I’ve been thinking about this question for days – “What Is Wrong With The Nigerian?” Traveling around Africa and Asia helps me to imagine what Nigeria could be like with light and leadership. Western countries are too advanced for me to conceptualise a correlation. So, other climes help me to project. It dawned on me[…]
If you live in Nigeria, you’ve got to take care of your mind. Your environment will seek to squeeze the humanity & nobility out of you. You turn savage as you fight for existential rights. Yesterday, I reminded myself to focus on moments of joy. To find stuff that breaks the everyday tedium of fighting[…]
I think two skills young Nigerians need are Leadership and Critical Thinking. But first, they need Self-Confidence and perhaps, Trauma Therapy. Nigeria has broken many people. I say this because while mentoring, I’ve seen many young people who have no idea what to do with opportunities and independence. They exhibit brain freeze and an unexpected[…]
One of the reasons why I visit developed countries is I’m fascinated by good. I am captivated by beauty, knowledge and order. Like Aristotle once argued, knowledge can be an end in itself and can provide joy in itself. Developed nations understand that. Libraries are not wasted spaces. They exist to both delight and train[…]
Nations have a way of outliving us all. Nationhood doesn’t just happen. It is created by a group of crafty, intelligent, ruthless and determined men & women. Until nations are deliberately formed, they subsist lethargically, waiting for dreamers and opportunists to die. Nations age in generations. Humans age in years. So, it is foolhardy to[…]
The rest of Africa is laughing at Nigeria. On developmental indices, the items we continue to boast about are population, GDP and natural resources. Without education, electricity, health, justice and equity, of what use are those things? What is our GDP per capita (which is a measure of the wealth of citizens)? It is because[…]
I recently started drinking again after a long time of not drinking. Yesterday, as I considered my glass of single malt whiskey, I remembered a friend who wrote about sleeping with random women. After I read his thoughts, I asked him why he did it, since he didn’t seem like the “promiscuous” type. He responded[…]
Sometimes when I’m very ill, I have terrible dystopian dreams. I visualise war and intense violence. I have hallucinations. When I wake, I imagine I’m still in the world created by my dreams. Now that the episodes have occurred a few times, my rational mind recognises that world is not real. I know that once[…]
In moments of brutal honesty, I acknowledge that Nigeria didn’t fail my generation. We failed her. Historically, there have been other nations that were just as bad as Nigeria, yet their people turned them around. Perhaps we should admit that we do not possess the character, insight, wisdom, networks, power, money and even luck, needed[…]
There must have been a point when music videos became defined by tits and ass. In the same way, there must have been an inflection point in Nigeria, when good governance became about building roads, digging wells and commissioning bridges. The irony is, those roads often lead nowhere, for Nigeria has an uncanny ability to[…]
