MTN's American Wonder

MTN’s American Wonder It is no longer news that an MTN subscriber had been declared winner of the much publicized MTN “win an aeroplane” promo but what is still news is the cash equivalent. How can an aeroplane be valued at 64million Naira. That is a mockery of the highest grade. Owing to the ineptitude of the mobile networks in Nigeria, I am an active subscriber to two of them (the Yellow and Green) but I have never been an active participant in those “dugbe” kinds of promos. It is nothing but a clear case of robbing Peter to pay paul. When I first got wind of the bogus promo, I smiled and thought to myself, the marketing manager or brand manager of MTN must be a creative genius to have branded a promo literarily, I thought “the win an aeroplane” actually meant an expenses paid trip to a ‘sweet’ country for the winner but when I heard that someone actually won it and opted for the cash equivalent I was a bit surprised but curiousity propelled me on and I asked the cash equivalent. When I heard the derisory figure of N64million, I was filled with anger and wrath, sighed and asked loudly, when would this daylight robbery and defrauding end? Some critics might be swift in branding me jealous of the ‘fortunate’ winner, the undergraduate that woke up a struggling lady but went to bed a millionaire. Well, am not. Am just been pragmatic and factual. I congratulate the lady but I opine that she was hugely defrauded, she could have earned far much more than that. Where in the world does an aeroplane go for N64million Naira? Guess only in the world of Y’ello. There are different kinds of aircrafts, there is the airbus, helicopter and airplane but am sure none of them cost that low. Let me explain how she could have made much more than the pittance she settled for. She should have demanded to see the aeroplane, call up aeronautic engineers to look it up to ascertain it’s grade and quality. Then, auction it amongst the local airlines in Nigeria. Am sure she would have gotten a handsome price for it. All those airlines with grandfather and mother aeroplanes would have jumped at it. If it was a helicopter, there would be mega rich Nigerians who are tired of riding on land with fellow Nigerians, need another way of expressing their wealth who would have bought from her and certainly not at that price. Apparently, there was no aeroplane, MTN had it worked out. Those that would be interested in the promo would be the downtrodden in the country and would certainly not want the aeroplane or demand to see it. The company would offer them good money to alleviate their poor state but cheap enough to save them the real cost of the machine. At the end, MTN would smile to the bank with their stolen profit. How they have robbed the poor of the little they had. In this country, we’ve had bogus promotions from these mobile companies. Not too long ago, Etisalat promised a million$ and delivered it, apparently MTN wanted to beat that. Instead, they succeed in ruining their already tainted reputation. A company that steals subscribers’ credit and offer annoying service, how can such give out an aeroplane? Nigerians can be so gullible. In all these, what has the NCC, the regulatory body for mobile companies done? Well, they have banned all forms of promo. Whether you are giving out an aeroplane, a ship or an “okada”, no way. Well, that was a good move but I also suggest a sledge hammer is brought on MTN for taking subscribers for granted. Nobody should call my action witch-hunting, agreed the network had stolen my credit several times under different amorphous guises but am not out for revenge. All I am saying is that they should stop taking Nigerians for a donkey ride. Citizens might have financial challenges but certainly not mental challenges. The economy might be in doldrums but the asylums are certainly not full, which means most Nigerians can still think straight. So call a spade a spade! If you promise an aeroplane, give it. An end has to come to interpretative promos.

With this Goodluck, goodluck Nigeria

Political lackeys have dwelt more on the name of Nigeria's president rather than his experience and ideas to take Nigeria back on the right track, promise land is not an issue for now since the country had since derailed and now, we need someone to rediscover the route before we accelerate towards our Utopia as a nation.
Goodluck Jonathan had the sympathy of Nigerians when power was denied him though his erstwhile late boss was too sick to continue performing the burdensome role of steering the ship of the most populous black country. Eventually, the cabals bowed to the populace pressure and gave him power. After collecting power, he was more concerned with winning the primary ticket of PDP and ultimately the presidential election than doing something remarkable during his stint as acting president and substantive president. This trend, people thought would change on him winning the presidential election but the events of the past 7 months has left a bitter taste in the wounded mouths of people.
He started with tenure elongation and proceeded to fuel subsidy removal. Tenure elongation can be said to be a political gimmick but fuel subsidy removal is nothing but pure callousness spiced up with wickedness. his excuse for wanting the subsidy removed ( not even reduced) is that if the country continues subsidizing fuel, the economy would collapse. The same economy that cannot fund the subsidy is strong enough to accommodate almost a Billion for him and his vice just for their culinary. How bizarre! Is it that political posts comes with a thick black cloth that is wound around the face of the political office that they become insensitive to the pains of those they cajoled to vote for them?
Mr Goodluck, remember what you said, you are a 'breath of fresh air' but ask yourself if are you not towing the same path as your predecessors?
Nigerians are no fools and when pushed to the wall with no other place to go, they will bounce back and hit you right in the face. Examples should still be fresh in your memory; Mubarack, Gaddaffi and the others. A word they say, is enough for the wise.

NIGERIA NEEDS THE CARNIVAL ACT.

Nigerians have embraced season films as the new sitcom in town. This is not unexpected since those seasons are well scripted, produced and sub-titled. Amongst these seasonal films that had won the hearts of Nigerians are Prison break, Lost and a more recent one ‘Legend of the seeker’. An aficionado of the latter will be familiar with the carnival troupe comprising of the seeker of truth, wizard of the first order, mother confessor and the evil turned good mordsith.

I will like to take every reader that is exposed to this piece on a voyage of imagination. Nigeria, our beloved country is bedeviled with so many ills and evils which we are desperately praying to God to send someone to cleanse and stop. How interesting will it be to have the carnival act fighting to a standstill the problems we are encountering?

Nigeria will really be the better for it if a seeker of truth is named. This seeker of truth will snuff out every evil player in the country. He would fight armed bandits, kidnappers and assassins. With him around, people all over the country will be able to afford a sleep with both eyes firmly shut just like the people of the midlands did in the film.

Imagine a mother confessor in Nigeria. All the celebrated rogues that keep slipping out of the grips of the law and the ones that the long arms of the law have failed to catch up with will be punished in a jiffy. In the movie, the mother confessor bends people to her will (usually to do good) and makes them confess and reveal truthfully things they had done. Imagine having this in Nigeria. All the treasury looters will be confessed and ordered to return the loot to the treasury and pick up a honest work, not the large scale pilfering.

A wizard of the first order? This will be a great acquisition for the country. In the sitcom, the great wizard, Zeddicus Z’ul Zorander was endowed with great powers, wisdom and wits. What he lacked in frame, he made up in analysis. Nigeria will really go far having an old head like that instead of the selfish, greedy and irresponsible oldies that parade themselves as elder states men.

The mordsith! In the sitcom, the mordsith was a fearsome character for many reasons. The agile wielded by them brought unbearable pain to the person holding it not to talk of the person it is used on. I remember vividly the first time the seeker of truth picked up the agile; he dropped it almost immediately because of the painful effect. The mordsith tortured their victims so as to bend them to their will and they also have a reviving power (breath of life) with which they revived recent corpses. With the mordsith in Nigeria, the passage of great people could be prevented and the dead could be given a second lease of life.

Even though, the characters of the film are purely fictional, how I wish they existed. If they did, I would have done all my best possible to bring them into the country. If they could terminate the reign of the diabolical dictator (Darken Rahl) and extinguished the raging fire of the keeper of the underworld by sealing the rift, then, they can cage Nigeria’s monster (CORRUPTION).

THE POWER OF RECOMMENDATION

The advanced learners dictionary of the English language defines ‘recommendation’ as ‘suggestion for something (role or an office), make appealing or highly desirable’. Recommendation is something we do consciously and unconsciously. At almost every juncture in life, this power is evoked (we might be evoking it or someone is doing it in our favour).
Researches have shown that we are a number of people away from where we want to be or who we want to meet. This means that all we have to do to get to a place of our dreams or shake hands with our dream celebrity is getting to know someone or some people. Your dream place is someone’s relaxation center and that enigmatic person is another person’s pal.
Recommendation takes place everywhere; politics, career, relationship and even religion. The day Barack Obama received the public endorsement of Senator Edward Kennedy; he overtook Hillary Clinton in the opinion poll of who should clinch the presidential ticket of the Democratic Party. Also, he enjoyed the recommendation of Oprah Winfrey.
We have seen spouses that met each other through the recommendation of dear friends.
The power of recommendation is as important as the person making it on your behalf; it is not advisable to long for something so much that you ask someone that does not enjoy high respect to do it for you. If this dear mistake is made, you might loose it even before you lay your hands on it. Edward Kennedy and Oprah Winfrey are two people that enjoy in no small measure the respect of Americans; their public endorsement did it for Obama.
Biblically, there are examples; Joseph being an evergreen one. Despite the fact that he was destined for the post (prime-minister), he still had to depend on someone putting in a word for him (recommendation), little wonder he told the king’s cup bearer not to forget him when he again took his place among the king’s retinue of servants.

Recommendation does not happen in a vacuum, it depends on some vital principles;
The principle of relationship: this principle states that you cannot vouch for someone you do not know. Hence, for you to enjoy someone’s word on your behalf, you have to command the person’s confidence and confidence comes only with relationship. No man is an island of anything, if God could say ‘come lets reason together’ and sauntered into the garden to have fellowship with man who is a man to say he does not need others?

The principle of diligence: it said that we should not be weary in well doing and further says a diligent man will have his place among kings and princes. This shows that if you keep doing what you know how to do best in your closet, it is only a matter of time, you’ll soon catch the attention of people and by extension enjoy their recommendation.

Anatomy of a Winner.

A winner is not someone who has not lost but one who does not quit in moments of failure with the belief that with improvement, he would get it right someday. A winner is also not someone who wins seldomly but someone who has made an habit of winning, a winner does not see impossibilities, rather, he turns them into steps to reaching his goal(s).
In life, we all have reasons to fail; Clinton never knew his father but still rose to the exalted position of America's president, Obama was black and no black before him had got the nod of any of the major political parties ( Democrats and Republican) for the office of the president, yet he not only became the flag-bearer, he won the election and of course, the rest is history.
Jose Mourinho, a football manager with an attitude that courted him enemies everywhere he went but still succeeds despite the cloudy atmosphere of hatred. He is enroute becoming the greatest manager ever having won league titles in 3 different countries ( Portugal, England and Italy), he has moved on to Spain hoping to turn it into another of his conquests.
Great men and winners are those that arm themselves with an axe and head for the rock. He keeps smashing at the rock until the rock gives way. Everybody appreciates gold simply because it is scarce and only a few find it, the others buy it.
Winners are not born,they are made. Every living person ( white or black) have chances to win in life. Victory in life does not favour a particular skin colour , race, religion, age or even language.
To win in life. all that is required is grit, determination, belief, obstacles and luck. Life is like a football match in which a keeper is faced with the daunting task of keeping a clean sheet. For 90 minutes, he foils the attempt of players of the opposition to score against his team, he throws his body , jumps and a times, gets injured but still manages to continue. We are all goalkeepers in life.
Obstacles bring out the best in us. You will never know how fast you can run until your very life depends on it ( Imagine facing a very hungry lion). It is usually good to embrace obstacles and challenges for they only make us better.
Luck is literally good fortune but literarily, it is labouring under correct knowledge. With the right preparation, success and greatness will be achieved. Consider carefully what you desire and ask the very important question 'what is the necessary ingredient?
Let us all equip ourselves with the requisite knowledge and the success that has been far-fetched will become hand-reached.

GOLDEN RULE.

GOLDEN RULE.

Biblically, ‘love your neighbour as thyself’ is said to be the most important law but philosophers have proposed a rule which is perceived as golden and it is ‘do unto others what you will have them do unto you’.

In life, we frown when we are at the receiving end of some actions but not when we dish them out. Each and everyday, we do things to others that make them clench their fists and gnash their teeth in agony. Sometimes, they retaliate, other times; they do not owing to our perceived superior placement.

Have we ever thought of what life will be if we treat others the way we would want to be treated if roles were swapped? Most humans if not all are hedonists (pleasure seekers), thus, they would not want to embrace pain or forms of it.

Someone would owe others gladly but when he is indebted to, he will go around swearing and cursing bitterly. I ask why would you owe or defiantly refuse paying if you cannot stand being owed?

To a person paying assailants to hunt down another for whatever reason, I put it to you that how would you feel if you are the reciepient of that fatal coup de grace. No matter how rich you are, there is someone richer who can afford to pay hoodlums to cut you down.

There are some I call ‘smooth operators’. They boast about snatching others partners, sleeping with the spouses of others, ruining relationships that took long to nurture and build. To you smooth operators, how would you feel if someone else does exactly the same thing to you? You find your partner in the warm embrace of another! It is pertinent to note that no matter what your best is, it can be bettered. Be it good or evil. If you are such a good orator and feels that your tongue can cause any lady to fall, I say someday a better orator will sweep your lady off her feet and cause you eternal emotional pain. Always know that your best is someone else’s beginning and your revelation is another’s genesis.

The golden rule though simple, let everyone observe it and the world will be an eldorado.

PURE INSANITY OR AN ACT OF TERRORISM

There are surprises; pleasant and unpleasant. In Nigeria, recently, we have been having a deluge of the latter. Firstly, a brief medical check-up of the president in a first-class hospital turning into a sabbatical and French leave in Saudi hospice. Secondly, while the world was grappling with the Christmas season, a Nigerian attempted to blow a US bound plane. Thirdly, the imbroglio about the refusal of the president to transmit power to his vice, pressures from quarters for him to do so, the unexpected presence of a cabal blindly loyal to the president ( sick or not) and the eventual though belated conferment of acting status on the vice-president. It is obvious that these infamies are becoming one too many.

The crux of this writing is the shocking occurrence at the Margaret Ekpo International Airport in Calabar in which a man attempted to blow up a plane belonging to Arik fleet by driving straight to the runway and ramming it into the plane. When news flittered in that a Nigerian gentleman had stopped being gentle by attempting to blow up a US bound Detroit plane and the consequent inclusion of Nigeria into America’s terror watch list. We all cried wolf saying Nigerians are not and can never be terrorists. We came up with the argument that though Mutallab was a Nigerian by name, he was not at heart and no true Nigerian will want to die even if he was promised a mansion full of cosmopolitan virgins. How do we now explain this recent fateful development? The cab driver at the eye of the storm declared stupidly that he would come back and round off his unfinished business. The action of the cab driver did not only jeopardize the lives of the 200 people on board, it also raised some critical questions as to the safety of our airports vis-à-vis the runways. It was also in a Nigerian airport that we saw a herd of cattle running onto the runway. Is the runway a green field where cattles graze? It must be in such a deplorable state for cattles to mistake it for grazing field.

This recent ‘punisher’ has successfully proven that there are terrorists in Nigeria and I doubt if the white house will grant us the reprieve we brazenly crave for.

I have a few suggestions that if implemented, will put a stop to these spates of shameless occurrences in our airports.

All the security men that were on duty at all the gates when the cab driver did his stunts should be sacked and made the feel the full wrath of the law. They were negligent of their duty and by allowing to ride unchallenged as there was no report of gate crashing, they are all accomplices to his crime.

The national assembly should pass a bill that would make it a criminal offence to ride straight unto the runway. This law should be binding on the rich and the poor alike as what is good for the goose is certainly good for the gander. If you are too rich to queue with others at the terminal, then get your own aircraft and international airspace license and if you do not want to miss your flight, go on time to the airport for your flight.

Security should be tightened at all the airports. The airport is not a market. The airports project the image of the country to a visitor. If it is rowdy, the visitor will assume that the country is unstable and if it is serene, the visitor will have just that impression.