To serve Nigeria is not by force

I pledge to Nigeria MY country
To be faithful Loyal and Honest
To serve Nigeria with ALL my strength
To defend her unity
And uphold her honour and glory
So help me God

As a little boy, I heard that when every American wakes up in the morning, the first thing they say is “God bless America” Because of this I always wondered how much they must love their country. I even attributed that to the success of the nation as world leader and police.

I have never been to America and recent happenings that we read in the tabloids and see in the news may tempt one to assume that there may be a bit of exaggeration in the above truism. Nevertheless, the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, the obsession to de-arm Iran, the fight for “the right candidate” to succeed President Bush all point to one common interest in America – Americans will always put the interest of America first in anything they do. Although American presidents would argue that they are trying to protect the world against these tyrants, Iran, Iraq or the Taliban will remain priority on any American president’s agenda as long as they pose themselves as threat to America.

Considering the foregoing, it saddened my heart when one of our “celebrities” in Nigeria released an “anthem” a few years ago - “Nigeria jagajaga”. Unfortunately for the rascal, he released the song during Obasanjo’s regime and I love Obasanjo’s response to the song. Charity they say begins at home, it therefore did not come to me as a surprise when a few months ago, I met a young man who had no single positive thing to say about his fatherland. I visited one of the electricity generating stations in the UK with some undergraduates from my place of work. The undergraduate who received us at that station turned out to be another undergraduate, a Nigerian whose father works at NEPA (Now Power Holding Company of Nigeria). I’m not sure what Mr Akande’s motive was that day, whether he was trying to gain the approval of the white folks in my company or he was trying to prove his level of intelligence (he strikes me as a pompous empty barrel), I am not really sure to be honest. He went on to boast about how he received a delegate of “top NEPA officials” the previous week. His father was among the delegates.

Mr. Akande was supposed to make a presentation, giving us information about their station’s mode operation and the reasons for its uniqueness (Combined Heat and gas). Instead of going to the business of the day, he went on telling us how horrible Nigeria and the Nigerian system are. At some point, I had to speak up to correct some of his misconceptions and misinformation which he was dishing out to the audience of which two of us were Nigerians. After arguing with him for a few minutes, I realised his level of reasoning and intellect and immediately let sleeping dogs lie. But I made my point. Nigeria is bad. We all made it what it is today (you may say you’re not one of them but trust me, we all are responsible). At the end of his presentation (eventually), one of the delegates that went with me remarked; “that was the most unprofessional presentation I have listened to” The Nigerian argument apart, it was a shoddy presentation, I felt ashamed. My team unanimously agreed that the time spent at Connah’s Quay that day was a wasted time.

Still on the issue of loyalty and patriotism, I stumbled on a TV program tonight (18 June). It was an AIT show. Unfortunately, the program for on schedule was different from what AIT broadcasted, so I didn’t get the exact title of the program on screen. But the segment of the program which I stumbled on was when the presenter conducted a random interview of some Nigerian Hip Hop “stars”, asking them to recite the national pledge. Out of about thirteen “stars”, only three could recite the national pledge correctly. To tell how bad the situation is, out of the three successes, the second success (Slam) missed “honour” in the 2nd to the last line. The most pathetic part of the story is that they ALL laughed about it and some of them shamelessly said “don’t blame me”. For crying out loud, if they went to school, we all recited the national pledge for at least 11 years of our growing up life! Perhaps stardom has eaten that bit of their memories.

Commitment to Nigeria and its growth starts from little things as knowing your national anthem and pledge correctly. It is like your religious mantras which you recite every morning or night. This reinforces your faith in whatever you believe in.

I have been in company of people in the past who sarcastically recite a portion of the national pledge as “to serve Nigeria is not by force” if you ask me, it is the same attitude with which such persons would handle any national issue if committed into their hands. I used to do the same in ignorance. But that was then. Now I know better. I know that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth thus speaks and as a man thinks in his heart so is he. The things which we utter out of our mouths or wish for are those things which we see manifest in our day to day life. Yet in ignorance, we blame it on our leaders. A nation that is great is made of patriotic citizens. It is patriotism that will drive out the canker worm of selfishness which is the bedrock of corruption and all its consequences in today’s Nigeria.

I pledge to Nigeria MY country
To be faithful Loyal and Honest
To serve Nigeria with ALL my strength
To defend her unity
And uphold her honour and glory
So help me God

So help me God

God bless Nigeria

Jungle Justice for Woman-Cat in PH: Nigerian Police goes superstitious

This is yet another instance of jungle justice. If we can lend any credibility to this report which I think it merits, considering the source (Nigerian Tribune), then such fight against terror which the western world is finding difficult to “win” would have been a very easy win.

I say to people that it is only in places like Britain and the US that people would have debates upon debates as to how long a terror suspect should be held for and what should be their lot upon conviction.

While I would personally not condone evil, I think whoever inflicted the (cutlass) injury on this woman’s face is far from humane. I would recommend the maximum possible punishment for any offender who is convicted under the law. In the case of Miss/Mrs Cat, there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that she committed any crime and I condemn this inhuman act which has become order of the day and Nigerians no longer think anything of it to take law into their own hands. Were this event to occur in a more civilised society, I can assure you that the Okada rider would be under police interrogations and possibly investigations by now. He may possibly go to jail if convicted of dangerous driving (Or is it riding in this case?) and for hitting a “cat” in the process. It is that serious. It is a serious offence to kill an animal in the western world, probably more serious than to kill a human being.

If what Nigerian Tribune’s source said about Miss Cat and her confession about their mission in PH is true, then I congratulate the “pastor” in question. Definitely, the scripture concerning him was fulfilled. “Touch not my anointed and do my prophet no harm”. The humour in the entire story is that even the police have unconsciously convicted this woman before trial and are wary that she actually has the capacity to "disappear!" That I find preposterous.

Read the full story below;

Cat turns into woman in P/Harcourt
Bolaji Ogundele (Nigerian Tribune correspondent), Port Harcourt - 22.05.2008

WHAT could be described as a fairy tale turned real on Wednesday in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, as a cat allegedly turned into a middle-aged woman after being hit by a commercial motorcycle (Okada) on Aba/Port Harcourt Expressway.
Nigerian Tribune learnt that three cats were crossing the busy road when the okada ran over one of them which immediately turned into a woman. This strange occurrence quickly attracted people around who descended on the animals. One of them, it was learnt, was able to escape while the third one was beaten to death, still as a cat though.
According to a source who witnessed what happened, the cat-woman said she and the two other cat-fellows had travelled from Abuja to Port Harcourt to kill three people. "The woman said they came to Port Harcourt from Abuja and that they came to kill three people. She said they had succeeded in killing two people, but the third person, whom I guess might be a pastor, was difficult for them and that they were preparing to go back to Abuja ," said the source.
Another witness, who gave his name as James, said the woman started faking when she saw that many people were gathering around her. "I have never seen anything like this in my life. I saw a woman lying on the road instead of a cat. Blood did not come out of her body at that time. When people gathered and started asking her questions, she pretended that she did not know what had happened," he said.
When the Nigerian Tribune got to the scene of the incident near Garrison Junction, the cat-woman was seen sitting on the ground with blood all over her body. The right side of her face had a deep cut from what was gathered to be from a cutlass.
She was later taken to a hospital for medical attention. It took the intervention of policemen to prevent the mob from killing her.
When reached for information from the police, the Public Relations Officer of the Rivers State police command, Mrs. Rita Inoma-Abbey, said she had been taken to the hospital.
"She has been taken to Teme Clinic. Police will still be guarding her so that she will not disappear," she said.

NIGERIANS ARE THE MOST EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS IN THE US!

IN AMERICA, DATA SHOW NIGERIANS ARE THE MOST EDUCATED IMMIGRANTS
By Leslie Casimir

• In America, Nigerians' education pursuit is above the rest
• Whether driven by immigration or family, data show more earn degrees

For Woodlands resident David Olowokere, one of Nigeria's sons, having a Master's degree in engineering just wasn't enough for his people back home. So he got a doctorate.
Nigerian David Olowokere, chairman of TSU's engineering technologies department, says the goal for his children is to do "as good as us — if not better."

ERIC KAYNE: CHRONICLE
His wife, Shalewa Olowokere, a civil engineer, didn't stop at a bachelor's, either. She went for her master's.
The same obsession with education runs in the Udeh household in Sugar Land. Foluke Udeh and her husband, Nduka, both have master's degrees. Anything less, she reckons, would have amounted to failure.
"If you see an average Nigerian family, everybody has a college degree these days," said Udeh, 32, a physical therapist at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center. "But a post-graduate degree, that's like pride for the family."
Nigerian immigrants have the highest levels of education in this city and the nation, surpassing whites and Asians, according to Census data bolstered by an analysis of 13 annual Houston-area surveys conducted by Rice University.
Although they make up a tiny portion of the U.S. population, a whopping 17 percent of all Nigerians in this country held master's degrees while 4 percent had a doctorate, according to the 2006 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. In addition, 37 percent had bachelor's degrees.

In comparison
To put those numbers in perspective, 8 percent of the white population in the U.S. had master's degrees, according to the Census survey. And 1 percent held doctorates. About 19 percent of white residents had bachelor's degrees. Asians come closer to the Nigerians with 12 percent holding master's degrees and 3 percent having doctorates.
The Nigerian numbers are "strikingly high," said Roderick Harrison, demographer at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that specializes in researching black issues. "There is no doubt that these are highly educated professionals who are probably working in the petrochemical, medical and business sectors in Houston."
Harrison analyzed the census data for the Houston Chronicle.
Stephen Klineberg, a sociologist at Rice University who conducts the annual Houston Area Survey, suspects the percentage of Nigerian immigrants with post-graduate degrees is higher than Census data shows.
Of all the Nigerian immigrants he reached in his random phone surveys 1994 through 2007 — 45 households total — Klineberg said 40 percent of the Nigerians said they had post-graduate degrees.
"These are higher levels of educational attainment than were found in any other ... community," Klineberg said.
There are more than 12,000 Nigerians in Houston, according to the latest Census data, a figure sociologists and Nigerian community leaders say is a gross undercount. They believe the number to be closer to 100,000.
Staying in school
The reasons Nigerians have more post-graduate degrees than any other racial or ethnic group are largely due to Nigerian society's emphasis on mandatory and free education. Once immigrating to this country, practical matters of immigration laws get in the way.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 made it easier for Africans to enter the U.S., but mostly as students or highly skilled professionals — not through family sponsorships, Klineberg said.
So many Africans pursue higher levels of education as an unintended consequence of navigating the tricky minefield of immigration, said Amadu Jacky Kaba, an associate professor at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., who has done research on African immigrants in the U.S.
"In a way, it's a Catch-22 — because of immigration laws you are forced to remain in school, but then the funny thing is you end up getting your doctorate at the age of 29," Kaba said. "If you stay in school, immigration will leave you alone."
Although Kaba, who teaches Africana Studies, is not from Nigeria (he is Liberian), he said he, too, found himself pursuing a master's and then a doctorate to remain in this country legally.
But not all Africans have to go this route. Some say their motivation is driven by their desire to overcome being a double minority: black and African.
Take Oluyinka Olutoye, 41, associate professor of pediatric surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. He came to this country already as a medical doctor but decided to pursue his doctorate in anatomy to help set himself apart.
"Being black, you are already at a disadvantage," said Olutoye, whose wife, Toyin Olutoye, is an anesthesiologist at Baylor. "You really need to excel far above if you want to be considered for anything in this country."

Family expectations
All this talk of education creates high expectations for children of Nigerian immigrants. The eldest child of David Olowokere, chairman of the engineering technologies department at Texas Southern University, for example, is already working on her master's degree in public health in Atlanta; the middle child is pursuing a bachelor's in pre-medicine. His youngest, a son, attends The Woodlands High School. He already has aspirations to go into engineering, just like his parents, Olowokere beams.
"The goal is for them to do as good as us — if not better," he said.
Oluyinka Olutoye put it another way, "The typical saying in a Nigerian household is that the best inheritance that a parent can give you is not jewelry or cash or material things, it is a good education," he said. "It is expected."

© 2008 Houston Chronicle

Of Creativity and Facts

Hullo!

This is actually from a dear friend and I thought I'd share it on this forum. I don't know who the original author is but it's amazing when you think of how creative guys can sometimes be with some factual elements of life which we either take for granted or choose to pretend are non-existent. What do you think about the definition of POLITICIAN, CRIMINAL and E.T.C? Here you go...

GLOSSARY OF TERMS


School: A place where Papa pays and Son plays.

Life Insurance: A contract that keeps you poor all your life so that you can die Rich.

Nurse: A person who wakes u up to give you sleeping pills.

Marriage: It's an agreement in which a man loses his bachelor degree and a woman gains her masters.

Divorce: Future tense of Marriage.

Tears: The hydraulic force by which masculine willpower is defeated by feminine waterpower.

Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of the Lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through "the minds of either"

Conference: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.

Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.

Dictionary: A place where success comes before work.

Conference Room: A place where everybody talks, nobody listens and everybody disagrees later on.

Father: A banker provided by nature.

Criminal: A guy no different from the rest....except that he got caught.

Boss: Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early.

Politician: One who shakes your hand before elections and your Confidence after.

Doctor: A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you by bills.

Classic: Books, which people praise, but do not read.

Smile: A curve that can set a lot of things straight.

Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.

Yawn: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.

Etc.: A sign to make others believe that you know more than you actually do.

Committee: Individuals who can do nothing individually and sit to decide that nothing can be done together.

Experience: The name men give to their mistakes.

Atomic Bomb: An invention to end all inventions.

Philosopher: A fool who torments himself during life, to be spoken of when dead

Keep the definition if "Smile" in your heart and let it translate into action.

Catch ya!

Lessons in Entrepreneurship

I managed to squeeze out time today to update/conclude on the topic I delved into in my last post. By the way, a big “thank you” to all of you who took out time to send me feedbacks on that post (even the ones I considered “annoying”).

What does it take to be an entrepreneur?

The word “Entrepreneur” is a borrowed French word which was first defined by Richard Cantillon, the Irish economic theorist with a Spanish name who lived in France. He is regarded by historians as the first great Economics theorist. Subsequent development of the definition of this word/concept in academic circles led to a widely accepted definition of the entrepreneur as an individual who efficiently combines and manages the factors of production to create new wealth-producing resources or endows existing resources with enhanced potential to create wealth (Entrepreneurship, A contemporary approach, 4th Edition). Having set this background of definition, I may as well just close the topic and allow your intelligent minds to make the pragmatic deductions. Entrepreneurship entails the use or if you like, management of the factors of production to create wealth. Factors of production include Land, Labour and Capital. For combination to occur at least two entities must be involved.

Several theories and myths surround the concept of entrepreneurship and what it takes to be an entrepreneur. General perceptions (although debatable) among modern economists is that entrepreneurs are “risk-hungry”. Arguably, businesses that yield the most returns are the ones that can be described as “high-risk” ventures. Successful entrepreneurs would take risks but NOT with the attitude of a gambler. The Schumpeterian entrepreneur is vigilant. He watches and screens his market before undertaking a risk. He uses one major skill - his power of intuition to surprise his competitors. The 20th century saw this entrepreneur flourish in Germany and the U.S. and he still exists in today’s 21st century. The entrepreneur, according to Schumpeter’s model is vigilance incarnate. In selecting a business enterprise, he inspects, screens, selects, he adapts and then couples his available resources to make the enterprise work and yield the desired result(s). He takes risks but never gambles. He researches his market and is never afraid to give something to gain something. His decisions are guided by a thorough accumulation of knowledge in his area of interest and possible pros and cons of his decisions. One of the failure triggers in any enterprise is a mish-mash of all sorts of decisions which cannot wait

The entrepreneur brings market and technology together at the corridor of entrepreneurship. He uses his ideas and in most cases, combines his ideas with other people’s ideas to reconstruct the economy within his locality through persistence and ability to anticipate. His ability to anticipate opens his eyes to opportunities which he certainly converts into action that would yield practical results to meet a specific need. This is called innovation.

Innovation entails bringing two different worlds (Market and Technology) together and so it is not as simple as it sounds. This is because the two elements being married evolve in an unpredictable way. It is like firing a shot in the dark or better still, firing a rocket from a platform whose coordinates are poorly calculated into a planet whose trajectory we do not have an idea of.

For innovation to be meaningful and yield the desired results, the entrepreneur must not compromise “learning as you go”. For example, after learning through several trials that functionality and profitability of fuel cells depends on catalysts which were not fully developed in the 20th century, the electric vehicle was deemed a project which realistically may not see the light of the day before the end of that century. Innovation has failed and continued to fail because so-called entrepreneurs spend more time learning and reading about managing innovation and pay less attention to lessons which can be learnt from causes and reasons for failure(s) of a venture. An innovation is said to have succeeded if it satisfies a demand. It is against this background that the facilitator be described as an entrepreneur. The price of your invention matters little; follow the market and your target consumers and you’ll certainly be counting your gains, financially and in terms of satisfaction.

To innovate is to change the consumer. Research and identify your market. Identify a need within that market and create a product that will change your consumers. But once the rules of the game are reversed, the cards redistributed, the change may actually bifurcate and put you right in the palms of your competitor(s). Innovation is created by instability and unpredictability which no method, however refined will be able to master in its entirety. Uncertainties involved in innovation include (a) Decision priority (b) Cost (c) Market fluctuations. (d) Consumer behaviour

The customer (consumer) is said to be king, but of an empire whose boundaries are poorly defined and whose laws can be described as vague. This is why market research and the power of intuition are necessary tools in entrepreneurship.

Based on the foregoing, I’ll surmise that any individual entrepreneur needs all or most of the following skills for a successful entrepreneurship;

1. Insight
2. Intuition
3. Sense of anticipation
4. Quick reaction to changes in the environment
5. Skills in the target enterprise