Medley of Thoughts. Written by Chinelo Orizu

Love, hate, fantasies, money, emotions, passions, and death are part of the mysteries of life. People say I love you every day and yet can’t explain the meaning of the word “love”. Ok! How can you tell when you are truly in love? How do you know you have found the right person? When in a relationship does love die? How do you truly tell when the person loves you back? How do you know when it’s true love? How can you measure love, and with what yardstick do you measure? These are questions that will hunt mankind from generation to generation.  In our quest to illuminate such grey areas as such, we have developed and created talk shows and several volumes of books to act as a guideline out of obscurity. But unfortunately they only leave us at crossroads with so much confusion.

We all fantasize at one point or the other, and we could become so engrossed with our fantasies that you just wonder, how did it start? Why did the human mind at some point divert from the normal to the abnormal? Well it’s simple. Fantasizing is our way of escaping the real world, using the imaginative to create a new world that sometimes only resides in the mind.  A world we can only wish for but can never afford in reality. We have different way of playing out our fantasies. We play out our fantasies over sex, Love, The idea of death {by changing it}, Life with technology, Power/superpower, Life with money, A different childhood, Different gender or race and the list goes on.

Some people have fantasies and find a way to lay them to rest, while others try to live it or die trying.

Hate is pure-not mixed or uncertain, hate is sure; hate is in black and white it has no gray in it. Hate is perfect, hate is explainable, hate begets violence, hate begets revenge, and hate is true.

We have found a way of confusing emotions with passions. Books have been written about them, shows have been hosted on behalf of them, but this is what I have to say: emotion came into this just like you and I, it’s something we were born with and like our age we have little or no control over it, but passion is like a degree we acquire, it’s like language we make use of it. The emotions of a person can only die when he kicks the bucket. Passion in man can die at any time or as soon as he loses interest.

Many times we erroneously say “money is the root of all evil” Some understand better and they say “the love of money is the root of all evil” Scratch the former and stay with the latter while I give you my candid perception to the money thing. If you ask me again and again I will simply say “society is the root of all evil, money is just a helping hand” confused?

All over the world we realize that so much attention is given to the rich people and people of the high class more than the poor. And come to think of it our immediate society is one where the rich gets away with almost anything, or is it not in our society that the rich thieves get all the respect meant for noble men, or don’t you see executive robbers work with so much pride that they are even offered front role seat at religious gathering.

Ours is a Society where the poor is treated poorly as if being poor is not enough. The system has always been like this. Presently, even the middle class have no class anymore ‘cos they are treated terribly. Now, it’s either you are rich or very rich, and that’s terrible for our society! Man now thrives very hard to become very rich or filthily rich either by hook or by crook. Not that the need to be very rich is the most important thing but the craving to be accepted by the society has made the chase for vanity the only sane thing. So now evil duels in the society, the society is like a car, and money is only acting as the fuel. Ponder about it!

We live to die, to die is to live-death is inevitable. Death is what makes us human” so why are we afraid of dying if we know it’s inevitable? Why are we looking for ways to live longer and remain forever young? Why can’t we accept the fact one day we will get old? And come to think of it there is no shame or crime in getting old.

I am not afraid of dying but I am afraid of how I will die, when I will die and were I will go to when I eventually die. Death is a bringer of sorrows, the taker of life, it has no respect for age, it does not discriminate, and it does not care for time. So live today like is your last. Imagine life without death; will it work? Will there be a balance in our world?

Don’t get me wrong I am not here to tell you how to live your life. I’m merely stating the fact that we pay way too much attention to love, money, emotion, passion, fantasies and death that we eventually forget to live life and enjoy it now that we still have it. 

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Healing the Sores We Don't Merit. Written By Lanre Olagunju

She came in with high hopes, and a little much more than a mustard seed sized faith. All she wanted were healing prayers for her mouth deformation, which has brought her shame and constant misery. But little does she know that Sokoto can be much closer than her own ‘sokoto’. Before she could say much with the same deformed mouth, the clergy got this strong nudge to ask her about her mother in-law.

With so much pain and reserved anger, she expressed that the memory of her mother in-law isn’t one she wants to remember, let alone discuss. The reverend again explained to her that the one who teaches him all things says that she has unresolved issues with her mother in-law. He persuaded that no matter how cruel or hateful she might have been; it’s right about time she freed the old woman.

She did all she could possibly do to ensure that her internal waterworks doesn’t bleed out, as she fought back hot tears. At this point, the painful videos of her mother in-law’s wrong doings brought her freshly cultivated sharp emotional pains of suffering. The deep unhealed sores were punctured on the surface and the misery done to her by another mortal who doubles as a woman just like herself were played back with clear motion picture sharp enough to bring back pains just the same way they were first felt at the point when she was afflicted.  

For all the reason she could think of, letting the old woman be was just ok. But to be persuaded to forgive her, to her, is like giving her only heart to a foe. Of a sudden she lost the control to tame her tears and couldn’t but wail with such profusion strange of an adult. Amidst her weeping and wailing she decided with so much effort and struggle in her mind to forgive her mother in-law just like the clergy as persuaded. And almost instantly, something absolutely incredible happened. I mean something hugely amazing!

See, without everlasting series of prayer sessions, where worried prayer warriors cum prayer contractors sweat it out at loosing the same unknown demons they bind. Her mouth returned from the state of deformation. Even without the simple Lord’s Prayer. I mean her mouth, again became like that of you and I.  

Immediately the woman left the office of the clergyman, something more dramatic happened. The clergy in awe went on his knees and said to the one who sees every corner of darkness much more than we see in daylight. ‘I forgive anyone who might have wronged me, including those I can remember and those I might never remember’.

Someone said to forgive is to set a prisoner free only to discover that the prisoner was you. There can’t be a better way to say it! When you hold resentment towards a person, it’s like being bound to that person by an emotional link stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to melt such link and get free, considering that we have great things to do and that life is short.

 Forgiveness is the most difficult of all forms of giving. It has nothing to do with the pocket. Though, most times it costs pains and tears. It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend, at other times; it might just be hopelessly more difficult to forgive oneself than to forgive a friend. That we haven't forgiven ourselves of something might be responsible for why we don’t see enough reasons to forgive others.

I like the fascinating way Gandhi put it when he said “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” No one forgives with more grace and love than a child. In fact the most captivating thing about little kids is their intricate ability not just to forgive but to completely forget.

When we forgive as adult, do we truly forget? Memories that won’t vamoose from the skull easily are the memories of pains and pleasure. Since forgiving comes with element of pains, whether big or small. Therefore, to forget in the literary sense of the word, is an almost impossible task. After all, to forgive, one must first remember and move beyond the experience itself.

When we move beyond pains and bitterness, a freshness that beats the breeze of the sea brings joy and insight to produce positive results in that same area that once brought pains. The positive outcome brought about by such insight, heals wounds faster than any balm medicine can provide.

Forgiving won’t miraculously wipe out bitter and distasteful experiences. Never! The ‘forgive and forget’ cliché only sounds moral and I wonder how practicable it is. A healed memory is not automatically a deleted memory! Rather forgiving the unforgettable helps us to remember the experience in an absolutely better way. When we look those who have wronged us in the eye without resentment or any iota of bitterness, and then can wish them well, then we just know that forgiveness has taken place.  

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The Best Presidents Nigeria Ever Had written by Dele Akinola

They are both retired military generals and septuagenarians. They are both Grand Commanders of the Federal Republic. They both enjoyed the rare giant privilege of ruling the Giant of Africa for as many years as the greatest and best achieving American president ever had no privilege to surpass. They are the most talked about former leaders the country has had. They are the most active controversy generators in the land. Uncle Sege and Uncle Ibro! They are the best presidents Nigeria ever had.

Going by what each of them thinks of himself in comparison to the other (and others), that is. Olusegun Obasanjo became a general in the Nigerian Army a decade before Ibrahim Babangida attained that rank. The former also tasted the goody-goody of the State House about that same length of time before the latter. That, by secondary school tradition, should normally make IBB address OBJ as Senior Segun. IBB, on the other hand, became president (executive or self-proclaimed) a whopping 14 years before OBJ. Senior Ibrahim!

That may not necessarily be a basis for any supremacy battle between the duo, though. Actually, they have so many things in common that they perfectly complement each other. More than a few commentators both within and outside our shores would insist that IBB institutionalized corruption in the country while the canker flexed its deadliest muscles under OBJ. If Senior Ibrahim had the $16b OBJ “wasted” on PHCN that never really stagger beyond the stalling point of NEPA, he would have created a nuclear and power Utopia in Nigeria. And if Senior Segun had the $12b Gulf War oil windfall, Americans would by now be falling over one another in desperate attempts to win immigrant visa lottery to Nigeria. On two occasions, the right leader at the wrong time! Nigeria, o ma se o (what a pity)!

What OBJ flaunts in the Ebora Owu in him, IBB more than makes up for with the Maradona that he was. OBJ conducted, in 2007, the most fraudulent general elections Nigeria has had the misfortune to witness as attested to by all home and abroad. IBB ‘midwife-d’ but, with the same delivery gloves, curiously aborted the nation’s freest and most credible elections to date, in 1993. The former justified his action by insinuating that even the Lord Jesus Christ couldn’t have done better in Nigeria. The latter rationalized his misdeed by lecturing a ‘dullards’ nation on the difference between “annulment” and “cancellation”. Only the worst and weak presidents admit wrong-doings and make apologies. OBJ and IBB never admit and make apologies for wrong-doings; they only take responsibility.

In one accord, they also bear the burden of shared responsibility over the abortion of June 12, which IBB himself described as a “watershed” in the political history of the nation. Almost everyone expected OBJ, as a statesman, to condemn the unspeakable act that was a coup against the people. But he stunned a bewildered nation with his characteristic show of contempt virtually describing Nigerians as idiots for electing one MKO Abiola who, by his kill-and-go proclamation, was “not the messiah.” That, by Al-Mustapha Theorem, made him technically privy to the annulment, and consequently made both gladiators to be technically guilty of the eventual death of the late president-elect.

OBJ has been massively accused of serially betraying his loyal friend, IBB, who in spite of Nigerians cleared the path to his installation as Nigerian leader on two occasions. IBB’s sympathizers never cease to knock OBJ for standing, more than twice, in the way of his friend’s scheme to stage a dramatic come-back “to correct the mistakes of the past.”

But here is the manner the chief occupant of the Hill-Top Villa, Minna himself rewarded loyal friendship: “When I was broke, I picked up my phone and called him and he came to my aid, even as President. Sometimes, when he travelled and he didn’t plan it, it may be too late in the night, sometimes 2 a.m.; he would tell me he was passing through. I would share whatever I had with him.” That was IBB talking about MKO Abiola, the same man whose popular election he annulled, leading to his death. A similar visa to the land of no return he granted to the one of whom he said, “Vatsa was my best friend. We knew each other as far back as 1959 and we remained so close and fond of each other.” Nigerians indeed have a lot to learn in the art of managing and rewarding friendship from their best presidents ever.

Both multiple chieftaincy titles and honorary doctorate degrees holders who first shot into political leadership limelight as beneficiaries of the dividends of military coups-de-tat, were themselves ultimately sent packing via people’s revolts. After throwing the red herring that was the annulment of June 12 elections, Nigerian people applied so much Egyptian-style heat against IBB that he was forced to “step aside” 24 hours ahead of schedule of dubiety on August 26, 1993. And OBJ, with all his masterly and crafty political manoeuvres to award himself an unconstitutional tenure elongation having been mobbed by the people at the Anti-Third-Term Square, had no choice but to flee back to his farm on May 29, 2007.

Curiously, both friends held the destiny of Nigeria in their hands for a combined period of approximately 20 years. With just an insignificant fraction of the resources available to them, a founding father of Nigeria, within a period of a number of years countable on the fingers of one hand, transformed the region he led as premier beyond the imagination of all within and outside the country. The region would have ranked among the world’s leading nations today if it had been allowed to develop at its own pace and in accordance with his focus and vision. How I wish Nigeria has had “the best president we never had” in place of the best presidents we ever had.

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The Hand of God written by Lanre Olagunju

For those who believe in the existence of God, indeed you must have felt His hands in one way or the other at least if you haven’t seen it. But realistically, the produce of His hands are in two ways, it could be in form of a refreshing elevation which places you on a height where others can only be green with envy. And on the other hand, it could be a dreadful thing to fall into His hands. Anyway, without demand, I can only pray the former for you as long as you’re willing to do a silent amen.
So many world achievers in one way or the other have testified to the invisible hand of God.

And that reminds me of the ever great argentine midfielder born of a factory worker, who led Argentina to the world cup title in 1986 on the strength of his masterful performance. The first of Diego’s goal that secured Argentina’s victory over the English team later became infamous, when it was revealed with evidence that he had used his hand in punching the ball. Amusingly, Diego Maradona attributed the goal to the invisible hand of God.

One of the most memorable and immortal kings that Israel ever produced, King David, who was unarguably referred to by God as a man after His own heart once lamented of how consuming the blows of God’s hands could be.

What we unwittingly refer to as good luck (not Goodluck!) is most times an evidence of his hands? I sometimes wonder how much anyone can achieve the fulfillment of any vision without His hands. Without disdaining your intellect, the kind of vision I’m talking about goes beyond eyesight. I’m practically talking about divine details you got indisputably within your spirit as regards any accomplishment, be it personal or global, that you can now clearly understand and visualize.

Two vital recipes for success that can’t be negotiated are faith and intellect. In fact both are mutually exclusive. These days it has become evidently clear beyond doubt that no phenomenal accomplishments be it political or economic can be attained without sound intellectual prowess, and mental ability that harnesses the power of foresight and hindsight.

The world was created by the undeniable and unfathomable prowess of the divine, therefore only a similar prowess with such ability can birth the kind of change that we gravely desire; be it at the personal, national, or global level.

Past inventions were produced by the best of men with sound knowledge and intellect. If in our present world, we think we would achieve developmental success via other means other than this; then we are collectively the best of jokers in every sense of the word.

To have faith is to strongly believe that that which is uncertain will certainly come to pass. Note that if our world was built on intellect and faith then the combination of both will be the super combo for the attraction of the pleasantries of God’s hand so as to replicate other things that must be recreated or should I say discover. Faith brings unexplainable peace and joy amidst chaos and lopsidedness. At such time, the intellect might not be able to provide beyond facts but with faith you get an assurance that a force more capable than your ability is readily available to bail you out.

The finest and superlative of man’s efforts will ever remain limited. Also, man’s efficiency at his best cannot be adequate to fulfill God’s words. If He has said it, then His touch will be absolutely needed to perfect it. Labour alone can’t guarantee timely result. Haven’t you read? “That by strength shall no man prevail” To be constantly void of divine helpers might be an indication of the absence of God’s hand. I quote King David and I quote him verbatim when he said “Why have you refused to help us? Why do you keep your hands behind you?” To live a life emptied of help in form of assistance or support could be the most frustrating thing. To start with, no man is an island says the old adage. Meaning we need the presence and support of other mortals to fully maximize life. Then how much more do you think we can do without the orchestrator of life? The strongest source of courage is to be fully armed with the knowing that one isn’t alone. Even when you think you’ve known it all, you would still need the perception or judgment of others which your intellect might never be able to produce or replicate reason that perception is most times influenced by environment and foundational background which in every sense is peculiar to every individual.

Overtaking which in every moral sense might be considered unfair is also a produce of ‘the hand God’ there is an adage in Yoruba which interprets that ‘that a person achieves a goal before his colleagues doesn’t out rightly means that he has surpassed them all” therefore it’s a meaningless thing to compare oneself to others. after all each one has his own race.

To have faith in oneself and in the invisible hand of God regardless of present happenings is a sure way to live beyond frustration and hopelessness. Yet it would be foolhardy to think that angels will do for man what man must do.

The long leg syndrome is not an healthy one, neither is the belief that God will become so limited that He’ll always need a third party to reach you. All that is needed has been embedded inside. So sit and discover. The need for carrying begging bowls like mother Africa does doesn’t arise. Beggars lose their identity for crumbs that wouldn’t last a jiffy.

You will succeed!

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SPLITTING NIGERIA!!! Written by ‘Lanre Olagunju

The issue of how long Nigeria will remain as one nation is becoming more frightening per second. And unfortunately, the present day puppet government with no shoe no direction, isn’t showing enough concern over major fear- provoking national issues.

Now that even the blind from the sockets can see that we are doing everything to fulfill the American forecast, loaded with false prophecies and fatalistic fantasies that a country that has stayed together for fifty suffering and smiling years; with unsuccessfully managed tribal, religious, ethnic and corruption oriented issues would fall apart by the year 2015. The acclaimed world power of our time, USA, choreographs major global events and minor ones too. But what we sometimes fail to realize is that many of her intervention is for the paramount interest of America. At the end no country will matter not even its supposedly close buddies.



Many past and present US ambassadors have expressed many conflicting statements about Nigeria, for instance, in 2009 in a colloquium in Rhode Island University, Princeton Lyman, a former Ambassador to Nigeria said the country was no longer relevant to the USA in the order of events. Conversely, during the dying days of former president, Umaru Yar’adua, same America, labeled Nigeria as the most important partner of the USA in Africa. At that time, former ambassador Johnnie Carson purported that Nigeria was too important a country to be led by someone whose health is puny. Nigeria, you will agree has mastered the act of hearing the worst about itself, therefore the sum total of Ambassador John Campbell’s forecast has scarcely sent enough worry or anxiety.

But to carelessly think or admit that any US envoy will make such seemingly unrehearsed statement is foolhardy. I’m not out rightly saying that the US is masterminding the split of Nigeria. But the US is awfully too strategic a superpower to approve its ambassadors make such unpremeditated statements. Could all of this confusion be a sub strategy to a bigger strategy?

Bloodshed is absolutely unavoidable if an enormously big nation like ours will split, but are we not loosing lives already? Now that we are served with two devils: of either looking for strategic ways to solve our ethnic oriented crises or split up via excessive bloodshed, only to later discover that that wasn’t the issue, shouldn’t we be thinking of which is the lesser devil by now?
Some of the founding fathers of our independence never saw or agreed to the dream of a one Nigeria. ‘So no be today sef” in 1948, northern leader, Abubaka Tafa Balewa said: ‘Since 1914 the British government has been trying to make Nigeria into one county, but the Nigerian people themselves are historically different in their backgrounds, in their religious beliefs and customs, and do not show themselves any signs of willingness to unite . . . Nigerian unity is only a British invention’.

Also, Obafemi Awolowo, who dominated Western region politics, wrote: ‘Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. There are no “Nigerians” in the same sense as there are “English”. The word “Nigerian” is merely a distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria and those who do not.’ …Can you imagine!

Now, it might be easier to understand the reasoning behind these words but where this ethnic strives as real as this even at infant Nigeria?

Just as I strongly feel that ethnic and religious differences are responsible for some of our national setback, I also feel that it’s neither insane nor mad but more, to fight war in God’s name. The divine is more than capable of winning his own followers. On whose behalf do limited mortals like ourselves fight for the all powerful? Much more, corruption which is the mother of all is the most prevalent of all of Nigeria’s challenge after all, if we would say the truth all tribes, languages and religions are well represented in the class of rich corrupt charlatans. Therefore fighting corruption is the main thing! It would be a colossal waste when we kill ourselves for all the wrong ethnic and religious reasons in the world, only to divide into south and north Nigeria and yet be governed by these same corrupt leaders.

I don’t know who is deceiving us that breaking up into north and south Nigeria like Sudan did would solve our corruption ‘wahala’. For where!? Considering a country with six geopolitical complex zones, and over 350 absolutely different languages, if we must break-up, we would need to break into more than pieces.

The challenge in my opinion isn’t all that a religious, ethnic, or tribal thing like many of our corrupt leaders wants us to see it. It’s more of a class interval barrier, the long difference between the so called ‘haves’ and have more, and the hopeless ‘don’t haves’.

We always erroneously feel that our size is the major problem. If population isn’t India and china’s problem then we had better find productive use of all of our critical human capital and fertile but long lasting fallowing lands. May I suggest that we take lessons from the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia? These two countries collapsed partly because they had size they couldn’t manage.Ours too is a management deficiency. A country that can’t manage its people will need more than a miracle that raises the dead to manage its resources. If you ask me I will rather say oil resource is also our problem. Nigeria needs to diversify her oil economy which in every way has become a course to the nation. The use of oil resources for economic wealth has rendered the mind of many regimes excessively impotent. Plato said “whatsoever is cherished in a country will be cultivated there”. If we really claim to cherish our crude oil, how come we are yet to lunch a sound refinery?

It also worth noting that we all are a part of all this mess, including some of the nationalist a few of us are ever willing to die for despite that they are dead and decayed already. The elite use to think that it was all about going to school, get good grades, more professional certification, get a good job, then drive great cars on roads with big pot holes big enough to make soup for all.

I strongly advocate that for our collective good, we should ensure that our diversities in regions, ethnicity, and religion be viewed as attributes which services our common national interests in mutually beneficial ways. Nigeria is a pluralistic society and that is a positive thing which we must emphasize instead of the manageable differences emphasized and exaggerated at all times.

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NIGERIA: THE CYCLE OF PROSPERITY written by Japheth J Omojuwa

I stated in previous articles the fact the PDP being what it is will never do better than it already has done. In essence, Nigeria can only be worse off with their continued demonstration of total disrespect for the voice of the people, their total disregard for the betterment of Nigerians and their epidemic desperation to feed their depravity and kleptomaniac urgings with our common wealth. Having said this, I should also quickly state that all hope is not lost. We can achieve national prosperity even with the PDP holding forth till 2015 after which they will be sent packing with their short sighted tenure elongation quest and clique oriented policies.


Nothing will be achieved by the Jonathan administration except we daily tell him through the mass media and his Facebook account what he needs to do. He has come out to say the most telling action of his government apart from signing the FOI bill into a law is not his idea. The draw back in having millions of people advising the president is that governance stalls on indecision. The president is sitting somewhere in Aso Rock hands on his chin waiting for the arrival of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala whom many expect would be the saving grace of the administration to come and deliver the goods. Her arrival would also reduce the effectiveness of the president’s petch seekers on Facebook. Irrespective of who is coming or who is going, we have a responsibility to continuously demand good governance from these lot.



In demanding good governance from a party like the PDP whose default setting is corruption and illegality, let us also remember that we as citizens of Nigeria must look out for the interest of one another. No matter how well a government performs, prosperity would be an isolated reality except the people take it upon themselves to make that quest theirs. Let us face it, the average Nigerian does not think he has succeeded until he sees the poverty he rose from and instead of looking to do as much as he can to reduce or halt that line of shame, he simply doles out cash for the people to scramble for when in his heart he knows that would never solve their problems. What is wrong with providing dependable means of survival to ones people? Dogs are being overfed while children are dying, some folks’ children are paying top dollar for walking lessons amongst other luxurious sessions while the majority find it hard to afford the fees for basic education. The reason we have more poor people than necessary is not as much about government’s policies as it is about our age long desire to be “the only one out of a poverty stricken lot” making sense. For most, they are richer if the people in their circle of influence are poor. Like I always say, you are just a poor buffoon!


I believe in earning ones living, you create value in the form of goods or services and get paid in return. The truth of the matter is, you also need the numbers to work well for you. Sometimes you need an introduction to play in the big leagues and a few times your excellence introduces you. When you succeed to an extent, you don’t sit back to caress your new found relative prosperity, you instead look for a way to make someone in the quest for his/her own success find it. We always look to the United States for most of our arguments and that will serve as one here too. The U.S. outgives all other countries in terms of philanthropic generosity, estimated to annually commit as much as $300 billion. Just recently, Warren Buffet the legendary investor gave the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 23.31 million shares in his investment company Berkshire Hathaway. The shares were passed to the foundation on July 6, and they closed at $76.52 on this day. That is $1.78 billion! Warren Buffet alone has donated over $11 billion worth of shares in Berkshire Hathaway for philanthropic ends. The 80 year old is worth an estimated $50 billion and has a concrete plan to give 99% of his wealth away. Beat that! With fellow billionaire Bill Gates, they both inspired and got several other billionaires (and some non billionaires have joined) to give at least 50% of their wealth to charity. Some 60 plus American billionaires have already pledged their commitment to this. Michael Bloomberg,Ted Turner, David Rockefeller and even our contemporary Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg amongst others have joined the giving frenzy. They could raise as much as $600 billion and indeed more if it is sustained. They raised a relatively massive amount from Indian billionaires. This is where copying America would not be a bad idea. Irrespective of where debt has left the Union, I believe her strength lies in her citizens’ willingness to always find better means of livelihood beyond what is obtainable. America will be fine.




Warren Buffet, Bill and Melinda Gates...The world's biggest givers...and richest
That is why I weep for opponents of capitalism. You wail about its lack of morality, yet you cannot survive without products off its shelf. The best inventions of man were achieved out of capitalistic tendencies. Look at most of the billionaires in the Gates and Buffet Giving Pledge, they are in fact atheists in large numbers. If there is a Heaven for Givers, these ones will be the rulers there.
Fellow Nigerians, we can blame the government for its entrenched culture of waste and they are indeed wasters, but we have as a people wasted more resources engaging in things that count for nothing. An old man dies, millions of naira get spent to cater for his death after which his survivors die trying to get a few thousands to earn a means of livelihood or find even lesser sums to go to school. We must look out one for the other. The N700,000 you are about to blow on a Brazilian hair that in most cases leave you even uglier could be the difference between a boy becoming a productive member of our society or the one that’d kill you someday in a fatal robbery attack. It is not just about visiting Children Homes, it is about making telling contributions to people’s lives every day. Start where you are, start with those you know, start today. Gather your old clothes (it is the height of wickedness to continue to keep clothes you no longer wear just to see your wardrobe full all the time, please do something about this) give someone in need. Imagine if we all decide to fill in the gaps of poverty left by our governments. We are indeed a good people and I know we can make a difference by doing more. If this piece gets one man to make that difference, I would have succeeded in starting a cycle that I believe is the path to our common prosperity.


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How We Became Unemployed 2. Written by Seun Onigbinde

The imported subsidized oil is used to fuel our imported generators on which Nigerians spend almost 2 trillion naira. What of impact on the environment and so on. We might have created jobs for the generators sellers in Oyingbo and Mikano might employ ten maintenance engineers but what is the multiplier effect on the general good of the economy. The same goes for rice and sugar importation when we have plains of fertile land. Vietnam, China and Thailand farmers will surely be smiling as our demand crumbles their inventory. We have the tact strategy, clear roadmap and implantation plan to fix this anomaly. I have seen volumes of documents, so I am not a nerd presenting new ideas. There is just a system that benefits government stooges.


They tap Nigeria like strings with efficient importation and collection of subsidy and you wonder why they would be happy to keep the system that way. The government that stands as a bridge for public good is scrambling for identity.


Our job agenda rather than distribute more motorcycles, make graduates traffic wardens, tree planters or cleaning officers, should be to first knit our education system with match classroom -to -industry teaching, entrepreneurial skills, boost infrastructure, SME lending and explore our natural resource from first to last end of value chain, and in between jobs will arise. Open new frontiers of service industry and upgrade skills of young talents to meet them. Dangote did a jobs report with FGN and one wonders if it a’int gathering dust. Sorry, he just employed 15,000 tanker drivers at the expense of the roads, are those the jobs we are dreaming of?

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Ruwa Dege Gidan Kashi written by Lanre Olagunju

If you are wondering what language it is? Or you’re thinking I’m going to write in a language I’m yet to fully understand, then I think I’ve achieved!

That the owners of this particular language house me on their land presently is making the ever inquisitive me more curious about their history and why they are quite behind in almost all ramification of civilization. The entire security threat the nation presently suffers hails from these quarters, and some are of the opinion that it’s because they’ve been marginalized, but I beg to ask who marginalized who and when?

Haven’t the northerners always had a fair share in government and politics? Didn’t the evil British colonials succeed at their agenda to give power to the north at all cost, due to the submissive and incredibly loyal nature they naturally posses? Were census result not manipulated for the north’s sake, were they not given accelerated promotions in the military so they could still rule over the southerners who gulped in so much of western culture, religion, and education?

Sure, someone would read this half way and lament “is this what we need at such a time as this?” maybe I should have even flaunted a disclaimer and say that anyone who is allergic to critical analysis as a result of whatever type of paralysis shouldn’t bother reading pass the title. It’s always more rewarding when we critically try to solve a problem from its root. But in a case where a country’s foundation is faulty what can the elite do?

My national call to serve in northern Nigeria has engendered me to so many things that I would have felt some lazy journalist cooked up if I read them on papers. Amazingly I can’t stop wondering if the amusement will ever end.

Exactly two days ago, a young girl around the age of say 13, walked into my lodge saying “sala mu alaikum”. I replied in the affirmative, and that gave her the impression that the Hausa language is my mother tongue. In her soprano voice, she covered me up with so many words than my Hausa ears of understanding and interpretation could not comprehend. I muttered “mai ke na so” meaning what do you want? Again in her lengthy reply, all I could decipher was “asha ruwa”- I want water. Then I gave her a cup pointing to the bathroom where she would get taps where drinkable water could be fetched. Sincerely you won’t believe me! I was taken aback to discover that she actually dipped her hands into the toilet seat to fetch water that went from her mouth through her throat and then to her stomach. I was intensely helpless. I had to call someone to explain what had just happened to her; there and then, I heard and learnt the title for this piece. The poor girl became so scared and was wailing profusely. But how on earth can an adolescent be so dumb to do such? Then a colleague said she probably hasn’t seen a water closet all her life put together.

It’s not hard to believe because in March, UNESCO’s report revealed that the Hausa woman is the least educated on earth: 97% of Hausa women between the ages of 17 and 22 have completed less than 2years in school.

This is a place where cows are one of the most valuable assets to the people; it is here that I see hefty adults sit conveniently in the car trunk when the car is already filled to the brim. Also, it’s here in the north that I see babies give birth to babies, is it not here that primary school kid’s say good morning when the sun is long gone?

How come the British favoured region has now overly become the most impoverished and frightening? Or could it be that they held back education from the north so they could manipulate the people easily?

It’s only manifestly clear that being powerful isn’t enough. I don’t know who Tuface was talking to when he said “power is nothing when your people are dying of disease and starvation” but I forward his words to the former and present day northern leaders who couldn’t do enough to ensure that the mind of their people is developed via any meaningful and peace oriented means of education. UNICEF has estimated that school age children who are out of school in Nigeria are about 10million, and about 8million of them are the almagiris who roam the street with dirty plates, torn clothes and white faces in Kano, Kaduna, Jigawa, Bauchi and some other parts of Northern Nigeria. They’ve been denied the opportunity of living and growing up in a family so why won’t they become utensils for national chaos in the hands of evil politicians and fanatics who have malevolent tendencies.

I wish that Nigerians could see these politicians for their true colours, they are after the pockets and bellies alone, if not, how can we have such primitives and backwardness in the north when their leaders have had the most opportunity to rule Nigeria. It boils down to the fact that it is not where the president is from that matters, but how much he cares about bringing development to Nigeria. The good treatment I have received since coming here also shows that Nigerians are not their own enemies as the political class wants us to believe. The enemy is the man who paints that picture in order to divide and rule. Having said this, the road to Obasanjo’s house in Ota Ogun state is a death trap despite his multiple years in government.

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How we Became Unemployed By Seun Onigbinde

There was a time in this country when telephone was a prime luxury. My Dad lived in Lagos and only one Mr Ade owned a telephone line 825037 on the street. So I called Lagos from Ibadan hoping my dad will be around and someone hadn’t padlocked the phone. But we are witnesses of rapid change in our life as a result of boom in the telecomm sector. How in over ten years we have moved from an abysmal 400, 000 lines to 83 million lines? It is to the credit of Olusegun Obasanjo and Ernest Ndukwe that we have seen this boom but that they have left NITEL to stink is a matter for another day. I am concerned with the value chain analysis of the telecoms sector and the impact on jobs.


When the telecoms sector came in, there was massive boom in banking and structuring facilities for them (jobs), then you have to print recharge cards (jobs). Someone has to distribute recharge cards along the retail and wholesale level (jobs). I have more than seven spots on my streets that sell recharge cards on my phone if we extrapolate that nationwide that will equal millions of jobs. Not neglecting that I can use my ATM, mobile or web because someone sits the server end (jobs). Then the companies have to do advertising, network expansion through local contractors, excavates the sites, cleaners, security agents to man offices and masts (jobs), someone imports telecoms equipment, there is a clearing and forwarding agent, then someone starts a telecomm training center and employs an engineer. MTN thinks of Who wants to be a millionaire contracts it to an event manger (jobs), event manager guy looks for ushers, skilled cameraman, animation experts. Can you ever think of how many schools have been built, CSR projects and jobs such as customer service officer, tower riggers, mobile app developers, network engineer, phone retailers and much more? These were lost jobs of the past when we were obsessed with NITEL but a simple government policy backed by law made this happen.


Now let’s take the analysis of the oil that we have and don’t refine, the land we own that we don’t till or the iron that we have and can’t make steel. With facts I am sure of, it is estimated that, about US$910mn, on a monthly basis, was expended to import refined petroleum product in 2010. In the same year, the country earned an estimated average monthly income of US$3.5b, translating that about 26% of total oil earnings for the year goes out of the economy to settle the purchases of refined petroleum product! Why would our last refinery be built in the early 80s? Why would after the firesale of OBJ technically deficient refineries, Yaradua reversed it and we still have not moved an inch to building even cottage or modular refineries.


You extract oil and government takes full taxes on the oil its people would use. Then you pay a foreign shipping line to take it to Ivory Coast or anywhere and then the foreign government takes all the taxes and duties for the import. The refineries get the oil refined but will surely do it with a profit (the cost to be borne by Nigerians). Rather than we profit from the residue of oil needed by plastics, petrochemical and other allied industries, we pay the shipping company back to bring only petrol, kerosene and diesel separately back to us. Then our customs and others take full import duties charges at our ports. When oil fluctuates due to the madness of Ghaddafi, the costs of subsidies rise as well for Nigerians. Rather than us build lasting structures for refining, we create a short circuit founded on patronage and about N785bn was estimated to have been spent on petroleum subsidy in 2010. At very export of the crude oil, we have also exported direct and indirect jobs. We sold the job of the fresh engineering graduate, the nimble accountant, the KPMG auditor, the recharge card seller, the canteen woman, the technician with three kids in school.

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Fix Education, Redeem the Nation! by Lanre Olagunju

Education is admirable and its importance in a multinational state with a population of over 140 million, with a federation of 36states and Federal Capital Territory with over 350 languages like Nigeria can’t be overemphasized. Transformation of the mind and economy will only remain a frightening vision without a quality structure of either formal or informal education or at best both.

The constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has stated clearly that the main responsibility of the Federal government in basic education is in the sphere of policy formulation, coordination and monitoring.

The federal government is solely responsible for the funding of the tertiary institutions, anyway, the unity schools and technical colleges benefit from the direct control of the federal government as well. A great mass of our secondary schools are under the domain of state government including a considerable proportion of the nation’s tertiary institution. Local governments are saddled with the managerial responsibility for primary education. Nevertheless, both state and federal government exercise appropriate oversight functions from time to time.

Though Primary and junior secondary education constitutes basic education that is free and compulsory, yet you would rather feel at home in any of the Nigerian prisons be it Kirikiri or panti than these ‘supposed to be’ places of learning.


The only question you may want to ask is if this is truly a class or an asylum.

Before now every single community in the country has got a customary pattern of educating its people and this traditional pattern of education safeguards socialization and inter-generational transmission of cultural heritage.

Considering that Islam and Christianity religion are both foreign. At the arrival of the Islamic religion, the indigenous method of educating was infused with the Islamic system and that was solely responsible for the highly sophisticated, organized and literary evolution in Islam oriented region. The advent of the Christian missionary brought western education, though it never received a cheerful embrace in areas of strong Islamic influence while areas with strong Christianity influence embraced the new form of education. Till date, the educational imbalance between the two areas can be greatly attributed to this historical occurrence.


The English weather-like changeability that Nigeria economy has suffered over the decades has largely rubbed on the educational sector. During the oil boom era, centralization was introduced into the country’s education policy and very ambitious but short-lived expansion programs were embarked upon by government with the objective of increasing access to all the levels of education. This was an era when Nigeria had an annual GDP of 6.2%, although 90% accounted for oil. During this oil boom, government conveniently intervened in all aspect of education, so our education sector was vibrant though the vibrancy suffered a natural death at the end of the oil boom in the 70’s when our short sighted government became terribly broke and then household poverty went northward.



Consequently, poor families couldn’t send their children to school, either because school was too expensive to afford or because the return on education wasn’t encouraging. The volume of drop out increased, and children couldn’t but become vital utensils to fetch extra- income for the family upkeep. In fact, the nation admitted that it has over 10million children out of the school system. Report from a research study on open Apprenticeship scheme revealed some of the reasons why some kids don’t attend school include poverty, desire for work so as to earn a quick living.




The epileptic state of government controlled education birthed the intervention of more private participation in education delivery. Nigeria has a country has fulfilled almost all of the index of a failed state and no doubt the educational sector isn’t any better. After all, pictures don’t lie. Since our leaders don’t have their children in public schools or even in private schools in the country but the very expensive ones in the United States and the UK we can’t but keep crying over spilled milk. In 2003, during campaign for governorship elections the former Anambra state governor, Mr. Peter Obi did all he could to influence voters to his side by promising to bring back his children to Nigeria from England to attend public schools as a proof for his love for Nigeria. Did he fulfill the promise? Your guess is as good as mine.


The federal executive council has established six new universities in each of the country’s geopolitical zones in order to bridge the admission gap for students seeking universities admission. Last year alone, only 527,000 out of 867, 000 candidates who actually met the cut off mark for the UTME could gain admission into the university. Infact, the entire university system can only accommodate less than 20% of those seeking admission into our almost ruined universities. Its crystal clear that there is huge absence of planning, monitoring and investment in a sector so vital to the human capital development.


Since the 90’s till now, the funding of the tertiary education sector has been awkward, since different administration showed preference for other priorities including personal gratification having a larger than life share. It’s so terrible that allocations can’t cater for salaries and allowances of personnel. Libraries and laboratories are now in a shadow of themselves. Within 1962 and 2002 the total number of student’s enrollment skyrocketed from 2000 to 500,000 without an equivalent provision for expansion of infrastructure. The idea of creating 44 more universities, starting with the first six isn’t a poor one itself but the question is, is it not like treating a symptom while nurturing the disease?, considering that the five main challenges facing Nigeria universities are poor funding, quality, access, relevance of programmes and university governance and management. Consequently, employers are bitter that majority of Nigerian university graduates are unemployable. Or how else do you describe a B.Sc holder whose interview had to be conducted in pidgin English or in local language? Since that’s the only safe way the company could safeguard its building from oral bombs before ventilating the "we would get back to you" phrase.

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