Just begin

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bank, begin, cooperative bank, education, inspiration, inspirational, Kaduna, lesson, Life, loan, Money, Nigeria, People, Time

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A very inspiring tale to encourage you.

Just after I received my fee structure from Moi University for my PhD, totalling N850,000 in 2012, I met my dad, Alhaji Abubakar at Cooperative bank in Kaduna.

I explained to him that I had the admission letter and he smiled.

I told him however, “Baba, there is a problem. They need N850,000.”

He held my hands, then slowly but reassuringly, said, “Just begin, my son.”

To ensure his point went home, he got into his account and gave me N14,000 in an account that had N20,000.

I was touched.

I added N16000 and paid N30,000 into the account, and my journey to PhD began.

Today, having reached the dream, I remember the words of my father.

In everything you do, always remember, JUST BEGIN.

Just begin, no matter how difficult it seems to be.

It appeared to be difficult, but as time lapsed, I realised dad was right.

At some point after my defence, I gave up.

I still had a solid N300,000 to pay and they wouldn’t give me a chance for my final defence.

Then came a very unlikely help.

I had supported a gentleman to undertake a project evaluation two times in the year.

I received his call cautiously asking me to meet him.

He was carrying a brown envelop in his hand.

He began, “Aliyu, you will forgive me if you find my action inappropriate. For two consecutive times you have given me a job without asking for a Cent. This is very unusual with many people. I did not know how to approach you, but I am deep with gratitude. Please accept my small gift.”

I quickly peered into the envelope and saw they were two bundles, likely in hundreds.

He confirmed that it was N200,000.

I told him, “I have helped so many people, many known to me, some were my school mates who never returned a Cent. God bless you. Please don’t give it to me. Pay it straight into the university account.”

I couldn’t believe it.

The words of my father, “My son, just begin” came to mind.

Don’t worry how it will end.

Just begin.

If you are building a house, just begin.

If you are planning to buy land, just begin.

If you want to continue with your education, just begin.

If you want to pay dowry, just begin.

Nothing is more powerful than that advice.

We just need to begin.

And I have revised this philosophy.

Whenever someone is doing something, I always encourage them to just keep trying.

When things get thick, I always say, keep walking.

When things are intimidating, ignore.

Let’s keep trying.

Don’t give up on life just because your challenges appear to be insurmountable.

Do not be defeated before you begin.

Whatever looks like a mountain will soon become an anthill…but only if you begin.

Not long ago, someone asked me, “Aliyu, are we going to manage to build the office we want?”

My answer, “Let’s just begin.”

I believe in the power of starting.

No one loses a race until they respond to the sound of the gun and begin.

The secret lies in beginning.

Overtime, God has seen me through a number of projects because of this philosophy.

I have parcels of land that I acquired by simply paying N50,000…and, overtime, these have multiplied.

I persuade you this day never to allow yourself to be threatened by the size of your problem.

Begin in a small way to do something about it.

If it is lack of money do something small to get something for yourself.

If it is a marital issue, look for a way to solve it.

In whatever you face, just begin.

Even those with big debts can do something about it.

Just begin and it will shrink each day.

I was not a millionaire, but sometime ago, I wanted to have a feeling of being one.

I drew a plan of how to hold a million in my account, at least for a few days.

After some months of beginning, I discovered it was possible.

Three years and half of savings later, I got my first ever million.

Even though I used it later on investments and expenses, it felt so good.

Let’s all begin.

Let’s ignore naysayers and prophets of doom that believe we can’t do it.

JUST BEGIN!

Corona Virus on Nigerian visit.

Tags

airport, china, Chinese, coronavirus, diseases, ebola, Europe, Government, Infected, italian, italy, lung infection, lungs, Nigeria, Nigerian, People, virus, viruses

The following is a Medley of copied posts from whatsapp for your reading delight.

Arrival

This Italian arrived at 21:00 25th Feb. with TK625 Turkish Airline at Lagos international airport. Please ask your friends if anyone flew same flight.

He stayed in Radisson Blu, visited his brother in Ikoyi who’s kids are in Italian international school lekki 1 which shares compound building and facilities with Priory International where many big men kids school

He had meetings at wheatbaker on Monday, he visited Agip and saipem office in banana island (which is on lock down this morning)

Then was driven to reddington by his brother and his driver, and on and on and on……

Dr Balogun Adisa’s Advise
With the confirmation of Corona Virus 🦠 In Nigeria on 27th February 2020, I advise you all to not panic starting from 28th February 2020.

Nigerian Government official confirmation

Precautions

1. Make Sure you are wearing a face mask to wherever you are going publicly starting from the morning
   2 Avoid body contacts with people, if possible go about in your private vehicle
   3 Keep your kids at home away from school
   4 Avoid Mosque and Church gatherings
   5 Always have hand wash in your pockets at all time
   6 Do not eat in public restaurant
   7 Do not buy pepper and tomato from public sellers
   8 Avoid touching your eyes, Nose and Mouth
   9 If you’re feeling any symptoms, kindly self quarantine yourself away from your family and call the Government
   10 Make sure you’re wearing Hand Gloves from tomorrow morning
   11 If you have any wedding to attend this weekend kindly cancel the plan
   12 Call back your kids from boarding school and university hostels
   13 Avoid Drinking Satchet water (popularly known as pure water)
   14 Avoid Eating Bread cause of the high possibility of transmission from bakeries
   15 Always bath with Warm water and not cold water
   Be Cautious, We will defeat this epidemic like we did Ebola.

Expert opinion

The new NCP coronavirus may not show sign of infection for many days then how can one know if he/ she is infected ?
Latest information is that the incubation period may be upto 28 days before the symptoms of COVID 19 are evident.

By the time a person has fever and/or cough and goes to the hospital, the lungs are usually 50 % Fibrosis and it’s too late !

Taiwan experts provide a simple self-check that we can do every morning ;

Take a deep breath and hold your breath for more than 10 seconds.
If you complete it successfully without coughing, without discomfort, stuffiness or tightness , etc , it proves there is no fibrosis in the lungs, basically indicating no infection.

In critical times, please self-check every morning in an environment with clean air!

SERIOUS EXCELLENT ADVICE by Japanese doctors treating COVID-19 cases. Everyone should ensure your mouth & throat is moist, never DRY.
Take a few sips of water every 15 mins at least.
WHY ?
Even if the virus does enter into your mouth…drinking water or other liquids will WASH them down through your oesophagus and into the stomach.
Once there , your stomach ACID’s will kill all the virus.
If you don’t drink enough water more regularly…the virus can enter your windpipes and into the LUNGS.
That’s very dangerous.

Pls send and share with family, friends and everyone about this !

Take care everyone & may the world recovers from corona virus soon.

A Prayer

Psalm 91:1-3
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God, in Him I will trust.”
Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler
And from the perilous pestilence.

Almighty God, the great I Am, the Holy of Israel and the Lord of Lords, we worship and bless You this morning. We lift You up on high and declare Your majesty in heaven, on earth and in our lives. Glory be to Your Holy Name.
We thank You for this day You have made. We thank You that we are in it. It shall be unto us a glorious day.

Heavenly Father, our Defender, please keep us safe from the pestilence in the land. May it not come near us and ours. Let it not wreak havoc in our land. May it not cause panic.

Give the authorities the wisdom to contain and eradicate this virus as You did with the Ebola virus. Grant us, the citizens, the wisdom to engage preventive protocols.

Lord, please have mercy on us, preserve the lives of the health workers.

These and other mercies we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ.

Disclaimer

This post is a combination of different posts from unspecified persons. Advices & opinions offered above are not mine & simply sampled from the social media

An Economic Sermon

Tags

Bible, deficit, economics, economy, EFCC, Ethiopia, Kalu Aja, Nigeria, oil, oil boom, President, prison, recession, Rwanda, saving, Singapore, surplus, trade

By Kalu Aja

In the Bible, we read an interesting story of Spiritualism, Economics and Trade.

God speaks to Egyptian President by giving him a strange dream of lean cows eating fat cows.

Alarmed the Egyptian President summoned his Intelligence Agencies, his Cabinet and Special Assistants on Religious Affairs, all his top Advisers, but noone could decipher the message in the dream.

Then an Adviser previously in EFCC custody remembered a former inmate who was very good in analysis of data. He tells Mr President who summons Joseph. Joseph shaves, wears a nice suit and goes before the President. Joseph hears the data from the President, & responds;

A. There will be an oil boom that will increase the wealth of the Egyptian Government. The Government will make a lot of money for 7 years.

B. Then after 7 years, the oil boom will end and the world will enter a recession.

At this point, Joseph is now giving his own advise to the President.

Joseph tells the President;

“Set up a Sovereign Wealth Fund, save 25% of the oil wealth for those 7 boom years. Look for a man, discrete & wise to act as Chief Economic Adviser to implement the plan”

What Joseph did here was to identify the problem, give a solution, and then offer himself a pathway to becoming a man “discrete and wise” to implement the solution he advised.

Pharaoh agreed, made Joseph Chief Economic Adviser of the Federation. As recession swept across the world, Egypt became the center of the world, all nations came to Egypt to trade, Egypt became richer, Joseph became a Super Minister

The End

What is the lesson of this story?

1. President: You’re only as good as the Advisers your surround yourself with.

2. Pastors, its not enough to give prophesies, if God revels something to you, He will also give you an interpretation with clear dates & solutions, Prophecy without direction is useless.

3. Entrepreneur, referrals will make or break your business. Joseph was referred to the President by a client he “traded” with when he just a startup, treat your early customers like kings.

4. As a Person, Educate yourself. Joseph gave the “Spiritual”, but then followed up with the “Economic”. keep learning.

5. The Economy; every economic boom is followed by a recession, every recession creates opportunities for people that prepared during the recession.

In the Universe; there is no such thing as luck in wealth generation. it’s always planned. noone is lucky.

Egypt became wealthy because they stored grain for 7 years and became a trading post.

Dubai, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Singapore are today’s Egypt.

x

@FinPlanKaluAja1

Sex For Grades: The Known and Unknown

Tags

bBBC Africa, BBC, ghana, girls, jock, kiki Mordi, lecturers, lectures, Life, nerd, Nigeria, Nigerian, People, sex, sex for grades, students, teachers, university

If you haven’t seen the recently viral BBC News Africa documentary ‘Sex for Grades’ then look it up before you continue reading:

Sex For Grades (Documentary)

THIS WRITE UP IS NOT A RESPONSE TO THE DOCUMENTARY, NEITHER IS IT AN IMPLIED QUERY. IT IS A GUIDED CONTRIBUTION TO THE LOUD PRETENTIOUS OVERTURES THAT FOLLOWED THE DOCUMENTARY’S RELEASE.

I’m going to make this write up as brief as possible, if that is possible for anyone documenting well over four decades of tertiary education life.

SO IF YOU ARE IN A RUSH, PLEASE SKIP ‘DISCLAIMER, & QUALIFICATION’. BUT YOU JUST MIGHT WANT TO READ THEM AGAIN AFTERWARDS.

IT IS YOUR PICK?

DISCLAIMER

I. IF YOU READ ABOUT ANYONE THAT REMOTELY RESEMBLES ANYONE YOU SUSPECT, DON’T BURST YOUR BALLS, IT’S THEM.

II. IF YOU DON’T WANT TO GET INSANELY ANNOYED, PUSH OFF.

III. IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN OBJECTIVE MIND & YOU WISH TO CRITICIZE WITH PREJUDICE, BRING IT ON.

IV. LASTLY, THE LECTURERS ALREADY CAUGHT & EXPOSED, PLEASE DON’T BOTHER READING THIS BECAUSE YOU’RE DESERVEDLY IN THE ABYSS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ENDLESSLY RETRIEVEBLE HISTORY.

I DON’T WANT YOU THINKING; “Why didn’t this fool put this up before now?” Then running off to kill yourself. ALL LIFE MATTER & GOD LOVES EVEN YOU TOO.

Just, maybe only HE might still love you now.

QUALIFICATION

Am I qualified to write about this?

You tell me?

I have; A combination of Thirteen years lecturing in six tertiary institutions in Northen Nigeria (mainly on part time basis), presently a senior Educational Administrator in a Health based tertiary institution.

I have; A cumulative period of just under twenty five years as a student at seven different Nigerian tertiary institutions studying programs leading to the award of Certificates, Ordinary/Higher/Post graduate Diplomas, Masters Degree. All these inclusive of those dropped, abandoned, completed & yet to be complete.

I have; Separately, Thirty seven plus years of visiting, living with and having endless discussions with very close lecturer friends, hanging around with, partying alongside, holidaying with, as my lecturers or my close friends or housemates or colleagues or relatives or in-laws. All of them with various levels of experience in the most diverse disciplines & professional callings.

I have; All my Fifty years of life time (thus far) lived in a family that lives & breathes tertiary education, with (as at the last count) all together; one of the oldest (still actively living) Professors in Northern Nigeria, Six times full tenure University Vice Chancellor (both within & out side Nigeria) Three PhDs, I don’t really know how many Masters degrees, we don’t have time & space here to list the number of first degrees & various assorted levels of diplomas & I haven’t the faintest idea how many undergraduates are still studying within & outside Nigeria. Most of whom I interact with continuiously.

Bottom line: I have lived, talked & walked Nigerian tertiary education all my literate life. To a large extend I know & have been part of the workings of Nigerian tertiary institutions for most of my life. And everybody knows that the core part of the tertiary education experience is the relationship between lecturers & all their many students; the young & old, the stupid & smart, the Good, the Bad & the Cute.

EXPERIENCE

After the roll of CV, I’ll limited this section to my experience with the opposite sex. (I apologize to the LGBT community because most folks don’t realize that when we say ‘oppposite sex’, we exclude other…. Hmmmmm, other sexes?)

So, by now you’ve worked out I am a Straight Male, about five decades old, considerably educated & someone who has been ‘all over the place’. And I mean ‘All Over The Place’. Don’t worry, you will work out what the expression means by the time you’re done with this section.

I have no romantic story of worth to tell from my secondary school days (Primary school was more eventful) But credit to me, I had put that woeful romantic experience to good use & scored a resounding distinction for unending effort. This experience taught me to talk my way out of every situation conceivable and as I ended my teen age, I perfected how to talk and endear my way into almost every cooperative female heart and in most instances, all the way beyond the depts of the female heart.

My romantic experience at the various tertiary institutions I was a student in was to say the least hyperactive & swinging. I will summarize it with this quote;

“THERE WERE NINE GIRLS IN MY PROGRAM CLASS AT ONE TIME AND I HAD THE SHAMEFUL RECORD OF SEPERATELY BEING ROMANTIC INVOLVED WITH ALL BUT ONE OF THEM IN ONE CALENDAR YEAR.”

I was more than just romantic with most of them. The level of coy & maneuvering that went into that feat was quite advanced and would make many war-time Generals envious. The single girl that got away escaped for two main reasons;

(1) I had saved her for last because she was always going to be the toughest nut to crack. The plan was to become ‘born again’ and join her church at the end.

(2) I ran out of time. The plan had worked out smoothly, we had become all brotherly and sisterly, started holding hands to and from places when time ran out.

THE RUB

I wasn’t your typical good looking lad, I was as black as soot & taller than a door. But I knew my positives and flaunted them.

I was a jock, played Basketball & football in the school teams, I was quite smart too. I solved calculus problems & explained complicated lecture notes, even those not of my immediate area of study.

I wasnt just at every party & live shows there was, I organized most parties and live shows.

I had my fill of the campus life. I was lord over the social life & called the shots. I was mindful that lots of my classmates & buddies in those days on campus couldn’t join in the rolling fun. They just didn’t measure up to the expectations of the girls back then. These were mainly the really smart ones. The Nerds, as Americans call them.

They either didn’t have the time, didn’t make the time, didn’t put in the effort, were shy, got discouraged or simply weren’t bothered for the social campus life way back then.

LET’S CONCLUDE

Here it comes:

Of the so many of the lecturers I have come across in my ‘Thirty seven plus years of visiting, living with and having endless discussions with very close lecturer friends, hanging around with, partying alongside, holidaying with, as my lecturers or my close friends or house mates or colleagues or relatives or in-law”, a whooping 75% of them were nerds. They said so or I know so.

Do my math too;

Off all the clear cut Nerds I went to school with, all those I can remember or kept in touch with or met again many years later or followed their progression through life, all but three are lecturers now. Two of the three are dead & the one, I last heard was walking the streets in Benin (South central Nigeria) picking up trash & mouthing nonsense, mad as a tornado.

Make up your own conclusions:

Of all these so many nerds I knew and related with, that all became lecturers, a resounding 90% have either had some kind of sexual related incident with a female student or have indicated the tendency to indulge in illicit romantic dealings with female students.

This will blow your away;

I watched the Sex for Grades documentary and there on the screen was one of the nerds in the stats offered above.

I’m not surprised I know one of them & if you’re still asking why, then start reading from the top again

© Yas Niger

Kaduna, Nigeria

October 2019

Future related reading & possible documentary subjects:

I. Whoring for Grades

II. Nigerain Culture of favour for favour

III. Qualities of a lecturer

CC

Kiki Mordi @kikimordi

BBC News Africa @BBCAfrica

#SexForGrades #BBCAfricaEye

Girls at War: A Review

Tags

Biafra, chinua Achebe, civil war, girls, girls at war, Igbo, Nigeria, Peace, People, War

This a personal & non-academic review of Chinua Achebe’s Short story ‘Girls at War’. Originally done for a Whatsapp book discussion group but which I’ve been encouraged to share far & wide. The Short Story ‘Girls at War’ is from the collection of Nigerian civil war time short stories of the same title by Chinua Achebe.

Let’s start with the title, I have always had thing for titles.

Have you ever seen teenage girls fight? Well, if you have then simply multiply the confused, abusive, scratchy, revealing spectacle a few times over & you have ‘Girls at War’. Girls play dirty & fight crazy. Maturity & civility goes out the window. Fairness remains a distant past, order is lost completely, wisdom a mirage & a ‘strip tease’ a strong possibility, very much expected by amused bystanders, who watch with keen selfish interest.

Even those who step in to separate the Waring ladies will have their motives questioned, especially if they are male. (And in these modern days, even female ‘referees’ get their sexual preferences scrutinized also).

Who to grab, where to hold, what to say, to laugh or not, how to behave, self preservation, (dangerously essential for guys with their two very fragile natural passengers to worry about).

Now if you’re the poor fellow the warring girls are in battle over, you’re not on your own for nobody minds their business anymore. Everyone is in your face nowadays. Blaming everyone & you, for the ‘hurt’ girl is always right by default these days.

‘Who rules the world?’, don’t ask Beyonce, just read the tabloids. “That time done pass. Now everybody want (their say). They call it (free speech). You put your number six; I put my number six.
Everything (is) all right.”

Nigeria was at war with Biafra, is the setting of the story & Biafra was doing quite badly. War is the art of survival. Which of the the two sexes is most dexterous in the practicalities of survival? Girls are at War, perpetually.

The manipulation in daily living is survival, one that is sired in us from that maiden race down a ‘penish’ tube, as we aim to win the fertilization laurel & indirectly cause the demise of millions of our first ‘spermy’ peers.

This a story of changing priorities, of changing times & changing people surprising themselves & but not really altering stereotypes & established perceptions.

The first hint of romance is carried through, ’till death do them part’. The young Gladys clad in khaki, searching cars at a roadblock in the early days of the war, changed into a reluctant battle field for troops to ‘not march in’. The privileged intellectualism of Reginald Nwankwo of the Biafran Ministry of Justice is reduced to the pettiness of the pursuit of luxuries everywhere, that will end with ‘drilling his troops’ in Gladys’ ‘battle field’.

The war efforts had commenced with enthusiast children ‘who marched up and down the streets at the time drilling with sticks and wearing their mothers’ soup bowls for steel helmets.’ Alongside them was the jest of the likes of ‘the contingent of girls from a local secondary school marching behind a banner: WE ARE IMPREGNABLE!’

By the time Gladys & Reginald crossed paths for a third & final time, eighteen months of ‘Death and starvation’ had long
chased out the headiness of the early days.’

Amidst the lackness in
blank suicidal resignation of multitudes, Reginald towed Gladys along to a party with the better-off few feeding off the war. Those ‘who had no other desire than whatever good things were still going and to enjoy themselves to the limit. ‘But unlike these strange lot, normalcy had not returned to the rest of the world. ‘Girls became girls once more and boys boys,’ only in the parties of these priviledges few, as the world around them ‘was a tight, blockaded and desperate world.’

Living in these war days made
heads of stockfish & tinned meat a very privileged luxury and the likes of ‘the dreadful American stuff called Formula Two’ heaped on the populace by international relief bringers. Reginald’s contacts kept him within easy reach of a variety of relief stuffs like ‘rice, beans and that excellent cereal commonly called Gabon gari.’ He has an official car & a driver to ferry him through the land & a bomb shelter within reach of his home to weather the horrific fear of air-raids.

Reginald Nwankwo is fortunate and not one of ‘the starved scarecrow crowd of rags and floating ribs’, reduced ‘by the independent accusation of their wasted bodies and sunken eyes’ as they perpetually hung around relief centres, making crude, ungracious remarks like “War Can Continue!”

Reginald did the best he could to keep the clutches of kwashiokor out of the reach of his driver’s (Johnson) home by making sure that whenever he got sizeable supplies he gave some to Johnson, for his wife and six or
seven kids.

At one pound per cigarette cup in the market, Gari might as well be caviar for most ordinary folks. Something has to give & always did. Priorities changed & things like respect & sympathy lowered in standard, so much that only pretty girls get rides in staff cars, not begging old women.

When gentleman say to a pretty girl, ‘I broke my rule today to give you a lift. I never give lifts these
days”, it’s not love or fondness, it is good old sweaty panting lust. When a girl braves bomb raids on the road to a major city during a war & tells you ;“I am going to visit my girlfriend,” it’s good old fashioned survival hunting.

Gladys got the bush meat she came out for in a comfy bed, party fun, good food & scarce money. Reginald got the ‘match’ he wanted to win for a looooooooong time.

“But your family is not there with you?” “No,” he said. “Nobody has his family there. We like to say it is because of air-raids but I can assure you there is more to it. Owerri is a real swinging town and we live the life of gay bachelors.” “That is what I have heard.” Gladys heard the hunting is good in the Owerri metropolitan bush and she came to get lucky.

In a real swinging party hosted by a Lieutenant-Colonel, in the real fun of the moment, she saw someone better than Reginald and fell in-love with what she saw in a man for the first time in Owerri & as it turned out, for the last time. While Reginald was ashamed of himself, hating the parties and frivolities to which his friends clung like drowning men, Gladys found her mojo.

Still it was always about taking a girl home for the classy dude & Reginald was always a classic guy who wants to get the babe. ‘And this particular girl too, who had once had such beautiful faith in the struggle and was betrayed (no doubt about it) by some man like him out for a good time.’

This personified the entire story for me. Gladys is the ‘Girl at War’ with the circumstances she has found herself in & setting out to make the best of it. Just like a young controversial nation at war with the circumstances it found itselt & making a whole mess of it. And five decades later, that region of the nation is still making a mess of the politics of it, playing the blame game still.

Their last morning together, Reginald felt better as he saw Gladys as ‘a mirror reflecting a society that had gone completely rotten and maggoty at the centre. The mirror itself was intact; a lot of smudge but no more. All that was needed was a clean duster.’ One that is still being awaited over fifty years later. And like the bold Biafran experience, Gladys ventured to be bold & heroic at the moment that called for it. Like Biafra, she ended her in a monumental crash of her world in a charred, smoking and entangled remains of the girl and that didn’t what ‘troops to match’ in her insides.

Sadly, the story is a comical but romantic take on how wrong it could be when it feels so right, like fighting a war to regain the peace the war shattered.

Yas Niger

Kaduna, Nigeria

FRIENDLY FOES: A World of Sentiments

Tags

airport, Book, eBook, History, india, indian, Karachi, Kashmir, Pakistan, planes, Story, terrorist, War

Strangest explosion rocks the Karachi international airport just as a massive deployment of US marines arrived the busy airport. Stories of victims and their relatives, responders and their purpose, perpetrators and their reasons, unfolds a tale of current resolutions based on old conceptions.

The narrative tells of the most diverse colorful global characters surrounded with a good mix of friends and foes.

David Holden is the English Doctor who loves humanity more than his origins and Abdul Kazaar Ali is his opportunistic aged patient who lives out his perception of Muslim norms like he desires. Aaamu and her mother Rael, live by their wits as their circumstances allow. Fatima is smart enough to outwit her sexuality but too human to resist normalcy.

Ruth is the Israeli genius whose Jewish father gave her a lot more than just his name and Lee is her Chinese boyfriend, trying out fantasies alongside opinions. Then there is Sean Samuel, the Irish-American reporter with a huge reputation he constantly seeks to live up to, like his country.

Smash words Read an E-book week sales : March 3 – March 9, 2019

Tags

#BringBackOurGirls, #ChibokGirls, Abnormal, Acquaintance, Across, action, actions, affections, Afraid, african adventure, African literature, ago, agree, alone, Anthill, Ants, ate, azeenarh mohammed, bait, birth, Born, Nigeria

I’m involved in the 10th Annual
Smashwords Read an Ebook Week Sale!

Get All The Ebooks You Can Read Free or at Massive discounts
March 3, 2019 – March 9, 2019

https://t.co/BCQwT89cLR https://t.co/9wu7YsJCU5

Nigerians, Are we preparing for the future as a country?

Tags

Abnormal, above, Acquaintance, Adults, adventure, advise, Africa, Aging, alone, american, Chinese, Elections, Nigerian, People, Politics, Time, trouble, uk, united kingdom, universities, USA, vision 20 20, win, worries

On Made in China 2025.
On several occasions I run across these Chinese kids here in Georgia Tech, what surprises me is the type of courses they study. Almost all of them under Chinese government scholarship here to study in Americas best universities are studying courses that have to do with the future.

They study artificial intelligence, systems science and engineering, and hard core courses for tommorows World, their social lives are zero and they always hold sophisticated telephones. Very suprizing, but China is a country that thinks ahead and every Chinese is a potential suspect.

Have you ever heard of the concept, made in China 2025? It is Chinese Development blueprint that had sent fear around the world. It is meant to transform China from a labor intensive economy that makes toys, cloths, pharmaceutical to one that engineers advanced products like robots electric cars, and space explorations.
The Chinese are believed to be the most determined species of the human race. Once they set their minds to achieve a goal nothing stops them.

Earlier today, I listened to a commentary where the presenter clearly stated that the Chinese state would not mind stealing technology and intellectual property just to meet their goal.
I also read elsewhere, that Chinese kids are sent in droves to study unique courses like artificial intelligence, information systems, system science, robotic engineering, systems engineering in American schools. Surprisingly this is a deliberate state policy. You never see a Chinese student on scholarship studying arts, social sciences or religion.

What is most troubling is that they study these courses in America and United Kingdom top ivy leagues. They are here on full state sponsored scholarships.
While the economies of the world including the United States are exporting production distribution and exchange in an era of globalization, China is pursuing an agenda of localizing production.
They promote a policy to get almost 70 percent of their production value chain domiciled locally. This is very dangerous because in the future the entire world will answer to China in terms of production. My concern with China is how can a country and a people get it so right? Always ahead of the rest. Always scheming at a time our own kids are holidaying and eating barbecue in foreign restaurants.

The more I study the Chinese, the more I fall in love with these guys. They have leaders that think. They have leaders that plan for tommorow. More interesting, even children as young as five years in China know in every transaction they have to eat up their opponents or be eaten.
The big question: Can we ever have a country built on values? Unfortunately, this is our biggest handicap in Nigeria. Our leaders think only of themselves. Selfish and greedy, and some of our young people think only of what they can scoop out of these greed.
Vision 2020 we planned, this is 2019, nothing to write home about. Even the government themselves are busy politicking and killing themselves with no regard to attain the goals of vision 2020. Open a discussion with a federal minister on how his ministry plans to meet the vision 2020 goals he has no idea what you are talking about.
Our hospitals are still consulting clinics, women still give birth at home without medical support, our roads in disrepair, our schools abandoned and our politicians clueless.

Is there hope for our country that we can ever plan and execute with precision like the Chinese?
Sometime I wonder, do we embrace the Chinese and be recolonized or do we continue to align with the west?
These young Chinese kids in Western schools studying robotics and artificial intelligence are the ones to compete with our own kids 20 years from now at a time our educational system and universities are dead and lecturers still going on strike. I fear for my country and our future, to be candid I fear!

Princewill Odidi, a Development analyst write from Atlanta.

(XMAS SPECIAL) Our dearest Booze, the friendly villian

Tags

booze, christmas, drink, grains, holidays, MERRY, Nigeria, People, Time, XMAS

You’ll all love this one from Ahmed Joe’s post on facebook.

He always puts up a friendly fight with real bullets…

Well? It is that time of the year for sharing. End of year bonus, gifts, welfare and so on. Even tight fisted people feel charitable. And no matter the state of the economy there is always an abundance of meat, rice and even “hot” to go round as can clearly be seen. Many of us also buy clothes and other things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like. It is also a period when there is a spike in Federal Road Safety warnings on “If you drink don’t drive”.

Then there is the double edged sword of “drink responsibly”. Truth is that humanity has always searched for various means to induce “temporary insanity” by cheaply feeling “high”. The problem has always been in controlling the dynamic. A trailer driver neighbor recently gave me another insight about inducing “guts” when driving cross country particularly at night. He claims they see “things”. I am yet to discuss with any sailor if such “clear eyes” are needed on the high seas thus the maxim of “drunken sailors” but I have sure met many hard drinking pilots. Now is also a season for agricultural harvest and rural prosperity.

Ever wondered where most of the trailer loads of grains from the North end up across the South? In breweries. I once asked about the religious and moral implications of that including VAT proceeds from the sales of the end products. I never got a clear cut answer.

John Grisham in his 1996 bestseller ‘Runaway Jury’ put the tobacco and alcohol industries under the microscope. It is all about abuse. Too much of everything is bad. Which still brings us back to the ability to control usage. Grisham however exposed how nicotine content is manipulated to induce addiction which translates to more profits for the cigarette industry. The Russian government recently admitted it could not successfully ban Rap without driving it underground thereby causing more harm on their youth, instead it would take over control of the musicians “to properly navigate them”. So what is the verdict: to drink or not to drink?

Sir Winston Churchill was once asked about this using whisky as an example. Here’s how he answered:
“If by whisky you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean that evil drink that topples men and women from the pinnacles of righteous and gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, shame, despair, helplessness, and hopelessness, then, I am opposed to it with every fibre of my being.

” However if by whisky you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the elixir of life, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes. If you mean good cheer, the stimulating sip that puts a little spring in the step of a gentleman on a frosty morning. If you mean that drink that enables man to magnify his joy, and to forget life’s great tragedies and heartbreaks and sorrow. If you mean that drink the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of pounds each year, that provides tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitifully aged and infirm, to build the finest highways, hospitals, universities, and community colleges in this nation….then my friend, I am absolutely, unequivocally in favor of it. This is my position, and as always, I refuse to compromise on matters of principle”

CELESTIAL ASS

Tags

ass, bishop, celestial, church, Donkey, facebook, Humour, joke, laugh, Life, news, newspaper, nun, pastor, People, Race, Time

Copied from facebook

The Pastor entered his donkey in a race and
it won.
The Pastor was so pleased with the donkey
that he entered it in the race again and it won again.
The local paper read:
PASTOR’S ASS OUT FRONT.

The Bishop was so upset with this kind of
publicity that he ordered the Pastor not to enter the donkey in another race.
The next day the local paper headline read:
BISHOP SCRATCHES
PASTOR’S ASS.

This was too much for the Bishop so he
ordered the Pastor to get
rid of the donkey.
The Pastor decided to give it to a Nun in a
nearby convent.
The local paper, hearing of the news, posted
the following headline the next day:
NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN.

The Bishop fainted.
He informed the Nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey so she sold it to a farm for $10.
The next day the paper read:
NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10

This was too much for the Bishop so he
ordered the Nun to buy back
the donkey and lead it to the plains where
it could run wild.
The next day the headlines read:
NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE.

The Bishop was buried the next day.

The moral of the story is . . . being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery . . . even shorten your life.
So be yourself and enjoy life.
Stop worrying about everyone else’s ass
and just cover your own !!!
You’ll be a lot happier and live longer!

Have a great week guys & dolls ♥️