The CJ Factor

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 ...