Avoiding heartache in business….

One of my favorite TV Series is Hustle – a group of five con men (Albert, Stacey, Danny, Ash, and Mickey) who function as a modern Robin Hood crew. Exacting judgement n greedy, dubious businessmen, they operate under a set of rules, first of which is, “you cannot cheat an honest man’. Flip side to that is, “when someone wants to gain something for nothing, give them nothing for something”.

Apart from crushing heavily on Mickey (Adrian Lester) and his ‘out-of-this-world’ smile, I love Hustle because each episode exposes me to the different ways people bring heartache upon themselves by trying to reap where they have not sown, make ridiculous profits, or even worse, defraud the next man. Are the Hustle team righteous? Of course not; evil cannot cancel out evil, and two wrongs don’t make a right. Still love them though!

Away from Hustle, I have two rules for avoiding heartache in business. These two nuggets are guaranteed winners long as they’re applied exactly as prescribed.

1. There is social media and the ‘miracles’ it will work for your business as far as publicity and advertising are concerned. There is also something called a work ethic, without which both the social media platforms, and the business will fail. Unfortunately today young business owners spend more time tweeting and facebooking about their businesses than actually getting any work done.

Quick example: a friend of mine had a business and is quite active on social media promoting it; we’ll call her A. Recently, another friend (call her B) tweeted about needing the service A offers so I introduced them on Twitter. Two days after B tweets that A kept her waiting for four hours and she’s never using her service again.

Social media – good work ethic + all the recommendations in the world = heartache, brought on by failure.

2.Much as you can, avoid doing business with family, especially in parts of the world where ‘family’ is exalted over professionalism. I’ve written about landlords letting their property to family and the drama that goes with that, but I have a personal example now.

My family needed a service, and contracted two different companies to provide it – three items from Company A, and three items from Company B (who we’re distantly related to).

Company A delivers on schedule; on inspection the goods are of a good quality, and there is evidence that they used their initiative. Company B is paid in full, yet the goods are two weeks late. There are major errors in one during the draft inspection so it’s sent back.

48 hours to when these goods will be used, they’re yet to arrive, and the representative is unreachable. Several calls without any response and then by 5pm the representative picks up and says, “I’m in fellowship please, you’re calling my Galaxy Tab and its ringtone is loud”.

Took all of me (and some) to be civil and for a few reasons

• How was I to know you were in church? If you’d had picked up the entire day we’d been ringing your phone, or had the decency to return the calls….
• I have one number for  you. What other way should I have tried to reach you? Seance? Mind travel? By the way, I’m excited you have a Galaxy Tab, SMH.
• Why didn’t you just deliver when you said you would?

This rep sent someone to deliver the goods the day before they were to be used (didn’t have the courtesy to bring them personally or even send a delivery/quantity note), and you can bet they were substandard. What did we do? Nothing. Why? Family. Will we use Company B’s service again? Not even if our lives depended on it!

There you have it! Thank me later…

Related articles

• The 7 Deadly Sins of Social Media (business2community.com)
• Heartaches and Headaches (haphazardhappenings.wordpress.com)
• Using Social Media: Show and Tell (asocialmedium.wordpress.com)

GTB and Me: short story.

I’ve been a Guaranty Trust Bank customer since 2003, just under thirteen years. A child born then would have started their period or had their first wet dream, depending on their gender. To be honest, I got the account because a close family friend worked there, and in the days when ATM’s weren’t popular, it was easy to ‘check my balance’ anytime I wanted.

Moved from one account to five in 2o10, needed the domiciliary accounts because I was going to school. Since then I’ve fallen in and out of love with GTBank several times and I’m almost equating my relationship with them to being in an abusive relationship I’m gathering the willpower to leave.

Some days I’ve found out my account was frozen (for the most silly, unfathomable reasons) when I tried to use my card, other days their ‘system was down’, while on some other days the card would just be declined, on a well-funded account. Each time I’d have to call, stay on hold (you know the drill), exchange emails, and not get anything sorted till I yelled. And then I’d feel bad about it later.

But, I have stayed. Why? Cos even with their cumbersome token business, theirs is the only Nigerian internet banking system I use, and so far, so good. Plus, being able to use my Naira card abroad is just brilliant. Saves me both time, and charges with transfers to my accounts here.

Today though, I’m livid.

I traveled to Nigeria on the 7th of March, got in early in the morning on the 8th. Same day, I went to GTBank situated in Bloomsbury Plaza, in Wuse 2, and asked for a new ATM card. My card would expire in April, my ticket back to England was dated 01-04-2013 (also known as the 1st of April), and I didn’t want to take any chances with it not being ready.

I spoke with Jimoh Ojo, a Customer Care Representative, and explained that I needed the card before the 1st because I needed to travel with it. He said I didn’t need to make a request for it, that my card would automatically be sent to Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, where the account was opened. I had no business there and I said so, and so he said to request a new card, I would be charged for it, and it would take eight days, during which the card I had would be disabled. I agreed, filled out a form, and left.

Traveled to the East a couple days after, got back to Abuja on Monday, and visited the bank on Wednesday the 27th of March to pick up the card. To start with, I had to stand and wait for the said Customer Care Representative to finish taking pictures of his colleague, then the female beside him asked what I was there for. I told them and after I wrote out my account number on a sheet of paper they provided, Jimoh Ojo said (very calmly), “your card would have been sent to Abakaliki”.

I nearly passed out. With all the pains I took to get to the bank on the 8th just to avoid this, and all the advice I was given? GTBank had NINETEEN (19) days to provide a card they claim is ready in 8 days, and what do I hear? With all the civility I had left, I explained the events of the 8th, expressed my displeasure and then he said, “let me see if the card was sent here”. Of course it wasn’t there. To check if the card had really been sent to Abakaliki, and I was told, “the system is down”.

Anger. Frustration. Disgust. Especially when they started on the ‘don’t be offended please’. Really? I should be ecstatic and probably buy you roses for not doing your job? I was going to sit and wait for the ‘system to come back up’ but he promised to sort it and let me know (plus I had so much to do) so I left. To be fair, he called later that evening, but only to say the system was still down. *sigh*

Thursday the 28th of March was the last working day before Easter, nothing. No word, no card.

I returned to England yesterday, without my ATM card, and bile in my heart, especially since when I tweeted about it, the silly person behind GTBank’s Twitter account sent me the generic, spam type message – Hi, our sincere apologies. Please contact us via careonline@gtbank.com with details of this issue. Thank you- they send to every tweet they’re mentioned in (I’m sure if I checked well they’d give that reply to a greeting as well).

Not due in Nigeria till Christmas time so dear Guaranty Trust Bank, what do I do? I’ll rephrase; what are you going to do?

I slept……

Good morning!

If you’re reading this, you’re still here, in the land of the living, and it is something everything to be grateful for. Regardless of what is right and what isn’t, you’re still here, and therefore there’s still hope. Remember the bit in the Bible that says, “a living dog is better than a dead lion?” Truism.

Last night like a lot of you I heard Goldie Harvey was dead. Oluwabimpe Susan ‘Goldie’ Harvey, aged 31. Goldie from Big Brother Africa for me, because now that I think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a song she did. Anyway  I was like, ‘no way, not possible’! The same person who was at the Grammy’s on Sunday? I remember having a conversation with one of my buddies about her music, and the need for music artistes to stick with labels that would be able to go the distance with/for them.

After all the back and forth on Twitter on why her death was announced on a blog, if she was dead at all, why she died, the nastiness of some, baby girl is really dead. Just like that. And I literally went to bed in shock. #RIPGoldie

This morning I’m reminded more than ever how much of our lives is a gift….Life is fleeting, so short, so brisk, here today and tomorrow gone. How anything can happen. Anything. We go out, come back, travel, eat in our homes or out, drive, take public transportation, fall in and out of love, even sleep – in doing any of these, our lives can just be taken away. But, you’re reading this so you’re still here.

Are you grateful? Or are you murmuring and grumbling about having £10 when you wanted £1, 000, 000? Or you’re whining because your life isn’t all you expected it would be at this time? Think about it – we’re not any better than the ones who have passed, not more righteous, not prettier, wealthier, not more deserving of life, but we’re still here. I don’t know about you but I slept, I woke up, and I’m grateful.

This morning I’m also reminded about how fast death happens, and the jolting shock, each time. Here today, tomorrow no more, for whatever reason. I’ve written about death before, when I lost a dear uncle, when we lost a baby and an aunty in a week, and after attending a service at an Anglican church; the sermon was on death and it touched my soul. You never get used to death; never.

My heart goes out to Goldie’s family, my thoughts and prayers are with them in this very difficult, excruciating time even. And for those of us still here, each day we have is a gift.

May the soul of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace, Amen.

Related articles

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Garbage in, Nigerian Police Force out!

Easy Thursday evening; reading up on the requirements for one job I’ve been eyeing when I stray to Twitter (*sigh*) and see a link to an article by @BellaNaija titled, ‘N150 Daily Meal Allowance, 50 Recruits Sharing A Fish Head… More Sad Facts Emerge about the Nigerian Police College, Lagos‘. Convinced that @BellaNaija is determined to be a gossip blog this year, I click n the link. What I see is an official news report by Channels TV on the appalling, shameful living conditions of trainee Police Officers.

The video below is off the official news report, shot at the Police Training College in Ikeja, Lagos State, where the recruits are fed three N50 meals in a day, =N150.

A little perspective for you: about Christmas time the exchange rate was about one dollar to one hundred and sixty naira ($1 = N160), and one pound to between two hundred and fifty-eight and two hundred and sixty naira (£1 = N258 or N253). So that’s our government, feeding its potential security force on literally less than a dollar a day! A little more perspective; here’s what the President and his Vice have budgeted for their meals in the same 2013. The picture below was gotten off Punch Newspaper.

Do the math, keep dividing till you get to the cost of individual meals. And I intentionally left the feeding budget for dogs in.

And the Police Boss in the video had no scruples with saying, ‘N150 a day, it is very meagre’. No Sir, it’s not meagre, it’s an absolute disgrace! It is the reason the Police Force is a joke!

Christmas 2012 I was driving to an event, and I got to a Police checkpoint. The man said, ‘Madam anything for your boys, make I take buy indomie’. Noodles? I was shamed, and I gave him N500. So it’s degenerated from asking for ‘money for the weekend’ to asking for money for indomie noodles? How is that Police officer supposed to catch a thief? How won’t he subvert the law for the highest ‘indomie money giver’!!

Back to the video. How do we eat like mice and expect to poop like elephants? We grumble and cuss our Policemen for being below standard; after watching that video I’m even surprised we have Policemen at all!

The bit with the recruits huddled around the bucket where they were sharing fish brought tears to my eyes; was reminiscent of movies about slave trade. Sad. Very sad. Can I digress and say that if their training is as bad as their food (and what’s to say it’s not even worse) then we have the reason the Boko Haram insurgency hasn’t been quelled?

Decided to go beyond my ranting to see how much the Police Force gets from the Federal Budget. Massive respect to @BudgitNG for simplifying the budgets, and especially for the pictorial representation. Well done!

Take a look at the picture below:

The total sum allocated to the Police for 2013 – N311, 148, 387, 312.

That figure is further broken into three categories, captured below as well:

Not much detail and I can’t tell how much goes to the 6 Police Colleges from this.

Decided to look at the 2012 budget, it has a little more detail. The total budget was N308, 474, 241, 153, some 3 billion less than the budget for 2013. This is a link to download (and read) the budget for yourself Police Formation and Command Budget 2012.

Thing is, sadly I didn’t find exact figures, and that’s kind of taken the wind out of my sails. Maybe not completely though, because I’m sure we could shave off monies from the N147, 100, 544 going to computer software acquisition (no comment), N44, 544, 722, 278 each for allowances and ‘non-regular allowances (what’s a non-regular allowance), N180, 000, 000 allocated to ‘non-tangible’ assets, (amongst many other funny looking figures) to provide respectable meals for the men training to serve and protect our great country.

Otherwise, can I announce that they are being bred to be corrupt, ill-mannered, inefficient, ineffective; and will function only so it won’t be said that Nigeria doesn’t have a Police Force.

Otherwise, we can put in applications (and early too) for super heroes (Thor, Hulk, Spiderman, Wolverine, take your pick) because we’ll definitely be needing them.

P:S – I didn’t mention GEJ’s visit to the Police College because I wasn’t impressed. I’m sorry.

Related articles

• The Nigerian POLICE Force Holds Religious Crusade To Combat Crime (Photo Inside) (dailygistxtra.com)
• 2012: A Year Of Multiple Disasters (ejaife.wordpress.com)
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IN CHURCH WITH @garyjamesclark!

Yay!! My Pastor is on Twitter!! The Pastor of Hillsongs Church, Tottenham Court Road branch is now on Twitter! Whoop! Go! Follow! He’s a great guy! By the way, he’s on Instagram with the same handle. Funny but I didn’t know his name till he said during the service about his new subscription to these platforms.

So I attended the 11am worship service on Sunday the 2nd, and it warmed my heart to hear that there were a lot of activites lined up this Christmas season so people don’t have to be alone.

That’s what church should be, isn’t it? Yes, if you asked me. Church should be there for you when you’re lonely; church should fill the gaps in our lives. Trust me, I’m not saying don’t work, isolate yourself from your friends and family and then become a charity case for the church; I’m saying churches need to wake up to the fact that people don’t care what Word of God you preach till they know how much you care.

On to the service now. @garyjamesclark taught for the third week on the Holy Spirit, was very instructive. Some scriptures for ya:

Luke 3:22 “and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

 

John 20:19-22 “ On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said,“Peace be with you!” ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

²¹ Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”²² And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

He said, the same way God breathed the breath of life into Adam and Eve is the same way the Holy Spirit brings life to our everyday circumstances. He turns our ordinary into extraordinary.

He also said that sometimes we see the Holy Spirit only as the third person in the Trinity, and not as the fountain of help, comfort, wisdom and strength we can draw from.

I loved the prayer he had us pray at the end of the sermon: what do you want to come alive in your life? Have you asked the Holy Spirit? Can I throw that at us today? Anything in our lives  needing resurrection? Anything we’ve battled with all year and feel like we’re about to give up? Could it be a relationship, family, an issue at work?

Have you asked the Holy Spirit for help? Go on… Ask Him…

Amen! Just in case you want to attend any of the services/activities Hillsongs has this season, find them here! I hate to say it but I won’t be attending the Christmas Live at Wembley event billed for the 21st cos I’ll be in Nigeria!! Wish I could stay….

 

 

Related articles

• Knowing the Person of the Holy Spirit (thespiritalive.wordpress.com)
• What does it mean to “be filled with the Spirit”? (rodneyhunt.wordpress.com)
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• Grace, The Free And Unmerited Favour Of God (nancysjourney.wordpress.com)

For @dorymanze

So I had a bit of a rant on Twitter on the 2^nd of October. Nine days later and the matter hasn’t left my mind, so I knew I had to write about it. And what better day than today, the International Day of the Girl?

Why the vexation? I saw a retweet by a friend where a lady (@dorymanze) said Sad right? It gets worse. One of the people who saw her tweet, a certain @darmmie3264i, said this in response to it. 

To start with, I personally think the Abuja Environmental Protection Agency (AEPB) should be scrapped, and fast. There are too many stories of how its officials have molested innocent people (especially females) in the name of ‘carrying out their duties’. The prostitutes they were mandated to get off the streets are worse off because not only is there no rehabilitation, they are manhandled, beaten, and fondled (the least of what a good number of them endure). Like most other government agencies, I think (no I know) that AEPB should be scrapped, especially since there’s a Ministry of Environment! This duplicity of office/function in Nigeria gives me major grief!

*breathe FGS, breathe* Ok, so if it was @dammie3264i’s sister, wife (partner or girlfriend), or even his mother who got molested by anyone, would he ask what they were wearing? My thinking is he would round up a bunch of his friends in a fit of rage and go defend their honor. And he would rant and rave, and start a Twitter campaign to get one million signatures to seek ‘justice’ for his own. It’s someone else now though, so it’s OK to run his mouth and ask her what she was wearing. He particularly said, “check yourself”. I can’t even deal!

Ladies and gentlemen, this IS the problem with Nigeria and I’ll tell you why. My dad in many of his sermons admonishes people to be ‘hoe’ rather than ‘shovel’ Christians. He says, “ when you hear a commandment from God, for instance, ‘thou shall not kill’, and you immediately think to yourself that the commandment is not for you but for criminals on the street, you err, and you’re a ‘shovel’ Christian. The better reaction to hearing that commandment would be to internalize the words and search yourself, see if by your words or actions you have caused death (literally or not), and then make amends, and work towards it not happening again. In other words, be a ‘hoe’ Christian”.

How does that apply to us? It’s not till things hit close to home that we see them as life or death issues. When people are getting bombed in Adamawa or Gombe and we’re in the comfort of our homes in Lagos or Abuja, it seems so ‘far away’, and all we do is pray for the repose of the souls of the dead on Twitter.

Our politicians, the people entrusted with ratifying our laws flout them with impunity, and because we are not related to them we call for their heads on a platter. Inside we’re praying to get elected or appointed to their position so we too can feed fat, and of course when it’s our parents or relations robbing the nation blind, our tongues are buried. We fall silent. We have different rules for different people. This ‘Animal Farm‘ scenario is the bane of our society, and we are all guilty.

Back to the AEPB. Is there a dress code that like a red cloth to a bull, justifies molestation? Even if this lady was dressed in fabric that had ‘molest me’ on every square inch, is that reason enough? OK, let’s even say she was dressed ‘indecently’ (and I think the AEPB, before they are scrapped should publish an ‘acceptable or not’ dress code for Abuja residents), do you handcuff her hands or her breasts? What were they touching those for?

I intentionally did not interview @dorymanze for this chronicle because I saw she’s told her story severally and I wanted to spare her the horror of reliving the horrible incident. I’m proud of her for speaking up because it is not the easiest thing to do, especially in our society. I hope (pray) she’s able to put this incident behind her, and move on with her life.

I won’t even bother with hoping she gets justice, that would be the height of naiveté.

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OF LIFE, WEIGHT LOSS AND OTHER MYSTERIES

 

Hey!

How have you been? Like really, how have you been? Happy? Loving your life, family, job? What’s been up with you/what have you been up to? Have you been having fun? What new skills have you learnt recently, what new knowledge have you gained?

Questions, questions, questions right? Don’t mind me, I just haven’t checked on you properly in a while, or thanked you for always being here. Would love to use the ‘without-you-there-would-be-no-me’ line but I think that wouldn’t be exactly true, lol! I’ excited you’re reading this though, and this is a major shout out to all my readers, from Sudan to Singapore! Am I loving WordPress for the country by country stats or what!

This post chronicles my week (last week); so I chanced upon a flyer advertising a dance/fitness one week intensive class, promised we would lose 10kg in one week. I know! You’re asking yourself if I fell for it right? I did! Maybe not totally but there must have been something that made me ring and ask for the form!

From Monday, 6-7am and then 6-9pm every day, I went to jump up, (and down), squat, crunch, skip, and do all those things that celebs do on TV for two weeks and then next thing they’ve lost all but their bones! Ask Jennifer Hudson and Jordin Sparks if you don’t believe me.

After one of the dance classes, see me looking like this is my mug shot!

So, did I lose 10kg? Nope! Did I lose 9kg? Lol. Let me be quick and say I weighed x.9kg (‘x’ is because I don’t want to tell you exactly what I weigh) on Monday when I started, and then Friday night when I weighed myself,  I was x.45kg (‘x’ remaining absolutely constant)! What!!?!! I didn’t even lose ONE full kilogram!

Well, there’s only two things left to do now…

1. Liposuction (after I’m done having children sha, I can’t even shout). Or
2. Some ‘extreme’ measure, like the Hallelujah diet (ha ha ha), or Shawn’s Insanity workout.

Momma thinks I just need to stop drinking pop et al but what would my life be without an ice-cold coke every now and then? Drab and uninteresting, that’s what! Ladies and gentlemen, I am in a quandary!

On Friday though, Big Sister Nike (@chiefsista on Twitter) invited me to a free dance class (fitness oriented as well) put together by @bubezplaiz for ladies to come, dance, shed some, and network! Very noble if you asked me! Was supposed to hold from 7-9am on Saturday morning but men, man proposed, the rains disposed! It rained so hard on Saturday morning  I didn’t even get out of bed! Apparently no one else did and the class was moved to 5pm. It eventually started about 6pm (some issues about the venue), and it was a fabulous class! Whoop!

The music was great (and loud enough to keep me on my feet), and the instructors were really good too! Whoop whoop!

Was nice to finally meet @damioyedele in person, she’s a fabulous lady; smart, beautiful, and in recent times has helped me remain a ‘super aunty’ before my 6-year-old nephew by helping me with his assignment via Twitter! She was at the class too, sisters in weight loss!

Dami Oyedele and I!! Sisters with natural hair! Tres chic!

Of course @chiefsista was there too, and it was awesome to see her again! Ladies, Nike Coker is the convener of the famous Sista Sistaevent; holds once a year strictly for the ladies, and is a wonderful opportunity for them to meet other ‘sistas’, network, put their feet up, and just have a great, interesting evening! Did I mention there’s always loads of things to eat (and I love food), music, skills to be learnt, prizes to be won (I’ve won one), and loads of new friends to make!

@chiefsista and I, sweating after the dance class!! Sister remember the guy who stretched us out? Dang!! Intense! Funnily my back hasn’t hurt since then!

Sista Sista is in its 6^th year and is holding in Abuja on the 1^st of September! Holler @chiefsistato PURCHASE your tickets (nope it ain’t free)! Also get in touch if you’d like to promote stuff at the event, and especially if you’ve got giveaways for the ladies! We’ll be chatting to her on the 3, 2, 1 Series soon!

Finally, did you know/notice I’d changed my look? Want to see? There you go!

Whoop!!! Love it!! Notice that I’ve somehow managed to have four pictures of myself in one post? *sticks tongue out*

I’m loving it, can’t wait to make it permanent! Whoop! So stress free, and I can stop peeking at weaves, extensions, and all those things!

So, how did your week go? What exciting stuff did you get up to? Share with us in the comments section will you!

That’s it, a breeze through my week; can’t go without saying my boo boo is doing great, and is more adorable by the day! Like seriously, he’s the cutest baby in the world!

Have a super productive week, I insist! Mwah!

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EDO DECIDES PART 2: BENIN

Ok, so this post captures a bit of day one, but mainly day two of my trip to Edo State because #Edowasdeciding. Part one is here.

So, we touched down safely (thank you Lord), and first thing I noticed was a lot of construction work going on at the airport, very interesting. Who’s in charge of fixing up airports, the federal or state governments? I asked because I don’t know. Met up with @_yemia, @rmajayi, and @dfasoro who I was meeting for the first time. We loaded ourselves into our car, and went off to The Excalibur, our home for the next few days. Was a pleasant surprise to see @nigerianblogger, and to meet @jidealuko and Afolabi; they were both fabulous, were very helpful, and made our stay very comfortable (cc @_yemia). Got in to find that apart from my back acting like someone had set fire to it, my ‘friend’ was around so I had a bath, popped a few painkillers, and went to sleep.

About painkillers, @rmajayi and I went out to get them (she was feeling poorly as well), and two things stood out; police presence was scary. Kai! They were like everywhere, and since I don’t kid myself about the police being my friend I was uncomfortable. Especially since they were shouting and making noise on the road, for no reason! SMH! It was kind of good we went out though, because we spoke to different people, a lady selling lime, another one selling apples, the one roasting corn I think, quite a few of them. All of them wanted Oshiomole back, but not everyone wanted to vote. One lady said she was afraid, said, ‘dem fit fight’. Honestly, I didn’t doubt her, not with the security report we had access to before we got into Benin.

The evening, the morning….

Saturday. I was up by 7am, shout out to @Channels_TV for their live coverage of the elections . Noticed a few things about the place; the room was nice, was a suite actually, and it was really nice. Problem? Internet was crappy. More like they had no internet service at all. Good thing we had dongles and everything, our trip would have been in vain! I was still battling pain in my back so I could only sit for a few hours at a time, and I had to pop pain killers every few hours *sigh*

Based on our brief, some of us monitored conversations online, while the rest of us went out to do the monitoring in person. Below are four points I took away from ll the monitoring:

• If you have to share any information online that isn’t originally yours, please time stamp it, otherwise you end up doing more harm than good. So you don’t come on Twitter at noon, see an incident your friend tweeted about 8am, and then start retweeting furiously. Especially in a crisis, it only serves to hype tensions and spread terror; it’s even worse if you’re sharing the information after the problem has been solved/crisis has been quelled. @Channels_TV was guilty of doing that severally, and at some point I had to tweet at them.
• Sift through whatever information you accept. People will do anything to get a retweet, or a random follower, even if it means peddling absolute falsehood. It is your responsibility to verify before you accept. There was a particular incident during the elections where someone was tweeting from their bedroom in a city miles away from where the election was happening and tagging them ‘eyewitness reports’. Don’t fall into the hands of mischievous people.
• People want to know. @rmajayi and I met a group of guys at one of the polling units holding the ReVoDa handbook. If you didn’t know, ReVoDa is an app that turns every one into a citizen reporter during elections. Powered via SMS and only functional with valid PU details, you can send a message about what’s happening at your polling center. One of them wasn’t sure what the app could do but we explained and he said he’d download it and use after he voted. That felt good, like we had just ‘converted him’.

Our convert. Lol….

• Put your actions where your belief is. I believe the elections of 2015 will be different in the sense that not only will there be more eligible voters than there are now, but people more than ever are aware of the power their votes have, and are motivated more than ever to wield that power. Doesn’t matter if they’re voting for a candidate because he built a water fountain, it’s their choice.

Tired as we were, we took some pictures when we all got back, especially with @nigerianblogger who got arrested with @governoryves earlier in the day; full story is here. By the way, looks like ‘Oshiobaba’ is going to win!

From left to right that’s Mercy, Dipo, Me, Jide, and Scott!

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SATURDAYS………

Hello you!!

Yes it’s a Saturday! What are Saturdays like for you? For me, it’s a day to lie in, and just chill. Really… I mean life is short, and there must be ways of recouping on the energy expended during the week, all the running around, etc. And then of course if there’s an event to attend, a wedding, something going on in the evening, I’m happy to go but my morning lie in is sacrosanct!

That’s what Saturdays are like for me…. What’s yours like? Think about it, and enjoy the pictures for this week! Send me yours (nothing political or overly religious) to dfairygodsister@yahoo.com, and I’ll be sure to credit you. Hugs!

Oops!!!!! Thank you Ace for this one!

As true as it gets!

Saw this on Eddie Madaki’s bbm, confidence ba je!!

Ehhh! Try this with a Nigerian parent, tell me what happens…

Liar liar pant’s on fire!

 

That’s all folks! Share a smile, give a hug, and enjoy a restful weekend!

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LESSONS FROM THE #SAVEOKE CAMPAIGN

Ok, are you new to the Oke story? Statement of the problem is here, pictures of the problem here (not for the light-hearted I must warn), and phase one of the solution is here.

A lot of thoughts have run through my mind from the very first night I became aware of Oke and I just thought to share four of them with you. I’m also sharing a documentary made by a close friend of mine, Onye Ubanatu, capturing the essence of Oke’s story.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS POWERFUL

I’ve never doubted the power of social media (wouldn’t have studied it if I did) but if I did, this campaign would have forever put paid to those doubts. The speed with which the blog posts spread and the amazing functionality called the ‘retweet’.  Jerry Seinfeld was right when he said this of Twitter, “Twitter is progress; why say to one what you can say to all”. Amazing! And say to all we did, in just a few hours his pictures and story were literally everywhere! Thanks to the WordPress’ ‘stat by country’ functionality I could see just the numbers of people from the different countries, and believe me it was amazing!

NIGERIA IS IN TROUBLE

Oke’s story was just another instance pointing to a problem we (Nigeria) haven’t gotten past. Unfortunately, even in 2012 we are still in the ‘reaction’ rather than ‘proactive’ mode. No one thinks to plan for the future, hell we’re barely getting through today! Fully discussing that will take all day so I’ll just say that all the information I got about Oke’s illness I found here. That website also features simple definitions and presentations of types and symptoms, care for people with diabetes, and even available support groups! And it’s all correct, up to date information! Do we have functional bodies like that here? No. All we’re saddled with are committees catering to committees set up to review the work done (or not) by committees. SMH!

WHO SINGS FOR THE UNSUNG?

The day after I spoke published the ‘Save Oke, we saved Oke’ post; I got one BBM broadcast about a young Nigerian in the clutches of another terminal illness who needs to seek treatment abroad. Someone else tweeted a link at me, and that evening I got email; three different people in one day! I flashed back to the campaign when I asked (in a private email to a group) if anyone else was thinking about the people who didn’t have anyone to blog about their problems. Who would cater to those ones? I’m asking those questions again; who runs with their stories?

How many people die every day because they have no access to qualitative healthcare? How many ‘trivial’ cases transform into life threatening because they were not nipped in the bud with adequate treatment? Who sings for the unsung?

WE ARE STILL THE WORLD

Social media has always and will always revolve around people. Social media without human involvement can be compared to a beautiful car without a driver: it is nothing without our input. It is one thing to sit in the comfort of your home and moan every day about everything going wrong with the country, how the government doesn’t care, how we need a ‘paradigm shift (lol), etc. It is a totally different (and more profitable) thing however to do your civic duties, know your leaders (local and national), and then hold them accountable by getting informed, asking them questions, you know the drill. In the same vein, while I am grateful to everyone who tweeted and retweeted Oke’s story, it is the ones who actually donated I am grateful to. Imagine if we were all tweeting, ‘Facebooking’, and no one did anything. We’d sooner be tweeting at his funeral!

This whole campaign has taught me that technology (in different formats, functionalities) will come and go but people will always remain. We are the answers to the questions we seek; we are the world we want to live in.

P: S – As you read, Oke is in India with his sister, and a state appointed consultant. I spoke to him the night before he left, and told him to document his ‘Osuofia’ stories for me, cos I’m sure he’ll have plenty!

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