One of my popular arguments on this medium (read: Medium) is that for Nigeria to find geometric advance, the country needs to find meaning to nationhood rather than trying to pursue an ethnic agenda. I raised the analogy that “fractured societies don’t scale” and we might do injustice to Nigeria’s greatness if we keep scavenging over the parts rather than building the whole. Well, is it okay to change one’s mind that such aspiration remains utopian in the context of the nation’s direction as it appears that the lines struggle to converge?
The current disposition of the leaders who in…
Please blame pandemic-induced boredom but I savour snatching a coaching license. I have done a bit of research; it would take me 3 years to move into professional coaching. I take this very un-seriously as my mind runs with multiple ideas. I think I know a little bit about football. Who doesn’t think he/she knows? We fancy ourselves as great pundits and analysts but stepping into the ring is a different thing. Ask Lampard, Gary Neville and Tim Sherwood, they learnt the “highway”.
Let’s create a hypothesis that I am Chelsea’s 20th manager under Roman Abramovich (the team is on…
Bumping in 2020 would not be an erasure of the past that I grappled with till the end of 2019. This is why we need to be sober about the flip of the calendar as old habits hardly change overnight, the old issues never die. It requires intentionality that accompanies discipline to flip the script of human behaviours and the emerging context, as humans, we know not of.
I came into the year, furious with deep betrayal. I was really sad that while I tried all to protect my name — a family name — and keep my family away…
I am a big fan of US history. However, I have been so reluctant to publish this piece due to the ugly footprint of racism in US economic history. I will try but keep this footnote on your minds.
My recent book was Capitalism in America, a book by Alan Greenspan - the longtime US Fed Chairman — and Adrian Wooldridge. I really enjoyed it but let distil 6 ideas that resonated with me on how the US came to be a gigantic economic force.
- The Gift of God: A nation might have nothing in endowments like Taiwan or South…
Five years ago, my company threw a party in honour of my 30th birthday. Family, friends, colleagues and my then-fiancee-now-wife, were present. It was a buzz of great things to come. Two years later, a year filled with good times, I started noticing changes I didn’t want to admit to myself. For this reflection, I’ll focus on four attitudes that are changing my life.
I had an itch around my eyes. I was advised to see an ophthalmologist, but I declined. It got worse, so bad, that I had to eventually agree, schedule an appointment and make it in time…
If there is any record left for Chelsea in the English Premier League that the fans keep as a bragging right, it is the astonishing 15 goals conceded in Mourinho first season. It is incredible no team has come close to the record. Well, Chelsea conceded 54 EPL goals in a season, the highest in the top 10 of the Premier League. It calls for huge concern. As often said, “great defences win titles’’. Let us take a look at the pattern of a porous defence all over the season.
- Defending is a unit philosophy: To really understand defending is…
I am no movie expert. I remembered being tortured by wife into watching Deadpool at the cinema. I slept off, finding it difficult to enjoy. However, how did I find time to complete seven seasons of Game of Thrones, rightly waiting for the final season? Well, I watched GOT with a pen and notepad and I am happy to share my life lessons from the characters.
- Ned Stark: Pragmatism in a Complex World
A few people would have rightly counted him as foolish. But that is how society sees folks who are trying to be consistent in honour and duty…
AN UPDATE ON MY RECENT APPOINTMENT
Friends,
Kindly recall that I sent out a note recently on my interest to seek new experiences and that I would be working as a Technical Adviser to the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning for a short period.
It is clear that recent media reports about my appointment have created a complex narrative, which I believe would engender an atmosphere of mistrust, as I planned to proceed.
Upon further reflections on the furore that has been generated by my new role as the Technical Adviser to the Minister of State for…
Friends, I have accepted to take up an advisory role underwritten by an international development agency for an initial period of six months . I believe that to guard the reputation of BudgIT, I need to take an operational break and make my new position public.
In a technical advisory role, I shall be supporting the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba, along the issues of budget reform, development planning, and revenue growth. …
The first time I saw Barack Obama on stage, I slept throughout the session. How bizarre that was! It was the 2017 Goalkeepers’ event in New York. I sat beside Bisola of the Big Brother Nigeria fame; she bathed in newly mined stardust but the pain of jetlags subdued by body, a constellation of stars could not even keep me awake. I learnt nothing (I found the recording on Facebook and watched again).
Honoured to be part of Obama’s Scholars Program, proved to me that meeting Barack again is essential, and this time, I would be actively listening. I made…
