The CJ Factor

Whenever I see a post that starts with "Pray for so and so", it irks me. The reason is not that I am against prayers or insensitive to the plight of the suffering, but more because I find it nauseating that people only feel compelled to pray for one place or the other only when the hype calls for it. So it is 2017 and slaves are still being sold. I see people getting on their phones and going "I cannot believe this is happening in 2017".  We all want to make trendy posts about the stuff like we only realised the existence of this issue yesterday and like nobody sold slaves in the years preceding 2017. Have you ever wondered where the diamonds and jewellery you are so in love with comes from?  How many of us can claim to really care about this stuff? Because slavery is not an end in itself but rather a means to something that does not seem to outrage people enough; CHEAP LABOUR! Please spare me your outrage and stop pretending that your being outraged on Instag...

Something remarkable is happening in Nigeria. There is a new generation of pan Nigerians emerging onto the scene. A group of young, driven, hopeful and hardworking dreamers, developers, and leaders who see beyond the limitations and drawbacks of political and socio-economic issues and are buying into a vision of a new world, a vision which is exploding at an exponential rate worldwide. A dream so big that it overshadows with ease, decades past of mistakes and offers incredible opportunities for the future and indeed the very present.   This group of people is not from Mars. They are amongst you and your friends. As a matter of fact, many of them have been dismissed by you and your friends as pipe dreamers or whatever else you might choose to call them. Call them what you will but they are here to stay and believe it, so are their dreams. I attended a conference recently where the majority of attendees were young entrepreneurs between the ages of 19 and 35. These folks and...

  Let us gather the bullshit. I mean all the bullshit in the street. If you live in one of the less trespassed areas in Nigeria then perhaps this article is arguably further away from home for you than for many others but feel free to participate, there is enough bullshit to go round. One of the most provable truths of man’s existence is that at the heart of every problem lies a practical attainable solution which more often than not represents opportunity. Sometimes it is merely a small matter of finding the compromise and the willingness to consider flipping the script. The Nomadic Cattle farmers popularly known as ‘Fulani Herdsmen’ for the longest time imaginable (at least since the amalgamation, which is when we started keeping score), have been the poster boys of controversy relating to grazing control. Some of the more severe issues involve the damaging of crops. While that is a slightly more complex problem to solve, there is also the problem of pollution which is a l...

The world is rapidly changing right before our eyes. The Cornelius van Der Bilts of this age i.e the Bill gates and co of the dot.com era have paved the way and laid the foundations for the new set of industrialists ready to take the world….literally take it. DISCLAIMER!! THIS IS NOT AN ARTICLE ABOUT BITCOIN. Yes the blockchain technology is awesome and revolutionary, cryptocurrencies are the future of money and yes you should invest your life savings and thank me later with a handsome cheque. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me proceed to the matter at hand. I watched a presentation today that opened my eyes to a possibility that has pretty much been staring us in the face, and has been a sort of pseudo reality for most countries in the third world but has never been quite so neatly articulated or attempted, at least not so directly. We all know that multinational corporations have pretty much ruled Africa for the past three centuries. I do not want to go into th...

It won’t be long before we all will be saying the things we have always known we would come to say if things continued the way they have up to this point. For the first time in the history of this country there are two separatist groups, officially declared terrorists   by the state operating in the North East and South East of our beloved nation. It is quite literally a matter of things falling apart and the centre being unable to hold. The poor handling of the Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB situation has presented us with a bit of a quagmire in the now troubled south eastern region of the country. We, the vastly silent majority who just want to live peacefully, are all cried out! We are yet again at the precipice. It’s the usual pre election year dance and everyone is playing dress up. Some are in the dated costumes of reverence and some are dressed as pythons. We dance along with pythons and men in Isi Agu, singing the monkey’s song and all the while fated to bear the burnt of a fire we ...

The more things change, the more the stay the same. This is the story of the world we live in today as we seem to be stagnated in a constant flux between the hopeful possibility of a better, more peaceful, healthier future and a cataclysmic devolution into irreversible anarchy. The handwritings are on the walls and pretty much everywhere else you look. Global Warming is ravaging the earth - no thanks to our collective irresponsibility. Global warfare on another note has spiralled out of control, with the institutions of state facing new kinds of enemies - the faceless kinds who are happy enough to just spread the gospel of fear. Global population is on an uncontrollable rise and we all keep saying the same things, attributing our actions and inactions to the will of the almighty. It all has to be part of THE PLAN. We pretend that the world is some kind of fictional place where all our actions have pre determined consequences of which we need not take responsibility and when they turn ...

When I settled that I would write about water, the first thought that came to my mind was the lyrics of Fela's hit song; ' If you fight am unless say you wan die! water... e no get enemy' it goes on about the near omnipotence of the earth's most prominent substance, its characteristic neutrality and our non-negotiable dependence on it. The human body contains up to 70 percent water. According to HH Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry , Our brain and heart comprise 73 percent water, while our lungs are around 83 percent water. The skin has up to 64 percent water, muscles and kidneys are 79 percent, while our least watery parts, bones comprise 31 percent water. {usgs.gov} . If I may put it in this context, you are about 20 percent shy of being as much 'water' as a watermelon. The health benefits of drinking enough water are numerous, from improved organ functionality to better skin and even improved mental health. Studies have shown that drinking at least ...

We are at yet another trying period for our democracy. As speculations intensify about Mr President's health, Nigerians cannot help but wonder what the very near future holds for our nation. As someone put it to me recently "we are back to playing politics". Indeed it's fair to say that in the past year and half or so, governance rather than politics has dominated our national polity. Opinions may vary about Mr President's policies and actions or inaction, but one thing we can agree on is that for the most part Nigerians have  kept the focus of the debate on governance, much unlike the previous administration whose years were dominated by political hullabaloos and grand corruption culminating in the 2015 General elections. Mr President's health challenges have in recent times rekindled a familiar and bitter taste of political bickering over who should replace him come 2019. The rumour mills have been running on overdrive, talks of a resignation and even certa...

I have been meaning to tell you this for a long time. I am sick and tired of you blaming me.  I haven't done anything but be here for you, as I was for your father, his father before him and for many generations past. Still you leave me at the slightest opportunity, making excuses for your ineptitude and blaming me, just as your father did. But we both know I am not the problem.  I give you everything, as I did your father before you. I gave him my fertility, my beauty and my wealth as I have given you today but all he did was abuse and scorn me, drenched me in the blood and tears of my children whom you've forced me to bury before their time. You fight one another as though I am not enough for you all, as though I haven't always been. Then you turn around and run away as though another isn't immediately born in your place who thanks to your hateful cowardice grows up to resent me too. I'm not the one with a problem. I am not the one who steals from me and then lock...

It is the year 2037 and Nigeria is a nation on the rise. Since restructuring the federal system of government almost two decades ago, the nation and her six regions have witnessed tremendous economic growth thanks to the reformation of the power sector and previously unimaginable political stability. Education has been revived and the nation has since made bold strides in public health care delivery for her over 240 million citizens, as well as attainable public housing schemes. The nation's leader addressed the United Nations general assembly and during her speech, she expressed great optimism that the African giant can sustain the current growth rate and further build on it. "Our people have sacrificed a lot for our progress, getting to where we are today and it is with great pride that I stand before you all on this historic day. It is not news to anybody that our country was stuck for many decades in the rut of corruption which was the major factor hampering other ...

The evolution of education is inevitable. Classroom learning is fast becoming obsolete as the information age rapidly advances at the palm of our hands. Anyone with a smartphone can access the greatest library ever known to man and can learn just about anything, sitting on their couch, as long as they can read, remain connected, dedicated and disciplined. Of course that last bit is the tricky part as it is as well in the classroom setting. There is no use in me going over the great possibilities that abound on the internet as far as education is concerned. What interests me is the question of how the future of education in this part of the world is shaping up. According to the NCC, there are over 91 million  Nigerians connected to the internet. That is around 48 percent of our population with access, albeit most often at snail speed. Yet you can't help but be astonished at the immensity of the potentials if more direction can be provided to speed up the integration of internet res...

I must say from the perspective of a Nigerian, it is rather fascinating how  there is a fairly clear divide between what you call the Left and Right. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, our political fabric is not comprised of Left and Right views. Intrestingly most of the subjects of the ideologies which constitutes left or right views in Nigeria are taboo. Religion is forced down your throat from childhood. We build everything on it and then we place it on top of everything and any questioning of it is met with deliverance services and ostracization if your demons of curiousity persist. We do not discuss same sex anything, in fact same sex interraction is a crime punishable by 14 years inprisonment and Same sex marriage is a capital offence punishable by death so that tells you all you need to know about how we treat the subject. This is not to say that we do not have gays amongst us. I would provide statistics to back this up but...

I am in the backseat of a Volkswagen wagon on the highway from Zungeru. I just opened my last bag of chips and plugged my earphones to Kid Kudi singing The Prayer. The road is proving unsurprisingly thrilling and subtly revealing the reasons behind its pull on dedicated and professional travelers. It is very easy to get sucked into the love of the wind and occasional dust in your face. The freedom of being in a place where you are nobody. The glimmer in the eyes of the locals when they witness your astonishment at simple elements of their daily lives. They also respond with hostility when you try to objectify them, as in their physical bodies. They don't mind you taking pictures of their landscape or the livestock but you don't just take a picture of Almajiri boys hurdled by the roadside on the highway to Kontagora. They will throw rocks at you. Can't have everything right?

Soon all this will be over, all this talk and whisper. This is my time and I will not spend another day in wait. The streets are clear as we move through them. No police, no traders, no beggars or tourists. The streets are empty for us. There is nothing in our way except for the stray goats and local birds who judge us with their melodious chirps as we make our way out into the town. Soon it will all be over. Mercy and Grace are both behind me. I cannot see them but I know that they are there. Baba is in front of me. He will be most  pleased when all this is over. He says it all the time. This is what needs to happen for Goodness sake.  A year ago I came here afraid but I don't know the meaning of fear anymore. It came some nights in the  form of loud explosions and some nights it was a silent shadow. Some days it was the thought of  going home, on other days it was the dread of forgetting where home is. This morning it is nothing. One year later and the world sti...

Reacting to the result of the most recent referendum in Britain where they have voted to leave the European Union, I'd like to point out a positive lesson that is being ignored in the wake of the development. I am talking about the sheer honesty of democracy, albeit working against apparently superior reasoning. It is yet another example of how democracy takes power from the so called superior minority and places it in the palms of the vast and mostly ignorant majority, to do with it as they will. The people have spoken and history has been made. Whether it will be for better or worse is only a question of time. This brings me to the issue that is weighing on my mind today. The right to Self determination is one of the core liberties of the individual as well as the society at large. If a person or people have that right taken away from them either blatantly or via proxy, such a person or people are automatically robbed of the imagination and courage required to develop themselves...

Whenever I use the public transport system in this town I always get a story. It's because the public transportation allows one to interact with the society and feel it's pulse in a way that is almost impossible from the comfort of a private vehicle. So yesterday I got off a bus at Julius Berger round about at around 5pm, rush hour. Naturally there was a fair amount of traffic, pedestrian and vehicular. I had just arrived in the city from my outpost in Gwagwalada and I was hurrying to get in a cab and out of the blistering sun. That was when I saw something that made me stop. There was a crippled man along the sidewalk. His limbs were shrunk and shriveled and he could only manage to drag his malnourished body along the curb using his forearm while accepting alms from motorists and passersby who threw their loose change in his direction. He looked very exhausted and he had his hands full but every time a  note was thrown out of a moving car or dropped by a pedestrian he would ...

I am holding my head in my hand. I have been doing that a lot lately. When I was younger, older people would rebuke you for doing that. “What is a child like you thinking about that you need to hold your head in your hands” they would say. I did not understand it then but today it makes perfect sense. What in the world could worry a child to the point that he holds his head in his hands? Has he felt the joy of success in relation to the ignominy that comes with failure? Or has he experienced love in relation to the crushing pain of betrayal? The answer to most adults is probably ‘of course not’. But think again. In their own ‘little’ world, children feel these emotions in the same way that adults do. Consider this. The big problems to a 20 year old would come off as ridiculous to a 50 year old, in the same way that the troubles of a 5 year old would seem laughable to a 15 year old. The point is that the struggle begins from the day we are forced to draw our first breath of this cruel ...

I was just on Twitter minding my own business and airing my views on a recently trending topic. Yes, you guessed right - the 'Transfiguration' of Bruce Jenner. I said that it is a disgrace to men and women alike. I also said that his action after more than 5 decades of being alive, is a perfect example of what emasculation can result to. I stand by my words because I believe that what he did is unnatural.  Some people disagree. They are of the opinion that there is nothing unnatural about a sex change. Someone even went as far as to compare the situation to barrenness. All I can say is that barrenness like many natural defects is something that should be solved because it is natural to procreate. Barrenness is a a challenge that causes families sadness and disappointment. A sex change is a whole other thing. It is a person being u satisfied with the way they are born and taking the matter into their surgeon's hand so that they can wear a bra instead of boxers or boxers inst...

I woke up to a cold and breezy morning, a wave of fresh air greeted the Nigerian airways as news of Change dominated the conversations. As I drove out I could feel it in the general mood in the streets which used to feel so tensed. It is peace. I mean a genuine sense of accord with the national direction, more than I have ever felt in the last five years. I have never been this optimistic and proud of our Nigeria! Understanding has finally come through in our time. When the news broke that President Jonathan called the president elect, I thought that it was a turning point in the history of our democracy. One of those phone calls you can make a movie about. Huge step for our politics. It shows that we have woken from our slumber as citizens. I can only pray that we have what it takes to stay awake as we embark on this journey toward redemption.  Leaders come and go but the state is a permanent entity whose sovereignty belongs to the people. It is high time we as Nigerians exert our...