A commitment to reawakeing a keen desire for integrity, dignity, political and ethnic integration in our nation NIGERIA.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
A tale of many thieves
Monday, November 7, 2011
The Making of Nigeria’s Mark Zuckerberg
Every time read about the young billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg, I have a mixed feeling of envy and admiration for him. What scares me most, however, is that more than 80% of Nigerians in his age group do not even know who he is, talk less of share the kind of vision and passion he has. If you have not heard about that name before, you certainly might have heard of Facebook and probably have it opened on your desktop as you are reading this.
Mark, 27 years old, is the founder and CEO of Facebook and currently the 52nd richest person in the world, worth $13.7 Billion, a number behind Nigeria’s richest man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote according to Forbes. He found Facebook at the age of 20 from his dorm room and has since grown the social networking forum to a multi-billion dollar business.
Facebook started off only as an opportunity for students to upload and share pictures with each other and it spread beyond Harvard campus, where Mark was a student at the time, to other campuses such as Colombia, Yale, Stanford, and Cornell. Mark and his co-founders were approached by several companies to sell Facebook to them which they declined since they were not after the immediate monetary reward but wanted to build a platform that will forever change the world – a powerful and modest vision, I’d say!
I have once written an article on this and I will yet mention it again. It breaks my heart to consider what an average Nigerian youth spends his/her time doing. Be it a lady or a guy, you will find that a Nigerian youth is fully occupied with UEFA cup, EPL, African Magic, Musicals, Movies and even Facebook itself.
I look at this mix and it further makes me sad as I do not see anything in this list that smells like a Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin or Jerry Yang, all who made the Forbest Richest list under the age of 30. It will not be farfetched if one looks at the environment in which these people grew up and the kind of environment we are being exposed to in Nigeria. How can one explain why the seating president of Nigeria who is seeking a re-election refuse an interview with a renowned and globally recognized literary icon, Chimamanda Adichie and yet honour a staged faux pas called an interview with D-Banj?
Then you wonder why every young mind wants to be like D-Banj and not like Chimamanda.
Once again, we approach the general elections in Nigeria and we have the opportunity to define what kind of environment we want our kids and wards to grow up in when we cast out votes; a country that encourages them, from their infanthood, to see the world as full of opportunities and equip them to enjoy these opportunities. An environment that provides them with the tools, knowledge base, minds and resources to pursue their individual passion and make a living out of it.
To be furnished with leaders that they can dream to become like. It is no longer a secret that President Barack Obama of the United States had always found a mentor in Abraham Lincoln and it was not a surprise that he not only made history as the first black American president but also the only president after Abraham Lincoln to come from Chicago, Illinois.
Presently, there is no leader in Nigeria I would like to model my life after as they have all failed us woefully, amassing immense wealth for themselves at the detriment of the masses.
Nigeria needs leaders, models, mentors and history makers that the younger generation can learn from and as a result, aspire to grow their intellectual base so that tomorrow, a Nigerian can also feature in the list of the youngest richest people in the world, not from ill-gotten wealth, but as products of highly intellectual investment.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
PDP Presidential Primary - The twist and turns!
Lets consider the first twist: GEJ wins the party ticket. What this means for the South-South is that they finally get the opportunity to rule the country since its 50 years of independence. Therefore, majority of the people from this region will vote for him. Also, a lot of people from the South-West and South-East have developed a strong bias for him (this I dislike with a big disgust) based on the situation surrounding his ascendancy into power. However, for two reasons, the Northerners will massively vote for any strong northern candidate from an opposition party. First, a large majority of the Northerners think its the turn of a northerner to be president and the second reason being that Atiku will muscle every ounce of strength to ensure GEJ does not win the election by turning the votes of northerners.
Alternatively, if Atiku wins the ticket, the scale will largely tilt against him in the general elections for three reasons. One, GEJ with the power of incumbency will ensure that Atiku does not win the election either by ensuring a free and fair election or contesting on the platform of another party(in which he will never win) and rig some sizeable number of votes for himself. A proof to this was in a statement credited to GEJ saying and I quote, "...if I sink, I will sink this boat(PDP) with me..." . Secondly, OBJ who is an arch enemy of Atiku, will ensure with his last breadth that Atiku does not win the election because if he does, it will spell the doom of OBJ since Atiku will ensure that OBJ is disgraced, ridiculed and jailed. Thirdly, Nigerians really do not want Atiku and will gladly go for any other strong northener contesting in any of the opposition parties.
Now, what does this mean? Whatever direction it tilts, PDP is bound to fail in the coming elections.
Well, I did not forget, but left it for the last to mention that my just concluded remark, "...PDP is bound to fail...", becomes tenable on only one condition....BUHARI & RIBADU DO NOT RUN ON SEPERATE PLATFORMS!!! One has to step down for the other and if not, PDP (Atiku or GEJ), will surely steal the day!!!
NIGERIA WILL FLOURISH AGAIN...