AMAKA...

Standing at the front of the lecture hall in his well fitted
black suit with a green tie was Professor Iyagba.

"Stand up!" He had thundered. I knew if he had to repeat
himself again or come over to pull me up I'll be in a lot
more trouble so I reluctantly stood up murmuring a silent
prayer to my God.

"I'm so sorry sir..." I said once I had stood up leaning
slightly on the desk at my front.

"Would you stand up right!" He thundered once more. He
sounded a lot louder this time, I felt a cold shiver run down
my spine. I did as told.

OUR PRIORITY IS NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY – BUHARI

President Muhammadu Buhari said on Saturday that the priority of his
administration is to ensure national food security before export of
food products.

The President said this while contributing to a Presidential Panel
Roundtable on Investment and Growth Opportunities at the opening
session of the Africa 2016: Business for Africa, Egypt and the World
at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

President Buhari stressed that Nigeria being a mono-economy dependent
on oil, and with a teeming unemployed youth population, the way out of
the current slump in the global oil market, is for the administration
to focus on agriculture and solid minerals development. "The land is
there and we need machinery inputs, fertilizer and insecticides," he
said.

REINCARNATION... By Adékúnlé Al Miftau Adéǐté

My mother's first child died mysteriously at the age of three. He
shouted from his sleep after a kid's parade on Empire day around 1948.
When he was two, he poured some hot stuff on himself and the scar was
on his belly till he died. Two years or so later, my mother had
another son; he has those same scars on the left side of his belly. My
brother is alive and the scar (mark) is there till today.

Could this be a case of reincarnation?

Let's examine what the Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam thinks of reincarnation.

Again, President Buhari rules out naira devaluation

the President spoke on Saturday while contributing to a Presidential
Panel Roundtable on Investment and Growth Opportunities at the opening
of the Africa 2016: Business for Africa, Egypt and the World at Sharm
El-Sheikh, Egypt.

"Developed countries are competing among themselves and when they
devalue they compete better and manufacture and export more.
But we are not competing and exporting but importing everything
including toothpicks. So, why should we devalue our currency?
We want to be more productive and self-sufficient in food and other
basic things such as clothing.
For our government, we like to encourage local production and efficiency."

DECONSTRUCTING FANI KAYODE, THE PRETENDER

It is pertinent to take a closer look at the real FFK beyond the façade we see.
1. He claims to have graduated from Cambridge University in the United
Kingdom. But it is one thing for FFK to pass through Cambridge; it is
another thing for Cambridge to have passed through him. All Oxbridge
products we knew and interacted with have in common, one thing at
least: civility, refinement and literate. Evidently FFK is the direct
opposite of these attributes. He comes through as uncultured, crude,
uncouth and greedy.

2. He claims to be a lawyer. But without a law chamber, without a
legal practice, and a without a legal career very untypical of lawyers
from the South-west. We learnt from good authourity that he inherited
a very robust legal chamber from his late father but he was unable to
make a success of it. What a tragedy.

Accountability and Anti-corruption in government: Some lessons from New Zealand and Australia.

Accountability and Anti-corruption in government: Some lessons from
New Zealand and Australia.

Since the 1980s, the accountability of New Zealand's public officers
has been built on a quasi-contractual relationship between the
executive government (ie, the ministers) and the senior management of
central government departments (ie, departmental chief executives). In
Australia, on the other hand, the accountability of public officers
centred on the primary role of the executive government, with senior
management expected to work under the ministers and follow their
directives. Which system works better?

The New Zealand system of accountability in central government
highlights the role of departmental chief executives. They are held
responsible for the achievement of policy objectives and for the
delivery of outputs from their departments. Policy objectives are
agreed upon with the ministers who, in a sense, act like 'purchasers'
of outputs from the departments.

Why I Don’t Trust Any Army General – Tinubu Reveals Top Secrets Of Political Successes

"The high is when I survived as the only
governor and one man standing on the
platform of the AD in the South West after
the 2003 governorship election. In leadership
and political battles, you must be able to
recognize the talent of your opponent. Don't
ever underestimate your opponent
particularly a personality like former Presi­
dent Obasanjo. First, he is not just an Army
General for nothing; they call their overall
fatigue uniform, camouflage. What does that
mean? Deception! They are trained in
strategy, deception and tactics to defeat the
enemy. If you underestimate them, you do
that at your own peril…"

That was a quote from Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu,
the national leader of the ruling All Progressives
Congress, APC interview with the Sun Newspaper
recently held at Bourdillion, Ikoyi, Lagos residence.

Weakness Of Nigeria Naira in The Foreign Exchange Market Can Be A Blessing In Disguise. Part One

This piece of write up was extracted from my yet to be publish book
(Think like an Economist) in order to enlighten my fellow Nigerians
already panicking regarding the above mentioned subject matter so far
making headline on some of our national dailies.

Few years ago a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San
Francisco wrote the following line:

If you ask the random sample of economist to name the three most
difficult questions confronting mankind, the possible answers will
probably be: What is the meaning of life? What is the relationship
between quantise mechanics and general relativity? What is going on in
the foreign exchange market? Not necessarily in that order.

Education: A Call for the Declaration of State of Emergency, By Sunday Ogidigbo

What our country needs now
is a clear vision and
pathway that will ensure
that every Nigerian child
gets a universal and quality
basic education. Until this is
done, the money budgeted to
commence the schools meal
programmes might as well
be flushed down the drain.

The greatest resource that we have as a country
is not our oil and gas reserve in the Niger Delta
or the countless solid mineral resources strewn
across our land from Abia to Zamfara. The most
valuable resources that we have as a country is
the over 170 million human beings that
comprise Nigeria, which makes it the most
populous country in Africa; this makes one out
every three black persons on earth a Nigerian.

However, the true value of human capital
resource is not in the numbers but in the state
and quality of the mind of the people. The
nations leading the world politically,

economically, militarily and socially have one
thing in common – they value the human
resource. They invest a lot in human capital
and respect the right and dignity of the human
person.

WE FEEL RELIEVED!

With the election/selection of the semi-illiterate blood thirsty Ali
Modu Sheriff as the so called chairman of the PDP, we feel relieved
now that the whole world knows PDP has been the party behind Boko
Haram!

We feel relieved that even dogs on the streets of Nigeria now know
that Boko Haram is a mega scam. Boko haram has nothing to do with
Islam or any religion for that matter.

We feel relieved that everyone now knows that the marauding Boko Haram
barbarians are a Satanist group, created by the likes of Goodluck
Ebele Jonathan, Ali Modu Sheriff, Azubuike Ehejirika, the PDP cabal
and their foreign co-conspirators to destroy our lands, its economy
and subjugate our people to perpetual slavery.

5 Famous Movie Quotes That Can Inspire Entrepreneurs

I'm not sure if this will finally be Leonardo
DiCaprio's year, for The Revenant, or if newcomer
Brie Larson, in Room , will trump perennial favorite
Cate Blanchett for the latter's role in Carol. What I
can tell you is that people are inspired by movies
and jazzed by Hollywood's award season. But
what does that have to do with business?

The answer: inspiration. Where do your business
ideas come from? From a variety of sources, I bet.
Whether it's a personal experience, a business
experience, a billboard you saw when you were
driving down the road or something your
significant other said at the grocery store:

The New Kolo-Mentality!, By ‘Tope Fasua

  

Nobody should sell us short, on a wholesale basis. Nigeria may be bad, we do have our many challenges, but hey, we have one or two lessons to teach the world as well. Indeed, on a few of these issues, like in how to live proper marriages, where tolerance, magnanimity, sacrifice, perseverance, reasonability, consideration are the key words, the world looks up to Africa.

I usually laugh at myself when I listen to Fela Kuti’s “colo-mentality” song, especially that part where he describes the African man, who dresses up in singlet, pant, trousers, shirt, jacket, tie, overcoat, hat, socks, shoe, umbrella, and then picks up his briefcase and goes sweating in the Lagos heat like the proverbial Christmas goat! That is me! Ok, remove the hat, overcoat and umbrella! Since the day I heard that song properly, which is fairly recently, I started to really examine the way we think as Africans and why we think everything that is good for the white man is also good for us. Whereas MOST of what the white man prescribes turns out good, but there must be a point where a discerning people draw the line.

There was a raging argument when President Jonathan approved the anti-gay law. Many asked why that had become a priority. I had a few answers. One, while we all admit that governance is perennially weak in Nigeria, we should also agree that weak people will usually do that which seems easiest. Not only weak people. Even strong people and institutions have what is called ‘quick wins’, or ‘low hanging fruits’. It seemed that banning gayism in Nigeria was one of the low hanging fruits the then government recognised, and it went for it! Politically speaking, it paid dividends, since apparently a majority of Nigerians (and democracy is said to be a game of numbers, right?) are religious and the religious books apparently frown against it. Also, majority of Nigerians are tribal and religious, and our traditional institutions also call gayism an abomination. More on that later.

ALL NIGERIANS ARE WEED-SMOKERS!

I had just moved out of my parents house and was sharing a room with my "friend". I had no idea he smoked weed, despite his suspicious movements and signature weed scent(abi na odour?) barely two weeks after moving in with him, my worst fears were confirmed as he started bringing home his weed smoking buddies and they would occassionally roll a wrap and smoke it right there in the room or mix the weed with beans or spagehtti. Being a very curious person i always wondered what made them happy after smoking, so i decided to find out for myself(wrong move)


It was a very hot day in february, a saturday i think it was, my friend was out as usual. I searched everywhere for his stash but couldn't find it so i decided to go and get mine. I arrived the weed joint all sweaty and nervous, half expecting to get muged but nobody seemed to be aware of my presence there, they were all on different planets all expect one i concluded that he must be the seller so i approached him and the following conversation ensued: