadays, out of the corner of my eye I saw he was playing a game that looked like Scrabble.

A few days ago, I did a search on the Android Marketplace for Scrabble and I ended up with a word puzzle – Word Game – which had some addictive qualities working against the clock but nothing like the tradition game.

Rather than be a peeping Tom, I asked the man if the game was Scrabble, it wasn’t but it was a Scrabble clone of sorts called Wordfeud.

Handling the little things

He said he was playing multiple games using different dictionaries with friends all around that world and I thought, when I get home, I will try it out.

Wordfeud is available for use with mainly European languages on the iPhone, Android and Windows 7.5+ platforms with the programmers having the good sense to differentiate between English (US) and English (International) – they deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for just that alone.

There is a premium version that removes all advertisements whilst introducing other features. The board and game is intuitive enough and each language has a different alphabet set with weights and frequencies differing according to the selected language.

A really good imitation

It was not long before I saw the dissimilarities between Wordfeud and Scrabble, the scoring on the board is different with the premium squares allowing for more interesting play, the ratings on the latters also differ – it is amazing how much trivial information one can recall from years of playing traditional Scrabble.

It offers the basic moves as play, swap or miss with the shuffle function that allows for rearranging the letters to form new words but no penalties for wrong words, you are alerted and allowed to reply your turn. There are helpers like Wordfeud Helper and Word Fraud, yes, you can get help without your opponent knowing – such dishonesty, alarming indeed.

Tardy responsiveness

However, the reason for this blog is to highlight an interesting trait I have found which I do believe is a pervasive social media problem.

Apart from Skype calls, most interactive engagement systems are asynchronous, very much like email, you send a message and you cannot pre-determine when a response will be received. In a phone call, there is usually an unstated length of a pause before either party enquires of the other is still in that conversation – that is usually not available for Instant Messaging, Twitter, Facebook or games that are played online.

For this purpose, Wordfeud has given each player 72 hours to respond in play before that player automatically forfeits the game.

Appreciating the situation

My question is why start a game you will not conclude and why is there is no sense of commitment to complete a game you have started, albeit with strangers?

In 8 games that I have started since yesterday, only one has been completed, 2 resigned before 10 tiles had hit the board and one gave up before placing anything.

The other four have been in play for as much as 17 hours, one of which is quite near conclusion. I have decided I will rather be beaten than resign the game and I will most definitely avoid a default.

Wordfeud has options to alert, remind and prompt when it is my turn and I have switched all those options on.

The interesting thing is in a short chat session with one of the tardy, she; yes, she has a female username said she was still in the game but was simultaneously playing multiple games – in other words, I had to be patient.

I would not know if the trick is to win but drawing out the game interminably, I am however glad that Wordfeud does not allow you to resign if it is not your turn.

Playing vulture

If anything, besides the addictive qualities Wordfeud might bring to bear, it allows people to divide their attention in such a way that they are not committed, attentive or engaged to the chagrin of some.

It could also be that the players will rather default than resign or hope that the game is forgotten especially when they are performing badly in the game so as to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat – not with me.

This vulture is a patient bird and regardless of the social media construct, I will ensure I am courteous and responsive to all players that have been randomly selected – niceness should be pervasive, regardless of level of acquaintance, though, I do recognise in certain forums, some people just seek to expose your evils.

Thought Picnic: Leaving Reality for Virtuality

2012-02-16T18:41:00.000+01:00

Aware to observe

There is a constant battle between being able to observe and being aware of ones surroundings. One will suppose awareness aids observance but that is the subject of some other research.

Touch is taking over the world, whilst Bill Gates promised information at our fingertips, he was at that time thinking of keyboards and screens – the times have moved on.

In all, there is much information garnered from touch but I find more of this when travelling not at the fingertips but at the touch of the thumb.

A touch of the distracted

In most cases, I will interact with my mobile phone holding it in one hand and navigating with the finger of the other hand. Too many cannot be bothered; they hold the phone and contrive the contortions of the phalanges to get the thumb of the same hand to work their phones.

In the process they get so engrossed in that activity completely oblivious of their surroundings and the people around them where they sit, where they stand or even when they walk. They are the most irksome when that is done riding their bikes as the handling of the bike almost makes me wish a very murky ditch is ready to break their fall.

Too many times I have boarded public transport and if anyone has a touch-to-interact mobile phone they are probably in that parallel universe absent to the present and the realities around them. It has become a societal nuisance for the want of a better description and it is likely to get worse.

Failing to learn

One cannot entirely relate this to poor attention spans or a general lack of awareness but I have hardly seen anyone on our Amsterdam Tram System who has cottoned on to the fact that if the push buttons at the exit doors are pressed to inform the driver to halt at the next stop and the lights are blinking, once the tram stops and the driver activates the doors, there is no need to press that button again, the door will sure open.

Maybe it is something about connecting the dots of events around you and paying heed to your surroundings but people have become automatons driven by touch with no other sensory perception utilised to show that the person exists with time, space, motion and interaction.

Dangers of this

These intra-personalised worlds of being oblivious cannot be to the benefit of our communities the worst situation being we may never be able to depend on eye witnesses and where help should be provided they are probably recording the circumstance to share on YouTube.

Besides our ability to appreciate beauty and take in our environments is lost to virtual worlds of virtual friends in virtual conversations doing virtually nothing for the enhancement of our realities.

We need to rollback these digital influences and get back to being social animals again – how we go about this, I would not know but the danger does loom and it will be more serious than depicted here.

Nigeria: The need to manage the Emperors of State

2012-02-14T12:33:00.000+01:00

Emperors of State

Executive governors of states in the Federal Republic of Nigeria appear to have untrammelled fiat almost equivalent to absolute monarchies of old within their fiefdoms.

I do not intend to cover that particular matter but they are also granted immunity from prosecution which has the somewhat unintended consequence of many acting with impunity as they project the personification of absolute power that corrupts absolutely.

Thankfully, they only have that megalomania for the tenure of their offices before they become ordinary citizens again. Usually, to forestall a wholesale jettisoning of the things they put in place they would most likely attempt to interfere with the succession process with the hope of putting in a stooge that will for gratitude or other allegiances be their marionettes in power.

Deficiencies in governance

One thing is evident with our system of democracy, there are no strong institutions that make for ensuring that the governor acts within the sometimes grey areas of the law, the state legislatures tend to be overly partisan and factional rather than work as a moderating chamber more representative of the people and the powers the governor exerts are sometimes unreasonable that they will almost always be reviewed and the acts rescinded.

In many states where the new governors have been elected especially where the successor has come from another party or there have been differences within the same party that the erstwhile governor has not been able to influence the succession process the states have been in radical flux.

Basically, it is like the new governor is on a crusade to expunged every act and idea of their predecessor which all fall within the spectrum of atrocious through commendable to excellent, you rarely find areas where these governors attempt to build on the previous successes and take the state forward.

Consequences of the lack of continuity

Obviously, each governor has their own agenda and manifesto; it is their prerogative to act and hopefully in the best interests of fairness, justice, of the people and of the state rather that follow through their personal animosities in a show of sheer pettiness masquerading as leadership.

However, other things suffer if the system is not built to manage the acts of the executive governors at their most powerful and guarantee continuity after they have left. In fact, it feeds a vicious circle of counter-productive measures that give a lie to our democratic experiment.

On the matters of contracts, land ownership, business confidence, long-term enabling environments for development and growth the looming uncertainties that are generated by the musical chairs of quadrennial elections mean many projects not completed within the tenure might get abandoned and other thriving initiatives might be jettisoned.

Examples of breakdown

Worse still will be actions the old governor took for their own benefit when the new broom puts the old person in their place as is now happening in Ogun State - the once promising potentate at the advent of office who by the end of his term was probably the worst thing that ever happened to Ogun State who for his power-drunk egregious and megalomaniacal excesses plundered the state and appropriated lands that are now subjects of dispute.

If the new governors do not do well to spell out their intentions, many might read their actions as an all-out vendetta especially when one read the placards of student protesters whose university was downgraded to an institute of education amongst other things happening there and all around the country.

Constitutional review

There is a need to review the powers the executive governors had and what they can do, the state legislatures need to rise to the challenge of being better moderating influences on the governors whilst ensuring that the ideas and projects put in place have every prospect of continuity no matter who sits in the governor’s house.

Our constitution after almost 13 years of use is in need of radical amendments and subtle refinement to make our democracy more representative whilst also making leadership more responsive and accountable to the electorate.

Most importantly, there is a need to redress the matter of public service with more emphasis on the service over just having a public – these changes must happen soon, if we are to have a more enduring union and the hope that the best minds do vie for office and bring forth the change that Nigeria so badly needs.

References

The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria – State Executive

Amosun, Daniel trade words over church land | Vanguard Nigeria News

Tai Solarin Varsity students protest merger | The Nation

Whitney Houston

2012-02-12T16:42:00.000+01:00

Their enduring music

I would not consider myself a critic of any sort when it comes to artistes and their musicality but amazing superlatives cannot be exhausted on a number of singers and performers who have walked in the sands of our times and have so suddenly become part of the edifice of history.

Beyond classical music, my tastes are not overly eclectic; I have listened to many but bought only a few like Luther Vandross, Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. They, in my view had such a quality of ability and talent that just touched the soul when they gave voice to anything.

I got to see Michael Jackson in 1992 at Wembley Station when he was at the height of his performing genius, it is a memory that 20 years on is still as fresh as if I have just left the concert.

I was in Berlin the night news came in that Michael Jackson had died and we now know that for all the wealth and talent he had one thing he was unable to get enough or any of was sleep. He purchased every means to get sleep and the negligence of his supposedly trusted physician administering drugs in the absolutely wrong environment and with the necessary expertise lead to his death.

And now Whitney

Whitney Houston had a voice that just was angelic, nothing sounded like it before and for all the similarities and imitations I have heard, this was one person whose fraction of expression in terms of her possibilities and ability left many in her wake.

What I loved about her singing was the control she exercised over her voice with that usually quavering lower jaw, she was closest to humanly divine.

I am saddened that even if her death were not directly related to the troubles we have been regaled with in the media, the reason for substance abuse is probably a desperate quest for happiness.

Rarely for sale

Like Michael Jackson before her, she probably expended her wealth and resources in the search for that elusive goal of happiness, a commodity that is rarely on sale regardless how one can attempt to create the environment to foster it.

The many things we attempt to purchase to fulfill our lives like sleep, happiness, love or health are never on the shelves, they are to be found in our hearts, in our souls with the peace and contentment that allows us to enjoy those things.

The shortcuts to getting these things are almost always fatal, if not suddenly there is chronic sense to it, you can only wonder if when she sang the greatest love of all she was trying hard to affirm an absence within herself.

Where do broken lives go?

In the quest for these essential elements of a good life you find yourself asking in a paraphrase of one of her other hit songs. Where do broken lives go? Do they find the rest, the joy and the love they have always sought, within themselves, with others or in things that cause them great harm.

In the end, they like us have the same desires and troubles, where some of us might have resigned ourselves to our fates or adjusted to the circumstances we were in, they probably thought with the means at their disposal they had a greater chance – a chance that for some became a chance too far.

However, one must not take away from the fact that this was a woman of exceptional talent whose expression and achievement will hug the record books for long but more importantly, I have been blessed to appreciate what she had to offer in music, singing and life.

I end with the tweet I posted when I learnt of Whitney Houston’s passing.

Whitney Houston - I hope your broken heart has found its way home. Rest in peace. Angelic voice. http://is.gd/mV8RhT

May God rest your once troubled soul.

Nigeria: Disabusing the false premises in our discourse

2012-02-11T11:14:00.000+01:00

Hecklers on Twitter, I presume

Hardly had my blog of yesterday been up 10 minutes before I got a Tweet suggesting I had offered no specific solutions. Obviously, I was not surprised that this had come out of Twitter’s woodwork, probably a heckler attempting to interrupt me in the flow of debate or an assassin poised to gun me down.

Basically, at least from my point of view, I had never engaged this person before and unfortunately I have not carried over the real life response to this type of activity which is, if a stranger accosts me on the street playing familiar that I have no connection with, they usually get ignored especially if the hour is the witching hour – it was well past midnight on my clock.

I have decided to address the matters as premises at the top of this blog and push the background to the latter part of the blog.

Premise: Article suggests no specific solutions.

The blog was written as an analysis of a speech given which appeared to signal resignation and confusion as to why the principal was in the job he was doing. We are well beyond analysis paralysis of the problems that affect Nigeria, it is expected that those who assume leadership of the country are versed in those issues and are ready to tackle them effectively not lament on the impossibility of their circumstances.

Fundamentally, I am not the President, he is the President – it is a job that has the micro-management of scrutiny from everyone affected by his decisions, he has had the executive fiat to selected his ministers and advisors – surely, they cannot all be bereft of ideas and solutions to take the country forward that we end up with a President who appears to have thrown in the towel.

Premise: This is not the time to coach Goodluck Jonathan to be a good President.

Whilst I am slightly annoyed with the idea that this man is learning on the job, I much more annoyed that it appears he is not learning anything at all. However, if we are to live through another 39 months of this presidency, it calls for an intervention.

The Occupy Nigeria movement started off something, the House of Representatives probe on the Fuel Subsidy scheme appeared to uncover what might be a massive fraud and it should become the watershed for this Presidency.

I dared say since it the vocation of my assailant was motivational it was time for him to pen something about arresting a failing goal.

Goodluck Jonathan has a number of options; to honourably resign for the fact that the responsibility he has is overwhelming and beyond him, he be asked to step down for more competent hands or he pull himself up and get into job of being a fine President – all of which are possible.

For all the promise that 2015 presents, we are in the now, the present and these present times require radical and effective action – performance is required, trying his best just not good enough – over to the excellence merchants, bring forth your success potions and get him drunk on the brew.

Premise: People are not hungry enough for change

I think Nigerians have taken enough insults from “know it alls”. Pressed with the need to survive, most just go about their business and seek comfort through extreme religious devotion with the hope that things change.

Obviously, a good deal of change will have to be led by the people and it will not be easy but we do not have to be reminded that we are caught in the grip of an unconscionable kakistocracy.

Premise: Most people who criticise Goodluck Jonathan have never led anything in their lives

That might be true, but does one have to have once been a leader to know that whether they are properly lead or not? This is a false premise and a fallacy. It is like saying because we are not pilots we have no right to complain if the flight is in a manoeuvre that appears to endanger the passengers.

In fact, I consider this argumentum ad hominem, there are many vantage points and perspectives to issues, there is much that can been seen by those external to the circumstances whose input can at times help. It is like having someone who cannot drive being the eyes of the driver backing into parking space – well that premise has fallen apart already.

The fact is many of us have assumed some sort of leadership in various ways and how we have commandeered situations has determined either the success or the unfortunate failure of those endeavours – there are expectations of leadership and where that leadership appears to be falling short, the qualification to criticise should never be predicated on the critic having been in that position before.

Premise: We all have to be change agents

“Change agent” for me, has become a worn cliché, it is the jargon of purveyors of snake oil remedies. The main ingredient for change is knowledge and information, the possession of facts and good analysis of issues. Some of that will include praise, criticism, fawning, excoriation and indifference.

Honest and frank observation must be key to furthering the discussion and debate whilst engaging other minds in the common goal for progress.

I am convinced a majority of Nigerians want change for the better but each has to hear a message that appeals to their drive to effect change and because personalities differ, there is no “one size fits all” approach to achieving that.

I have never been a “glass half full” person because I enjoy the good things of life, it all depends on the content. If the glass has fine wine, I will expect it to be half-empty having drunk a bit and I will be waiting for the sommelier to top it up. My glass will probably be half-full if it was bad wine – Go figure.

The background continuing from the end of the second paragraph

However, on Twitter, I am much more mellow, quite accommodating and usually responsive, probably too good-natured and too much of an English gentleman for my liking.

So, I responded, the purpose for my blog was not written from the premise of “If I were President” but to ask that he begin to act like the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Meanwhile, I was reviewing the Twitter profile of my assailant, glad to know that he was a bit travelled and schooled; the long and short of the profile was as I have found on many Twitter profiles – Snake Oil Merchant on the Bleeding Obvious.

Motives in motivation

Don’t get me wrong, motivational speakers have a market, each person has a modicum of inferiority complex that needs addressing and there is enough pulp fiction to teach success, leadership and how to make money out of thin air – I have bought a few and junked much more.

However, you can hardly get the thickness of a Chinese wall between confidence tricksters that portend to have all the tricks to make money especially ritualistic and religious ones and the more refined success merchants of the Un-impossible.

I knew I had my work cut out mostly in disabusing the premises that govern their God complex of know why and how having found ‘sheeple’ to eat their grass.

What my blog said

On the context of my blog, I doubt he had read more than what I written yesterday evening considering I had at least covered this topic for over two years and it was evident from my writing yesterday that I was expressing disappointment in someone who at the onset appeared to have promise.

In my view, President Jonathan definitely has rotten speechwriters, but speechwriters need to be inspired by the speechmaker to craft messages to convey a mood, a purpose or a situation. Both the speechwriters and the President have failed to inspire and Nigerians as passengers on a cruise ship about to be shipwrecked are left confused as the captain and crew seem to have abandoned the ship long before the rescue has commenced.

The incredulity of it all is captured in speeches he made in January and February which I reviewed in opinions published as blogs; the President was not pulling his weight and announcing to the world that he could not.

In my exasperation, I asked him to stop his lamentations and start to preside, I have had my fill of Nigerian politics but surely there must be better brains and more capable Nigerian hands to run that great country if the system is not warped against them for the benefit of the few who have mercilessly run that amazing country of great potential into the ground and we have to endure the sophistry of “glass half full” snake-oil success merchants who think the President’s best is the best Nigeria can have and all is well.

I am neither a coach nor a footballer but I do not need to be told when a goal is scored and which side appears to be winning. The false premises have been debunked.

Nigeria: We're Tired of the Lamentations of Jonathan

2012-02-10T23:34:00.000+01:00

Two years of hopelessness

Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the ascension of Goodluck Jonathan to the position of the Executive President of Nigeria. Whilst it was only in the acting capacity until Umaru Yar’Adua died in May of 2010, he was effectively in control and evidently his boss was probably comatose and thereby too incapacitated to have a voice in government.

In the first few months, the man appeared to have promise and ability, if not the resolve to bring the change necessary to take Nigeria forward, however, since he received a mandate of his own from the people regardless of the documented irregularities, he has become a glaring disappointment leading Nigeria into even more perilous times.

There are times when many would prefer the President was struck dumb than to be found uttering words that belie a sense resignation and possibly cluelessness as to why he is in office.

We are tired indeed

In a speech given [1] at the commissioning of a cement plant belonging to Nigeria’s foremost billionaire, he once again made some statements that should leave many worried about the rudderless heading of the Nigerian ship of state.

“Story about commissioning is what Nigerians want to hear; Nigerians are tired of hearing that there is bomb explosion in Maiduguri or Kano or Bayelsa states. Yes, we have security challenges in the country. We have challenges in terms of infrastructure but we are totally committed individually and collectively to getting the country out of this situation. Our children want a better Nigeria than this.”

“Our greatest problem as a country is the rate of unemployment. If anybody can come up with policy and programmes that will create jobs, definitely, government will embrace that person and will continue to encourage that person.”

Indeed, the stories we want to hear are of great strides in industrial progress but we cannot just wish away the serious security issues that have engulfed the country over the last 18 months.

An enabling environment

We need to have confidence in the fact that the government is up to the task of providing not just security but an enabling environment for growth and development to deal with the as it were greatest problem that the President has identified.

In terms of the enabling environment for business, it would appear security has raced up to the top of the list with reports of Boko Haram attacks hurting business [2] and the business environment. This has to become a priority such that we cannot afford to have terrorist kingpins escaping police custody for weeks.

Down in the South after the manifestly atrocious amnesty programme that appeared to appease terrorism and militancy presaging a failed state and communities of anarchy, MEND returned to their skilled expertise of attacking oil infrastructure – for a President who is primarily from that area, it is shame that this menace has resurrected to wreak havoc again.

We also are fed up of government boasts of annihilating the terrorist threat or the extra-judicial process of killing suspects long before it has been proven that they are terrorists or where we have not begun to tackle the fundamental issues feeding the terrorist escalation.

Infrastructure issues

Beyond security, the government has to address the matters of basic infrastructure starting with electrical power which for business is a great recurrent expenditure because each business has to generate their own electricity and most depend on fuel. The power generation issue has consumed billions of dollars with nothing to show for it but more promises.

The national grid to support power generation needs to be ungraded and we need to exploit power generation sources beyond water and oil to gas, wind and solar options – w do not have enough food security to go the way of biofuels yet.

Then road and rail transport need to be developed, the gathering yesterday was intimated of the need to work on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and Sagamu-Benin-Ore Expressway, beyond that, the North is still the bread basket for Nigerian perishable foods – the links with those centres of agriculture need to be improved upon.

Local government

Next is the matter of education, health and local government development, most of the deprived areas in Nigeria are more the evidence of failings at state and local government levels of representation, things need to change.

There are many people with policies, programmes and ideas for job creation in Nigeria, in fact, the country is awash with talent and ability but lacking in opportunity.

Endemic corruption

The things that stifle opportunity in Nigeria are corruption and the lack of ease of doing business in Nigeria. Only today we learnt that the fuel subsidy issue might well be the fence for a massive fraud [3] coming to $12.6 billion in 2011 and this more by government agencies than by the faceless cabal that was the taking all the opprobrium until the Occupy Nigeria protests forced a probe into the scheme.

Nigerians are not confident heads will roll or the purveyors of this corrupt enterprise who seem to be in cahoots with the leadership that they are untouchable will ever be brought to book.

From 2010 to 2011 Nigeria fell in the Corruption Perceptions Index from 134 [4] to 143 [5], sadly, the government has not been seen to be ready, willing or able to tackle corruption. The escalation of the cost of fuel subsidy in 2011 has been attributed to funding of the electioneering campaign [6] of the ruling party in 2011 and it hardly paints the President in any good light but in the ranks of rotten plundering leaders of Nigeria who have gone before.

Hostile business environment

In the rankings of the ease of doing business [7] published by the World Bank Group, Nigeria stands at 133 out of 183 surveyed countries and ranks at 176 and 180 respectively for Getting Electricity and Registering Property – these, the President should already know these are the core impediments to business growth and consequently exacerbate the unemployment numbers – it is no rocket science at all.

No one is asking the President to create jobs but there is a lot he can do to create enabling environments for employment, development and growth with policies, laws and acts that address security, infrastructure, corruption and governance.

After two years in office, Nigerians are tired of the Lamentations of Jonathan; he should start acting like the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Sources

[1] allAfrica.com: Nigeria: We're Tired of Bombings - Jonathan

[2] Boko Haram attacks in Nigerian hurting business | The London Evening Post

[3] Nigeria Probes Possible Fraud Over $12.6 Billion Subsidies - Businessweek

[4] Corruption Perceptions Index 2010

[5] Corruption Perceptions Index 2011

[6] Nigeria: Power outage - FT.com

[7] Ranking of economies - Doing Business - World Bank Group

Other references

Nigeria: Why #OccupyNigeria should matter to all

BBC – A Nation Divided – The Health Demographic Map of Nigeria [Graphic]

BBC – A Nation Divided – The Literacy Demographic Map of Nigeria [Graphic]

ASGA - Advanced Shaving Gel Acronyms

2012-02-09T01:59:00.000+01:00

They sprouted late

I could write a long story about shaving though I never really saw the need to shave until I was well past 25; I almost thought I would never have the need to shave.

Then the wayward desert sprouts of hair began to multiply and before I knew it, a beard was forming whilst I could still sport a flat-top crew-cut with a slightly pointed head.

The regimes of shaving started with clippers and all sorts of shavers, each with improved technologies until Philips introduced a wet shaving machine that allowed you to introduce the shaving gel as you passed the shaver around your face.

On top, there was the advent of male-pattern baldness, I decided inspired by snake-oil remedies for preventing hair-loss to take it all off and so my shaving became the complete removal of facial and scalp hair.

Losing hair battles

After a while I got fed up of using electric and battery-powered shavers especially when I had to deal with in-growing hair causing bumps. I even tried using depilatories which had their side effects of discomfort and then memories of my father using Magic shaving powder had me shopping for those in African shops though I was never one for Old Spice.

One evening in a hotel in Germany I had a 3-blade Gillette shaving razor and did my scalp and head in one go, that began my use of the razors and my preference for shaving gel over shaving foam.

That was the Gillette Mach 3 Turbo that I used according to instructions on the packet, one the strip faded, I replaced the razor, but after a few years of using that brand, one evening whilst preparing for dinner on holiday I took a clean 2 square centimetres off my scalp – it hurt like I had never felt pain before – the search for a better razor commenced after that.

Better than a scimitar

Gillette Mach 3 Power was simply the same razor, at least from my layman’s perspective acting like a shaving vibrator; sure, I did scoff at the idea because they were expensive, trendy but honestly quite silly.

So, one day I walked into a drug store and saw the Gillette Fusion, a 5-blade razor, that seemed like the ultimate razor, in fact, any more blades would have made it a follicular combine harvester but you cannot put it past these people and for the humongous cost, I eventually realised the razors were good for probably a 100% more shaves than the usage indicators suggested.

Having sorted out the razors, there was also the story of shaving gels, I easily settle for the Gillette brand shaving gels but those had more varieties than colours of rainbow offering every sort of comfort for the skin and labelled for the razor in order to bump up the prize – we really have been had on these matters.

I usually favoured gels with Aloe Vera and Vitamin E, I noticed on my holidays to Gran Canaria that Aloe Vera was literally a weed, it grew everywhere like grass in the strangest places and for all its natural properties for the skin and as a drink the real thing has an almost sickening smell when cut and it is one smell that sticks to your olfactory receptors for hours just as onions leave a marker on your hands for hours after peeling and cutting them.

King of Shaves

But long before I became a razor fan with the need for shaving gels, I was told of products from the King of Shaves that could deal with bumps and other skin irritation as a result of shaving. I started with the After Shave and the Moisturiser but never the shaving gel. In fact, I did start using King of Shaves when I was still living in the UK and because the products were not available in the Netherlands, I had to find alternatives.

Sometime ago, on one of my London sojourns, I saw a variety of King of Shaves products, got the usual ones and thought I will try the shaving gel. I never really got to use it until a few days ago and really it was yesterday that I bothered to read all the stuff on the tube.

What got me were the acronyms as I peered through the running shower to read the spiel – SSE v5.0, ALS², mDDS, MME & PSP. I was ready to risk the unusual expletive because looking at the acronyms one would have thought I was talking of software, probably some scientific process and something so complex that it would require the mathematical genius of a savant to unravel.

Really, King of Shaves, Azor, Advanced Shaving Gel, does take it to another level of marketing that is almost crass. I a hardly impressed with marketing sophistry, in fact, if I had read this before purchase, I most likely would have put it down for it pretentiousness but for the fact that I like other King of Shaves products.

Here goes

The one I have does not seem to be in stock anymore, though it seems Remington has it, but it is necessary to see what all those acronyms refer to.

King of Shaves Azor® Advanced Shaving Gel utilises SSE,™ v5.0 of our unique Skin Surface Enhancing technology, to deliver our best shave ever with ALS² (Advanced Lubrication System) and mDDS™ (micro Dual Delivery System) that helps protect, moisturize and lubricate your skin throughout the shave giving superlative razor performance and glide. Your face will be left amazingly smooth, supple and moisturized.This unique black gel with MME (Micro-Magnetically Enhanced) particles help the gel ‘stick’ to the blade throughout the shave.For best results use as part of the King of Shaves PSP™ (Prime, Shave, Protect) regime. PRIME: Shave during / after warm bath or shower and wash your face with King of Shaves Face Wash or Scrub. SHAVE: Squeeze a generous amount of Azor Gel onto hand and massage into wet beard. Shave carefully in direction of hair growth taking special care around the sensitive neck area. Rinse the blade frequently. PROTECT: After shaving, thoroughly rinse off, pat dry and protect skin with King of Shaves Moisturizer or Balm.

After which, you can be sure that you have not only had a close shave but you’ve been truly shaved. Phew!

Thought Picnic: Nurturing the fear of consequence

2012-02-08T12:19:00.000+01:00

Child suicides are horrible

I read the news story of two 12-year old girls jumping to their deaths in Russia and I was quite saddened by the fact that such young children will take such a drastic action because of their fear of consequence. [The Moscow Times]

Apparently, the girls had skipped school for two weeks and were fearful of being punished that they clasped hands and jumped from the top of a 16-storey building.

There is cause for much speculation on reading this as to why they were skipping school and what the circumstances at their homes could be that they were so afraid of punishment that the only recourse they had was to take their lives.

There are aspects of this that I can relate to and that is why I have decided to write this blog because there are complexities in maturation of a child that depend very much on the reaction of their parents or guardians to prevent such drastic actions.

Not knowing what

I remember when in secondary school whilst staying with my guardian we made a draught board the only singular playful thing we ever had opportunity to have because the compelling drive and primary purpose for living at that stage of life in the setting we found ourselves in was to study and succeed, nothing else could suffice.

Many of my Nigerian peers could attest to this, though I must say in my home, my parents allowed quite a lot of play as long as work was not left undone.

When my guardian learnt that we had become playful, the message was clear, the board was to be destroyed and when he got back from work we were to be dealt with seriously. No one had any idea of what would happen but there was enough fear, terror and trepidation around us that we were as subdued as to be auto-asphyxiated.

I could not contemplate what to expect that what I did was to drink a cup of kerosene that made me violently sick in the hope that I would be mercifully spared. In the end, all that was required for us to buckle up was the threat but I could have done myself some serious harm because I did not know what to expect.

Was naughty, a lot

Now, for all the airs and graces I might exude today, I cannot say I was the best child; I did play truant a lot but I was in the library, some classes in secondary school were boring; when I was at the polytechnic there was one class I did not attend for the whole year after the first few classes because the lecturer’s command of English was atrocious, in fact, it was unbelievably bad, I could not stand him at all.

There were consequences, from the telling off through the shame to the possibility of failing the subject or the course and then the reports that got back home where my quite respectable parents would have been utterly mortified about my behaviour and performance.

It was important that I knew there were consequences, in some cases the discipline was quite brutal from the loss of privileges that included floggings and even sleeping on the floor – a kind of use of humiliation for attitude adjustment – some were tolerable and others were just par for the course, there were things you could not control.

Trying to be reasonable parents

However, I can remember that when I was at my worst behaviour was when my parents were at their most merciful – that was for me and is still today the biggest lesson I have learnt of parenthood.

I am thankful that my parents never carried out the threat of having me locked up just to bring me to my senses.

In all, it is important for a child to know the limits and extents to which they might suffer the consequences of their actions when they realise they have been wrong. I have seen children unnecessarily brutalised that I have vicariously offered to take anything they were being given because it was just unbearable.

Now, parents mean well, they probably do in most cases and their fears for their kids turning out wrong might dictate the way they treat and discipline their child but when they introduce levels of terror and consequence that lead the child to consider harmful actions either by reason of not knowing what their parents will do or in the full knowledge of how nasty their parents can become, there is great sorrow in store for many.

I still remember that there were issues I should have been able to approach my parents about and they might have been very helpful and there are others where they have been dismissive when in fact the issue was very serious – parenthood does not come with manuals but there is a need to know that children have voices, they need to be heard and they need to know the extents of rebuke and sometimes expect a warm embrace.

My Droid - Installing a new microSD card

2012-02-06T22:44:00.000+01:00

An upgrade of sorts

So, I got up this morning and thought; I have a 16GB microSD card in my defunct Windows Mobile 6.5 HTC Touch Diamond 2 phone which I took out of service at the end of September 2011.

My Droid which is an HTC Sensation came with an 8GB microSD card, not that I have used half that storage yet, but the idea that I could double the space was appealing enough.

First, I did a search for the easiest way to transfer all the data and applications from the current microSD card to the bigger microSD card and everything that came up in my search was some convoluted and complicated method of copying the data, I needed to think of a better way.

Preparations

So first, I got the card out of my Windows mobile phone and remembered I had a microSD adapter I had acquired years ago in one of my cupboards. Inserting the microSD card in the adapter I inserted it into the slot on my netbook and copied all the data to a folder on my netbook.

Then I formatted the microSD card to FAT-32 file system and it was ready for usage. As I was doing this, it occurred to me that I could mount the SD card in my Droid as a drive through the USB connection to my netbook.

I mounted the microSD card storage on my Droid, unsure of the best way to copy the data and retain all the security and format of data with the applications on the SD card I decided to use the Robocopy command.

The first copy

Robocopy which comes with the most recent copies of Microsoft Windows is a robust file copy utility that is quite versatile for copy and backup routines.

I used the mirror option which should be used with caution because it wipes the target drive or target folder before copying data. I needed to be sure I noted the source and target drives.

Using Robocopy < Source Drive > < Target Drive > /MIR

Once the files were copied, I replaced the microSD card and restarted my Droid; two errors were displayed, one to do with MSN Messenger and the Economist Apps both of which I had to forcibly close. I could not find them anywhere on my phone so I started up the file manager and found the .android_secure folder was unreadable however with the Astro file manager app I could read the folder.

Using the Android Assistant app, I checked to see if there were any apps on my SD card using the Tools | App 2 SD widget and that revealed there were no apps on my microSD card when I was expecting at least 15 or so apps.

It became evident that the .android_secure folder contained all the apps that I had moved to the SD card and there were no clear solutions to resolve this somewhat annoying quirk much as I did not want to accept the fact that changing microSD cards needed some rocket science tool.

The better copy

So putting my original microSD card in the adapter I loaded it on my netbook then mounted the SD card on my Droid, once again making a good note of the source drive which was now on the adapter I selected all the folders and copied them to the target drive which was now on my Droid overwriting everything. This being a standard Windows copy and paste procedure.

After the copy was completed, I restarted my Droid and all my apps were restored, especially those on the microSD card with no errors.

Now, I have over 10GB of space free on my Droid, looks like there is much more I can put on my Droid, my complete classical music collect and even the complete audio bible that adds up to just over 1 GB.

Thought Picnic: Thoughts of Thankfulness

2012-02-05T22:12:00.000+01:00

A loneness and togetherness

There are times I have been threatened with the idea that I am alone and lonely in the things that I have seen and experienced.

Of a truth, in the realms that we majorly interact in, there are many that have suffered the privations and loneliness that I have encountered but few who can say they have through it all been blessed, small or large when things did not look like they could get any better.

Thankful always

For all the stories I can muster the strength to tell, the greatest is of thankfulness for the mercies I have received, the friendships that have come to the rescue when things were so dire and the life that has survived and thrived against all odds.

Gloomy as some days seem, there is a resilience I cannot explain and an assuredness that trumps all circumstances that says all that is contrary will pass and that which is of goodness will come.

Suddenly, great respite

God knows, there are things that I would rather have suddenly and come up with certainty but time is an elastic variable, when it is due, it will not shift, not for a second.

For those who have little and out of that have given much your brotherly love is greatly appreciated, I am grateful beyond words can express.

Thank you for reaching out and lifting me up.

Thought Picnic: Straws and Ropes

2012-01-28T04:34:00.000+01:00

Yearning to survive

It is probably a gift to know what appropriately suits the seasons though it is first of all important to know the seasons and when they change.

Thinking about this scenario one had to find ways to articulate the deep recesses of the mind and one or two analogies materialised.

The time to talk about mountain views is not when one is stuck in the valley, the perspectives are different and the state of the mind is such that all the optimism that can be mustered will not produce the refreshing blast of the mountain breeze.

Even more pertinently, if a man were drowning and clutching at straws for survival, it would seem strange if those on the banks of the river were attempting a rescue by asking the man to clutch at another straw; the man is no state to process that kind of information, no matter how advantageous, however, if those on the bank of the river threw in a rope, that situation will be compelling enough to make the man realise that it is an aid to safety.

Overwhelmed by situations crowding ones space, when you reach out it is unlikely that you have the ability to process ideas, there is a time for talk and there is another time to hug instead, if we make the mistake of not knowing the difference, you’ll be over the edge before the situation is redeemed.

I suppose it all makes sense with boxing, when the man is ready to throw in the towel, that is not the time to talk strategy about winning that match, it is already over and we just waiting for the bell.

Again, it is important for that team to know the difference because disaster looms and if that season is not recognised, that might well be the last boxing match ever.

Now one knows why it is not right for man to be alone because there are times when the ears and the tears need to be shared, just to take you out of the valley, to pull you out of the river, to calm you down in turmoil or to help you handle defeat without being totally defeated.

There is a season, know that season because it is only after you have been helped to survive that you can begin to thrive.

Nigeria: Why #OccupyNigeria should matter to all

2012-01-26T20:38:00.000+01:00

The inspiration

This is an unusual blog because what I have decided to do is review excerpts from an original news story on recent events in Nigeria that leaves one literally uninspired by anything the government is up to today.

The Financial Times in an analysis published two evenings ago titled Nigeria: Power outage by Xan Rice homed in on a number of issues we need to keep in focus to begin to turn our country around.

What makes this analysis very interesting is the innocuous use of nuance and language to convey very deep truths that could be missed if the article were skimmed rather than thoroughly read through; Xan Rice is in the thick of things, he is the West African correspondent for the Financial Times and based in Nigeria.

An appalling report card

“This is our chance to change Nigeria.” That was meant to be Mr Jonathan’s job.

Goodluck Jonathan had promised an era of transformation, a breath of fresh air which was supposed to presage radical change, the change for the better that Nigerians have hoped for, for a long time. The implication of this statement is that he is NOT doing his job or he is doing his job so badly that people have had to come out on the streets to protest.

Nine months on, merely maintaining the dysfunctional status quo appears too much of a challenge.

Now, this is 9 months from getting elected with his own mandate; it is however 21 months from when Goodluck Jonathan took full control of the affairs of the country. The damning assessment here is that he has failed to rise up to the challenge and there does not seem to be any indication that he will be able to do the job. The more disconcerting part missing from this statement is we might have another 39 months of this.

Meanwhile, the president’s bungled attempt to remove fuel subsidies … has raised serious questions about his capacity to push through reform.

This is looking like a very bad report card already. For instance, the meaning of bungled speaks volumes, with the help of the Free Dictionary, I found the following definitions.

To work or act ineptly or inefficiently.
To handle badly; botch.
A clumsy or inept performance; a botch.

All of which point to a perception of inexperience, an aura of cluelessness, a pall of rank incompetence and being oblivious of consequence; the result of which will suggest this man will not be able to bring change to Nigeria no matter how hard he tries.

Copyright considerations

Ideally, I would have liked to excerpt more from the FT article but for copyright restriction issues which I will not like to infringe upon without appearing to reproduce the article here – others that I have shared the article with I have asked to read with the mind of an Englishman because it is loaded with meaning such that one should really read between the lines.

Following the money

However, I did post some tweets with regards to that article and I will use them in completing this blog.

"That subsidy amounted to up to $10bn last year, more than double the figure in 2010." is.gd/OOnFPu #OccupyNigeria

The question to ask here is whether the Nigerian consumption of fuel doubled in 2011 or maybe the cost of fuel did – there is no indication that any of those situations were the case, leading the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee chairman investigating the fuel subsidy issue to suggest there were sharp practices at play.

In other blogs I had written about this fuel subsidy issue, the matter of how a budget of NGN 250 billion got to a NGN 1.3 trillion spend which then increased to NGN 1.7 trillion paid as fuel subsidy in 2011 is still baffling. This is almost 6 times more than the budgeted sum and literally all those responsible for this atrocious criminal enterprise are still sitting pretty exculpating themselves in complete denial and buck-passing.

The cost of patronage

The writer then goes to suggest where all that money went.

"There are reasons to suspect some of this cash may have been used for electioneering." Suspect? FT Are you kidding me?

This no doubt paints those whose electioneering quests needed serious bankrolling like the President and his coterie of supporters as people who dipped their hands in the Nigerian treasury with impunity.

As we all know, the do-or-die atmosphere that pervades the quest of political office in Nigeria is predicated by the fact that the spoils of office are amazingly great and better than any occupation anyone can have in Nigeria. The recognition of this largesse means those who must ward off viable opposition need to pay off their opponents handsomely such that their thirst for having access to the national coffers is assuaged.

Patronage is a very expensive undertaking in Nigeria with brown envelopes being so last century and favours doled out as cars and if you are in deep, you might even get an oil block or have the opportunity to setup a briefcase company to push around paper oil deliveries walking away with unbelievable returns completely oblivious of whether oil comes from sunflowers or peanuts, perish the thought of know what the colour of crude oil is.

Where did all the money go?

"Foreign exchange reserves have halved to $33bn since 2008." Where did the money go? Who has been spending it? #OccupyNigeria

This is where we have no confidence in our government at all, because this indicates $33bn has been spent of our reserves and this is apart from other income that has come into the Nigerian treasury and there is nothing to show for it – not in infrastructure or any social development scheme – it is more than a leap of faith to now expect us to believe that the paltry savings from the fuel subsidy removal will now be ploughed into any scheme for the benefit of the people.

The government in its prodigal profligacy uses over 70% in recurrent expenditure and shows no signs of restructure, reform or restraint. They are demanding sacrifices of Nigerians and living large in wanton excess and ostentatiously unbelievable luxury on the literally broken backs of the people completely unconcerned as long as their greed for more money for patronage and control can be satisfied with burdening an already desperately impoverished people.

These are the many things that gave rise to the #OccupyNigeria movement globally and seeks to get to the bottom of the real cost of the fuel subsidy before we can honestly look towards its removal. If the, as it were floating cost of the fuel subsidy has a spectrum ranging from NGN 250 billion to NGN 1.7 trillion, a span of NGN 1.45 trillion means we do not know what is going on and you really cannot remove an indeterminate especially when we cannot establish with all certainty whilst the cost of the fuel subsidy doubled between 2010 and 2011.

Even those who have strongly advocated the removal of fuel subsidy for any of their myriad reasons, some quite valid and indisputable, have to see that with the revelations at the Ad-Hoc committee, the government was not anywhere near ready to do this if all they did was pay any bills that came in to the tune of NGN 1.45 trillion above the amount they budgeted for 2011 – this just condones corruption to a such an unprecedented level and breath-taking impunity.

Not with these people

So, the writer concludes with an admonition.

“It is up to the leadership to take advantage of this rather than be overwhelmed ...” http://is.gd/OOnFPu #OccupyNigeria

The elephant in the room is the leadership – complicit, involved and exacerbated a corrupt enterprise aided by the agencies they control with paybacks from those that have a hold on them by reason of the hefty sums they have invested in this government.

This government does not have clean hands, they are in spite of the technocrats that appear to give the government a veneer of credibility the personification of the faceless cabal that have been offered as the criminal element of the fuel subsidy scheme – the sooner we awake to the fact that we are in the grip of an unconscionable kakistocracy pretending to have Nigerian interests at heart, the better it will be for us to rise once again and seize our country from this brigandage of bandits.

#OccupyNigeria – take your country back.

Acknowledgements and attribution

This blog is originally inspired by the analysis in Nigeria: Power outage by Xan Rice, the West African Correspondent for the Financial Times, the excerpts are fully acknowledged and are used to further the debate initiated from the article.

Nigeria: #OccupyNigeria Holland - Q & A

2012-01-25T15:56:00.000+01:00

I attended the #OccupyNigeria Holland peaceful protest (pictures) in front of the Nigerian Embassy in The Hague yesterday and I was asked a number of questions which I believe I should flesh out in a separate blog.

I cannot offer total recall of those questions but here is an idea of what I was asked and the responses I gave to those questions.

Q: Why are you here?

I am here as a Nigerian to join with other Nigerians all around the globe to protest about issues going on at home with regards to corruption, governance, waste and non-representative democracy. Being in the Netherlands, I felt it was the least I could do to show my support beyond my online activism.

Q: Do you not think that corruption pertains to all citizens in Nigeria?

Indeed, it does but leadership matters in all these things. Leaders are needed to give a direction, inspire the people, create a vision and set example. Without essential leadership in the fight against corruption, the people will become like an army without a general or strategy, they’ll be scattered and listless, meaning nothing can be achieved.

Q: Do you think Southerners being attacked in the North should leave the North?

My early years were spent in the North, even though I am a Yorubaman, I do speak Hausa, they are my people too in the North, I cannot ask them to leave their homes because of the problems.

[Pressing me further on this point.]

To me, there is no Northern Nigerian or Southern Nigerian, we are all Nigerians and we are all affected.

Q: What do you think about the outsourcing of the Visa services?

[Now, I have never used the Visa services of this Embassy]

I have no problems with the outsourcing of the Visa services if it makes the system more efficient. For instance, a few months ago I used the outsourced Visa services for India and the process was completed within 5 days.

Q: What do you think of the turnout?

Other Nigerians might be busy but that the point being made here is that anywhere in the world where Nigerians exist they will come out on the issues that concern their country. For those who could not make it, I will hope that they are able to help and contribute to essential change our country needs in any small way they can.

Q: What is your view of the embassy to this protest?

I am disappointed that they did not engage, apart from the man who came out to receive our letter, they all cowardly hid behind the curtains looking at us like aliens despite the fact that we clearly said we had nothing against them and that we are all Nigerians.

[When asked about the ambassador.]

I have not been impressed with her, when she first arrived in the country, the first speech she gave implied that Nigerians in the Netherlands were not law-abiding and I blogged about it.

Besides, all Nigerians abroad are unwilling (I meant unwitting) ambassadors of the country to all our communities but much more is expected of our official ambassador to be more positively representative of us in this country. I cannot say I have seen much in that regard.

Other comments

Conversing with a fellow Nigerian in Belgium who was involved in #OccupyNigeria Belgium, she said all the embassy staff came out, addressed them, put up pictures of the ambassador and almost took all the credit. Sadly, that cannot be said of the embassy staff in the Netherlands.

The only ones who came out were smokers who needed a cigarette or two. In fact, I noticed that the mailman who had a pile of envelopes – possibly visas and passports was told from the window of the embassy to return at another time.

Nigeria: #OccupyNigeria Holland and the chickens in the embassy

YouTube videos from 9JA.TV of some the interviews conducted yesterday.