Tuesday, October 25, 2005

In the News: Nigeria's black weekend (first lady dies after cosmetic surgery, 117 die in bellview plane crash)

Its been a crazy sad weekend in naija, first a major plane crash occurs and it takes 15 hours for the authorities to locate the plane, then some government official claims 50 people survived without even knowing the full details. Lets just say the full incompetence of the Nigerian system was revealed to the whole world. Even if people had managed to survive the crash they would have died waiting for the authorities to show up. As is the usual case people will shout and then its back to doing nothing until the next major incident occurs and then the recriminations starts all over again.
I just hope this tragic incident pushes the govt to overhaul our non existent emergency service, we just can't go on like this with our typical firebrigade approach.
No one knows what caused the crash yet, we pray that the souls of those on board rest in peace. it is truly a tragic event.

the second incident was at least avoidable, talking about stella obasanjo's death after undergoing cosmetic surgery in spain. Its really sad and a tragic waste of life. It seems this is now the latest craze amongst our political elite and i think we've all seen the outcome of vanity.

Like the REM song 'Losing my religion' i think i'm losing my country, cause i just don't understand the way people are thinking, it's as if we've lost the plot completely


Nice Quote: "If you don't have a vision for the future, then your future is threatened to be a repeat of the past." - A.R. Bernard

Weather Today: raining and windy

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

In the News recently: 'Pastor to repay £200,000 after buying Florida timeshare on church Visa card'

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1814723,00.html (the allegations)
http://odili.net/news/source/2005/oct/16/9.html (his response)

you can trust me to get excitable when i stumble on an article like this, nothing gets my blood boiling than reading about a pastor taking advantage of his position in church and helping himself to its finances. This particular story relates to the pastor of KICC (Mathew Ashimolowo)
I sent the newslink to other Nigerians with the hope that maybe, just maybe people will open their eyes and spend their hard earned money on their families,friends,relations,community members etc rather than paying for the lavish lifestyles of their pastors. Our people are suffering and struggling and in the midst of such poverty we have things like this happening.

To be honest how Ashimolowo runs his church is his own business, its the people who are blinded and can not think for themselves and have more or less swapped one superstition for another that baffles me. They sell people the message they want to hear and they fall for it hook, line and sinker. Prosperity for all, but all i see is the pastor living large while the congregation struggles. Like Fela sang 'Archbishop na miliki, pope na enjoyment, imau na gbaladun..."

Africans lets us not buy into this bullshit, we need to hold all accountable, our politicians, religious leaders, community leaders etc. people can not continue to use 'wayo' to hold us down. We need to help ourselves and our people by committing to charitable projects in our communities not spending our hard earned pounds, dollars, euros, naira (or whatever currency you are into) to fund the lavish lifestyles of our pastors.


Nice Quote: "We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve." - – Maxwell Maltz in Psycho-Cybernetics (1960)

Weather Today: its autumn and the sun's off on holiday till next year

Friday, October 14, 2005

In the News recently: 'Bird Flu reaches Europe'

ok let the panic begin, it seems migratory birds from Asia have finally bought the dreaded bird flu to Europe (just Turkey at the mo). Africa is just round the corner and with all our problems its prevention is not high on our agenda so you just know that it will be a nightmare when it hits Africa.

Chicken and Turkey (the two things i love to eat) may soon become a no go area just like beef after the mad cow scare. Infact i only started eating beef again in the last 2/3 years. The scariest thing is not the bird flu and the mass culling of poultry it entails. It is the scary scenario of the virus mutating or adapting and spreading from humans to humans rather than bird to humans.

Scientists are saying its only a matter of time before this occurs and there are still no vaccines to combat it. Seems like a doomsday scenario or something out of that crazy film with Dustin Hoffman in it trying to combat an 'ebola' type virus, Only time will tell but it seems we are living, like the chinese will say, in "interesting" times


Nice Quote: "In order to become someone else's soul-mate, you must first be your own" - Dr Derek Hopson

Weather Today: cloudy dark and grey, no surprises there