Let me paint you a picture. Church service ends at 12pm. Most of the time. This Sunday, I boil white rice in the morning before we leave, so we can have rice and stew when we get back. I never make lunch before church on Sundays. I know it’ll make Sunday afternoon easier, but I have a lot to get done on Sunday mornings. The food timetable on the fridge says “fresh tomato rice” but I don’t want to do that after church today. I started reading a Marian Keyes book on Saturday night and I want to get home, feed my offspring and lie in bed reading till my head aches. There’s stew in the fridge. There’s always stew in the fridge. I just don’t like rice and stew very much. Maybe because I grew up eating it a lot. The food timetable has rice varieties for lunch every Sunday, but no rice and stew. Never rice and stew. Wow! This is a new record for digression! But all is well that provides context. Back to the picture. We get home, I heat up the stew, and serve everyone food. Except ...
First of all, is it really modern parenting? I can absolutely imagine Mama Chike in post-colonial times saying to her neighbour, “Leave Chike for me. He will learn how to fetch firewood when he wants to. Go and advice yourself!” or Papa Ebimo saying “Eh i know that all Ebimo’s mates have started practicing on their own small parcels of land, but Ebimo said he does not like it so there’s no problem. There is enough in my barn to feed all of us.” Maybe it's always been like this, or maybe we need to bring back shame. We don't have to decide. Let me tell you how parents are ruining education. Lack of participation. Do you know why a lot of kids are dumber than usual underdeveloped? (Sorry, kids.) Because their parents never speak to them. Parents are engaging less and less with their children. And we can blame the economy and how much people have to work these days, but also, very busy executives with families are making time to cheat on their spouses. So really, if you wanted t...
Shep Hyken said, “A brand is defined by the customer’s experience. The experience is delivered by the employees.” To this, I would like to add that employees deliver the same experience delivered to them . Over the years, for a really, really long time, customer experience has been at the base of organisational operations. Employees were mandated to do “whatever it takes” to make the customer happy. This looked like a great way to go then, but then the world of human resources came to the discovery that customers are treated better when the people attending to them feel valued. For this reason, in recent times, the way of work has changed. Employee experience is the perception a person has about his or her employment in an organisation. It is the totality of the encounters that the employee has with the company from the moment they come across the vacancy ad to the day they resign or retire. There are two major misconceptions of employee experience across organisations, and one ...
THIS SYSTEM IS NOT "FLAWED" The system is not flawed. I wish we would stop saying that. I really wish we would stop saying that. This system isn't flawed. It is not like a white girl with freckles or a like a black girl with stretch marks. The system is not anything like that. If you would call a cancer a flaw or maybe reference to a crippling disability as a minor defect, then sure, do carry on. The system is diseased. There is no justice in my country. There is no security. There is no health care. Children die for nothing, for NOTHING, and that's it, they just die. "OK, they're dead, too bad. No follow up questions, your honor." Where does the flaw begin and where does it end? What do you call a rash that covers the whole body from the inside out? A small problem? An issue? A lump on the breast sometimes means the breast has to be cut off, but what do you do when the whole body is one big, useless lump covered with smooth skin? ...
A few days ago, one of my lecturers asked this question in class, “Is multilingualism a blessing or a curse to Nigeria? Every student who answered the question said it was a curse. The lecturer agreed; he told us, that language should be a unifying factor for people living together in society and he bewailed the fact that it appears to be the greatest divisor in our country. The professor was not wrong, but here’s the problem, we have more than one problem. Language is not the only one; it is not even the worst one. There's more. We are corrupt. We are very corrupt; all of us. We are huge fans and defenders of unethical and illegal ways of getting things done. We do what works for us; not what is correct and/or works for everyone else. Do you wonder why we are corrupt? Or, as I’m sure you’re thinking, why I think you’re corrupt?” It is because we are selfish. We care only about ourselves, and everyone else can fall in a ditch. We do not concern ourselves with the happenin...
ON THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE AND MODERN COUPLES Dear Gentlemen, On behalf of all the enlightened ladies in the universe, I apologize for our inappropriate Champions League behavior over the years. For every second of the match we made you miss, I apologize. For every time we insisted you pull your eyes away from the TV to help us chose an outfit, I am sorry, we’re not exactly the most selfless category of humans. Here’s a drink for that bicycle kick you missed and had to settle for a replay of because we just had to make you laugh at that instagram post. We shall mend our ways; we’ll give it a shot anyway. Dear ladies, Supporting your boo’s football club is not only about wearing a jersey and a bandana; cute, but not enough. I know the game is 90minutes+, but come on! We make them read lines from books they’re not very excited about. We make them stand in the kitchen, frozen; because we want them to stay and keep us company, while touching nothing. We tempt them with del...
I think there are mainly three kinds of people. Let me tell you something about these people, but first, a disclaimer. DISCLAIMER: This post is not going to help your life in anyway. In fact, this post is a waste of your time. The rich does not refer to people who own private jets, when I find an adjective higher than rich, I’ll include those guys. The poor does not refer to the people sitting in road corners with 6 kids around their ankles and two babies on their laps. THE RICH: These are the people who live in houses with more than three rooms, use a gas cooker, own a power generator, have at least one high car (you know, the cars that make you really raise your legs so you can enter), wear good clothes and possess at least one pair of sunglasses. No one knows if these people have fancy lobsters or tapioca for dinner and if anyone discovers them chewing slices of tapioca for dinner, tapioca becomes cool. At this time, one would probably say that they are trying out local...
He's eating with an English language textbook beside him. Occasionally he pretends to eat the pictures of food on the text book and of course, stains the textbook with oil from his fingers. He sees me watching and grins. He says "I'm eating many food". Such innocence. I wish I could still see the world through five years old eyes. Nothing is impossible. Humanity is kind. Huge monsters can get under little beds, snow can fall in Africa and it isn't impossible to be both doctor and lawyer.
