Category: Randoms

Politics, Randoms

A Nation’s Love for Untrue Numbers

Jilomes

Oh, yeah! The most populous black nation just marked 63 years of overt separation from colonial strangulation. Despite some overhanging sense of despair, independence, real or faux, is surely worth celebrating, especially considering that whereas Nigeria has failed to achieve its potentials, it has surely made significant progress standing without the Union Jack. So, we can say a hearty congratulations to Nigeria and continue to hope that our nation’s story can be rewritten for good; that we may build a nation that works for the generality of its people—a nation where peace and justice reign.

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Randoms

An African’s Take on the Titanic’s Titan

Jilomes

“But wetin this oyinbo people go find for there sef”

I have long accepted my cross as an offline search engine cum facts aggregator providing value added services to my bosses. But whereas I wish I could request a salary increase attuned to the higher costs of staying current, this article is not about negotiating a raise. My boss’ question mirrored the minds of many Africans and even non-Africans wondering why anyone would pay US$250,000 (almost ₦200 million) to increase the number of persons lost to the Titanic.

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Change, Randoms

As We Are Pushed to Become Less Humane

Jilomes

Today is Father’s Day, which, bless the Lord, we are happy not to share with the other day that commemorates toilets. Here I am on Father’s Day, in a hotel far from home, but rather than reflecting on the blessedness of fatherhood, I am scribbling words on another issue that has been on my mind for a bit. I have written in the past on Father’s Day, but today, let me lament on the society’s gradual slide away from the humaneness of humanity.

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Randoms

A Love-Hate Relationship with Noise

Jilomes

In secondary school, we were told in Physics class that “noise is unwanted sound”. While we half-heartedly memorised this definition and other physical concepts of sound like loudness, frequency, and quality, we may not have considered the philosophical side of noise. It now appears to me that properly describing noise could present the same quagmire like terrorism, where one’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist. But if that analogy is considered too extreme, we may make do with viewing noise as one’s food being another person’s poison.

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Politics, Randoms

When Chinatown Lacks Chinese

Jilomes

Imagine walking into a place called Chinatown and needing a thick bifocal to see any person of Chinese descent. Except that town were Lilliputian in dimensions, while you were Brobdingnagian, it would be extremely weird, and you would be forgiven for thinking that being all righteous, the Chinese had been raptured. This seemingly implausible situation is currently playing out in Nigeria, where the Naira, the national currency, now competes with petrol in the Scarcity Championships.

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Randoms

Wicked Doctors Leaving Nigeria in Droves

Jilomes

There was a time when Nigerians were so proud of their country that they would hurry back home to build their careers, preferring the simplicity of their homeland to the ill-gotten wealth of yonder. But what do we have today? A young Nigerian is admitted to an ultra-subsidised university, merely suffers a little sprinkling of strike actions, gets awarded a MBBS degree, begins the stipulated medical internship and immediately starts plotting to leave the land that trained him. How much more wicked can we be?

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Randoms

To Japa or Not to Japa

Jilomes

Life is a potpourri of numerous choices we make, of which some decisions are key because of their overreaching impact on how our lives shape up from that point. In today’s Nigeria, especially among people who fit certain criteria, one such decision is whether to leave Naija (“to japa”) or stay back within its territory. As social media continues to be regaled with a nouveau popular meme announcing a glassy welcome to a new dispensation, we may draw some wisdom from an adaptation of author Julie Kagawa’s writing that “there are no good choices …only those you can live with, and those you can work to change”.

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Randoms

Ajaokuta, Also Known as Nigeria

Jilomes

It’s been a while since I wrote any article. I have been thoroughly submerged by work, yet it is work that has birthed this article. I recently had a short stay in Ajaokuta to undertake certain assignments for my employer within the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited. Of course, I cannot tell why I was inside the famous plant, but having been there, the parallels between that infamous place and Nigeria were enough to inspire this article with hope that some may learn a thing or two from the corroding potentials that seem only good for grasses, snakes, and apes.

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Change, Randoms

A Game of Russian Roulette called Parenting

Jilomes

If you have any links to Nigeria, you may have heard of the latest travesty involving some kids aged 10-13 (or 15?), or even watched a certain related video, which I have heard features esoteric sex styles that might give porn actors a run for their expertise. You may have also seen a video of a mother providing cover while her under-12 daughter steals a mall-goer’s handbag. If any of these make you lose hope in the next generation, remember that about a century ago, a bunch of Russians would place a single bullet in a revolver, roll the chamber, pull the trigger, and hope to live.

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Randoms

The Unseen Burden of History

Jilomes

It was Laura Linney who described history as “a resource”, but many times, we gloss over history as some unplugged cousin that we have been forced to babysit, whereas we should be mining it for information. Sitting through a Zoom lecture, I just had an epiphany that hit me hard enough to get my laptop and start tapping in rhythm to the fresh insight coasting through my neurones.

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