The World As I See It
So, you want to get married? Left to me, I would have preferred a quiet, very quiet wedding. Fortunately, we live in a social society, so my wishes could not fly. After asking Anu to marry me, it was time to involve the families. This was going to be a marriage between a fish-eating Okrika guy and an amala-downloading Yoruba lady.
Continue reading “Act 1: The Introduction”
“When I found you, I found somebody who cares”
Bebe Winans (I Found Love)
Where do we start from to tell the story of two persons who would have never imagined they’ll end up together? The story begins with a certain Jonah delivered from the fishes of the Atlantic Ocean and sent five hundred kilometres away to a land warmly called Great Ife. Two years later, a certain Anuoluwapo made a similar journey howbeit from a bubbling convergence point north of the Niger. These two persons would go on existing in the land of Oduduwa blissfully unaware of each other.
Continue reading “Once Upon a Time in Ife”
On Friday, 23 November 2018, a seven-storey building under construction in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, collapsed. With conflicting figures being bandied about, one sure point is that there were a lot of persons in that building when it collapsed because that day was a payday for workers and suppliers. As at the time of writing this article, ten days later, many persons, dead or alive are still trapped underneath the rubble. Continue reading “One Emergency Away from Doom”
It is no longer news that Nigeria got screwed in the week of 18 November 2018. This article was triggered by a grievous tweet. My country just lost over 100 trained soldiers in one week. That’s enough to upset me.
Metele Boko Haram Attack: Soldiers’ death toll rises to 118; over 150 missing https://t.co/rYkX2iBoa5
— Premium Times (@PremiumTimesng) November 24, 2018
While reading The Real Warren Buffet by James O’Loughlin, I encountered the concept of the “institutional imperative” as espoused by Warren Buffet. Contained in one of Buffet’s shareholders’ letter, he defined the concept as “the tendency of executives to mindlessly imitate the behaviour of their peers, no matter how foolish it may be to do so”. Months after reading that particular section, I encountered a scene that made me recall Buffet’s words. Continue reading “The Societal Imperative”
“There is so much that people take for granted”
— Vivienne Westwood
What does it mean to take something for granted? Does it mean to decide something is not worth being bothered about or not even remembering to think about something? A recent chat with a friend made me think about something few persons even bother about—online security. Continue reading “Something to Think About”
What do you do when three friends send you invitations to attend their wedding ceremonies holding on the same day? Decide on one to attend, right? What if the three ceremonies are holding in the same town? Would you still play favourites? What if one person was a leader at your undergraduate fellowship (marrying another former fellowship executive), one was your undergraduate classmate (marrying a “classmate” from civil engineering), and the other was a work colleague that served at the same organisation during your national service year? You now see my conundrum when three friends invited me to Ile-Ife, home of my undergraduate alma mater. Continue reading “Three Weddings and a Town”
I have had this article on my mind for a while but I just never came around to composing my thoughts until now. In checking for a quote to launch this article, I came across one attributed to Plato, which I think captures my aim for this article.
“No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding”
Prologue: The following is a redacted chat between some members of a certain WhatsApp group. The banter is around President Buhari’s candidacy in the 2019 election. I decided to turn the transcript into a blog post. Only members of that group can identify the participants. If the “S” in “Sarcasm” has not already informed you, please be aware the following conversation is intended for humour.
“The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armour. He’s dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he’s a hero the whole time”
— Frank Miller
This morning I woke up seeing the day like any other day. On my way to church, I felt the morning was a bit chilly, so I checked the weather on my phone. Surprisingly, a weather report declared today as “Fathers’ Day”. Seriously? It seems unlike its vastly less popular sister, Fathers’ Day manages to creep on us unnoticed. Continue reading “Effort Sans Celebration”
Jilomes 