The Brexit Decade

Another chair short in the Number 10 musical chairs farce.

A Decade of Self-Harm

Even irony has come to joke at the expense of the United Kingdom. On the eve of the 10^th anniversary of the Brexit vote, the sixth prime minister since that act of unmitigated self-harm resigned.

Whether you like it or not, Brexit made the UK ungovernable, and it is the spectre of Brexit that has deftly conducted the dirge of musical chairs at 10 Downing Street.

Obviously, the personification of this rotten enterprise is Nigel Farage, along with all the cloaks of calumnious obfuscation he has donned aboard the various political vehicles he has ridden to beguile the natives.

Cameron's Fatal Gamble

In trying to outmanoeuvre and upstage Farage, David Cameron promised an in-out referendum without thresholds, believing he could gamble with our future in Europe and win. He lost. Once the result was announced, he resigned.

The chicanery between Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, who were the opportunistic ruling party figureheads of the Brexit proposition, meant that Theresa May, a remainer, became prime minister.

Everything she tried to negotiate with Europe was rubbished and undermined by the antics of Boris Johnson and a cohort of implacables. First, Theresa May gambled away her majority, and every Brexit negotiation ended in stalemate. She resigned within three years.

Johnson Gets Brexit Done

Boris Johnson then took the helm and purged the Tory Party of the reasonable, level-headed and moderate One Nation Tories, before calling an election to "Get Brexit Done".

The least qualified person ever to negotiate a deal, having had a background in the Scottish whisky industry, became the point man: Lord David Frost. What he brought back was a mishmash of imponderables, and we signed ourselves out of prosperity just as the coronavirus took hold of the world.

Boris made stringent rules for us, with punitive fines for breaking them, yet he and his staff were partying in Downing Street. That scandal, along with a few others, engulfed his premiership and culminated in the resignation of more than half his cabinet. It soon dawned on him that he had to go. He held office for three years.

Truss and the Lettuce

Enter Liz Truss, who, after kissing hands at Balmoral, may well have hastened the demise of Queen Elizabeth II two days later. Her curtsey was so awkward that you couldn't tell if she was flat-footed, bow-legged, or suffering from some yet unexplained ailment of her lower ambulatory system. Rather than laugh, you pitied her.

Her uncosted mini-budget, aiming to introduce us as the new Singapore on Thames, one of the sunlit uplands of Brexit, much as Canaan was given to the Jews, wreaked havoc on the financial markets.

The fallout was so drastic that she sacked her Chancellor of the Exchequer and brought in a Tory grandee of a sort, Jeremy Hunt. The sand was running out of her hourglass; days became minutes, and even a patch of lettuce outlasted her. She was gone in 50 days.

Sunak Steadies the Ship

Rishi Sunak, the first Asian, the first Hindu, and possibly the richest ever prime minister, walked into 10 Downing Street. He steadied the ship that had been caught in various post-Covid, Brexit and immigration eddies. We were in a spiral, and it was only a matter of time before we lost our heads in a dizzy spell.

He called an election about twenty months into his premiership and handed the reins over to the Labour Party in a landslide, after the party had been out of power for 14 years.

Starmer's Short Tenure

Sir Keir Starmer was now at the helm, honourable and lawyerly. After a number of missteps, bad calls and U-turns, his popularity sank so low that by the local elections of May 2026 the Parliamentary Labour Party had decided he could not lead them into the next general election. A few weeks short of two years as prime minister, he resigned.

It is likely that Andy Burnham will become the next prime minister. Meanwhile, in one way or another, the office has been haunted by the banshee cries of Nigel Farage, first in UKIP, then in the Brexit Party, and now in Reform.

The Myth of Control

One of the things Brexit was supposed to give us back control of was our borders. It now transpires that the problem was never Europe, but policies within our own domain.

Whereas European immigrants were near enough that they could, if they wished, return home every weekend, the immigrants now arrive in larger numbers from further afield. They cannot return home every weekend; they are full settlers with family ties that must be accommodated if their services are to be procured for the nation.

Likewise, Brexit was supposed to ignite a bonfire of rules, mostly from the EU. Yet to trade with any trading bloc, we need alignment and agreement on standards.

We were once involved in crafting those rules, but for the purposes of ease of business, the very rules we thought we could jettison must now be absorbed into our regulatory system for seamless commercial activity. We are rule takers where we were once rule makers, in concert with the community to which we belonged.

No Justice in Sight

Then there is the question of how the UK economy has suffered since Brexit, with the loss of about 6% in GDP. You may not be able to call Brexit a failure, but if it looks like one and walks like one, there can be no other conclusion.

The fight for the soul of the country continues as we struggle to get the facts before the people, who are bombarded and cajoled into working against their self-interest, sold easy solutions to complex problems.

We cannot defeat geography. Europe is our closest trading partner, and a softening of Brexit, with a bold and courageous defence of the associated policies, is needed.

They say a majority would now vote against Brexit. The fact is, the perpetrators of this travesty have never been held accountable, and it is doubtful we'll ever get justice for the harm they caused. What a wasted decade.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Suicide When Academia Forgets Its Humanity

A Life Lost to Bureaucracy

I just read of a young medical student at the University of Birmingham who took his own life after failing a resit examination. By email, he was advised that he would have to exit the course.

What seemed like a simple administrative activity delivered by email by the University of Birmingham was, in fact, the end of the road for this young soul. He saw no other options left.

The Failure of Pastoral Care

It could not have been too difficult to invite this young man into a student affairs office or a dean's office to ascertain why he struggled to pass one resit examination when his other results met the mark.

Having invested life and purpose in a medical degree programme, surely, despite whatever rules were in place, no one, especially in an academic environment, should be oblivious to the considerable mental strain of effort not being rewarded with some recognition.

As per the narrative in the news, on that alone, I would suggest the University of Birmingham has been remiss in a core responsibility for student welfare that is quite unforgivable.

The Whisper of Despair

Then, whilst I cannot ascertain the facts of what the triggers for suicide and death by misadventure could be, I know there are times I have harboured suicidal thoughts.

I lived on the seventh floor in a swanky apartment in Amsterdam. As the long tail of cancer wagged ferociously with the loss of health, status, means and wherewithal, from the full-length windows in my living room, a voice whispered: Jump!

It could have ended things suddenly, without having to live through further adversity and privation that has become part of my story. My hesitation came from the desire to tell a better story.

When Platitudes Become Cruelty

In the comments that followed the sad news, there were many statements in the theme of, "Suicide is not the answer."

Reading all that left me quite incensed, and hence this blog, because that only works when counselling those exhibiting suicide ideation. It is unfeelingly cold and wicked to suggest that after the suicide has been committed.

My prayer is that those who appear to have the answer are not met with such overwhelming circumstances that no other option is presented in their predicament except for suicide.

The Fragility of Humanity

The fragility of our humanity is sometimes not understood without a personal encounter of indeterminable consequence. Even my two encounters with life-threatening cancer do not furnish me with the audacity to question the mental state of another when met with a wall of adversity that presents no hope or respite.

In many cases, people do need a different kind of confidante, before whom no wrong would be imputed against them. They are the warm embrace of succour and comfort, shining light into the darkness to see a path in life even when failure has snatched a prospect from reach.

A Lost Opportunity

I recall a saying that has stood with me from an uncle, way back in 1980, he said, "An opportunity once lost can be regained after a temporary setback."

I'm saddened the young man saw no further opportunities. May Phil Moyo's soul rest in peace, and his family and friends be comforted by the fond memories of his remarkable life.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

On parental interference and sundry matters - III

A Problem Child

I have a blessing; I still have my parents who are alive and well, but we have a situation where we are estranged. This estrangement is probably because they are embarrassed or ashamed of me, and that is something we all have to deal with in life when it comes to how we live and the choices we make.

In those circumstances, I have taken measures to manage their exposure to these things, sometimes by reducing or eliminating communication.

For those children who have made their parents proud without having to sacrifice anything of themselves, I guess you are doubly blessed. The stars were aligned, maybe angels were even singing to the shepherds in the fields, as wise men journeyed with presents of gold, frankincense, and myrrh from the East to herald your birth. Oh, the prophets foretold it all.

I was not that child; I was different, difficult, and diffident. I was at one time smart and then considered stupid; for a while, trusted, and then not trusted. I was a handful to my parents, yet a product of the environment I was in.

We Were Not Friends

My African parents made many assumptions about what they thought I had learnt from examples that were not always obvious, for instance, the handling of money. Heck! My father is an accountant, but tell me, how do you pass down the genes? I guess only one of my siblings pursued a career with any semblance of that profession, so much for the power of example.

My parents are of the generation that maintained a certain status and stature, with a school principal for a mother, someone moulding impressionable young lives. The pressure to perform was even more stifling, the need to impress was necessary, and every failing was condemned with such excoriation it left an indelible mark.

Then I failed. I failed woefully, twice. I started courses at two polytechnics, both ending with the advice to withdraw. When I look back, I realise I was clinically depressed; my mother had Psalms and white-garment prophets on the rolodex of that time, and I found religion. I had finished secondary school at 15 and was starting all over again at 20.

A Different Parent

The difference this time was being under the guardianship of an uncle, my sadly departed Uncle Cash, a close relation who had experienced failures early in life but had become very successful in his chosen profession of insurance.

That relationship was different. It was not built on a yearning to show power by demanding and comparing, but on engagement and an appreciation that I was a person first, with my own beliefs and persuasions that could be accommodated within his mentorship and guidance. My parents backed off a bit, and I thrived.

The purpose I gained moved from setting goals to make others proud to achieving success for myself. I had the power to make my own decisions, based not on what others thought, but on what I thought was best for who I was, what I was doing, and what I aimed to achieve.

We Are Really Strangers

In their eyes, I could very well still be the child they once knew, because we grew so far apart from the day they sent me to secondary boarding school. They knew one child; I am a different man, and their child still.

In the same vein, my parents have changed from the people I once knew, even as some characteristics remain, and we have never really had the time to compare notes about who everyone turned out to be.

I have issues and misgivings, many of which I have written about in my blogs. I think I have had a reasonable relationship with my father and a rather volatile one with my mother. Even as I think of them and love them, there are elements of past resentment and abandonment that have taken hold as I review their parenting of me as an individual.

My parents, I can understand, have their concerns too: they have a firstborn son who is gay, has never married and will marry a man, has no offspring, and whom they have not seen in decades. And I am comfortable with all that, because it is my own life and not theirs.

Let's Do This Again

On my Facebook page, I have a friend request, the inspiration for this blog, because it is from my father, who I once blocked, then unblocked, but did not re-establish the friend relationship. After all, he conflated the situations of parent, participant, and policing.

Allowing him to participate in my social media activities meant that he began to police me, and then I got the message: “The earlier you make a good change in your lifestyle the better; it is not too late. All the best”. I was 53. I am going to be 60 in December.

You know what? I’ll accept that friend request.

Blog - This is my life, this is me

Blog - On parental interference and sundry matters

Blog - On parental interference and sundry matters - II

Something like death by interview

For I could not talk

Looking back at a career of over 34 years, I find that I have faced the full spectrum of interview experiences from being totally tongue-tied in a brain fog of stuttering stupidity that I have to apologise for wasting the interviewer’s time through impressing the quality and depth of my expertise, sometimes even being promoted to a more senior role during the interview, to being engaged just by reputation.

Today, I was caught at the wrong end of the situation, and it was not for the want of the interviewer trying his best to help me along. Then again, the interview technique is probably more an art than a science, there is no assured way of determining whether talent and fit can be deduced from a list of set questions. Each personality and way of expression is different.

Between how you do things and talking about what you have done before, you may be able to assess knowledge and experience, but if the interviewee loses confidence, there is no comeback for the interviewee to redress the situation, you are left crying over a dam of spilt milk.

Crippled by immobility

Early this afternoon, I attended one such interview that on the surface I should have aced as much of what was asked for should have been answered by remembering things that have acquired muscle memory in use, yet, I was a bumbling babbling mess, it could not wait for the whole ordeal to end.

Going over the questions in my mind, later on, the elements began to take form in the things I have done, the other things I know, the community support mechanisms available from where I have learnt much more to stand out, came to the fore, but that battle had been lost because it goes without saying that more articulate and probably better-prepared interviewees would go forward for consideration.

Losing the touch

For most of my last few jobs, I doubt I have had the requisite interview practice, many have been discussions on how I could bring my wealth of experience to the table, and others have been referrals from people who I have worked with in the past inviting me to new projects, another, just reading my profile on LinkedIn was enough to convince them they had the right man. Even I was shocked at the speed at which we went from introduction to can you start tomorrow?

Basically, I am not of the disposition of an elevator pinch proponent that in 5 minutes would win a deal, and neither would I affect to traipse the confines of a Dragon’s Den or Shark Tank programme to persuade investors to invest in a venture. I am not that sort of person.

In a number of instances, I have been asked to give a broad presentation on one of a number of topics, like one to be shown to someone in the C-suite, and then questions follow afterwards. I seem to be much better at that, but it is rarely an adopted interview technique.

Remember who you are

Essentially, I am quite introverted though could be forceful in giving direction for technical solutions, I could concede that I am hardly the best interview candidate, I might feature in the worst decile. I find some solace in this saying often credited to Albert Einstein, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

I am a fish, I belong in the water where my gills help me acquire life-sustaining oxygen, I was a fish out of water earlier and it was death by interview, no other words could say it better.

Embrace the mistakes and learn

 Breaking out of perfect

Attending an interview that became the impetus for an almost 13-year sojourn in The Netherlands, I was asked a question about a scenario I had never encountered in all the environments I had ever worked in before. I had no answer to what the interviewer must have thought would be the dealbreaker of suitability to fill in the role.

Having answered all other questions, I was asked if I had any comments, and I took the opportunity to seek an answer to the question that stomped me before returning home to research what it was all about. I concluded to myself that the reason I had never encountered that issue was that the environments in which I had worked were almost too perfect and where no problems arose, there was no challenge to normalcy or quest for any resolution.

Problems and practice are necessary

In my professional life, there is a lot of documentation about how to design, setup, and implement features and products, but what do you do when things do not work as required or expected? That is where knowledge and experience are created, the art of troubleshooting is honed in the hard craft of practice and research, seeking out where things might have deviated from the norm and reviewing experiences of others in the field to augment, enhance, and improve your knowledge and expertise towards becoming a subject matter expert.

That aspect of practice and discovery is all too necessary along with the inevitable mistakes that dot a life of determination, adventure, application, daring, and accomplishment. We all know we are not perfect, but we are always getting better, the more time and effort we put into understanding how things work and consequently why they fail to work as intended.

Face the fear of failure

Yet, this does not just apply to the narrow area of the use of technology but any useful endeavour. As a conversation with Brian, the other way gave birth to some conceptual thinking about the fear of making mistakes. The strains of what I said turned into what might be a saying, a note to myself and to anyone else with whom it might resonate.

“If you don't make mistakes, you can't correct them, you don't learn from them and you have no practice necessary to perfect your craft. The fear of making mistakes ultimately robs you however close or remote, of the possibility of genius. Mistakes help you become the best.” Now, go and do that thing you were afraid to do because of your fear of failure or embarrassment.

Thought Picnic: In aid of posterity

The absence of skill for success

I spent 6 hours attempting to remediate something I had planned to do for not more than 90 minutes and this was fielding a request for assistance in which I was asked to cast an eye on some activity for its correctness and suitability for the purpose intended and it failed woefully at both.

If my patience was tested, my calmness did little to betray it. Something in my nature demanded the kind of endurance with keeping my counsel in the hope that our engagement which had not fully delivered the outcomes might just bring into focus the functional inadequacies in my quarry and the desire to do better.

Almost hopeless at method

I needed to review the meanings of two words, ineptitude: the lack of ability or skill, and incompetence: the inability to do something successfully. We do have the tendency to conflate the meanings and consider them synonyms, but they are very far apart in terms of context.

My interlocutor had planned to do some things or imagined things had been done and even with following a clear set of instructions failed at implementing what he intended. I could say ineptitude contributed to the inability to use the instruction set and the result was incompetence because whatever he set out to do was not accomplished and he could not understand how and why it was not.

A call upon absent ability

Just to imagine that someone has been bestowed to such responsibility having convinced the unlearned that they are capable and there is no challenging assessment or scrutiny of their abilities apart from the pressing demand to fulfil requirements that within that setting they know can be done but have no wherewithal to achieve.

It is a different thing if, in some way, there was a prospect that growth was possible, but my doubts outweigh my hopes. I am lumbered with a sense of kindness, maybe also of duty to ensure that whoever might replace my friend will not be assessed by the propensity to the maladroit of their predecessor by reason of any form of similarities that might prejudice the process.

The significance of posterity

At one time, I thought I was doing it for him and it might well save his job and lengthen whatever employment contracts he has if he can learn from this, but posterity is of pertinent consequence, the ground we lay determines how we are succeeded and the legacy should be praise at your departure rather than relief that what you have done has not laid the situation to ruin if the opportunity presented itself.

Yet, we have not all been so perfect, we have made errors sometimes too shameful to recall but quite defining of our careers and the determination to better and strive for excellence. It is not a hopeless situation, just one where the prerequisites for hope are not very present.

Blog - Showing courtesy to others' time

Thought Picnic: Don't lose the honour of the opportunity to help

Regaining opportunity

“Opportunity once lost, can be regained, albeit, after a temporary setback.” This was a saying shared with me by an uncle figure when I was in secondary school. It became one of the most important pillars that stood for times when everything else seemed to have crumbled around me.

My parents from what I know were high-flying successful people in their academic lives and into their careers that I am not aware for any failures in anything they were educated and trained to do, except when they appeared to dabble in areas where they had no expertise. What I learnt from them was more along the lines of the age-old saying, “Opportunity once lost, can never be regained.”

Confidence and nothing over

Invariably, apart from aspiration and confidence, I cannot say I learnt anything about facing failure, really failing and finding the resolve and wherewithal to rise from that scrapheap to find new achievement. My dad would have been top of his class in his accountancy examinations in 1969, whilst he won other prizes, I am told he fell short out of over-confidence.

That story was told me when I decided on a minimum of 6 subjects for my West African Examinations Council finals out of secondary school in 1981, my mother intervened citing that I was exercising the same over-confidence that plagued my dad and ensured I had 8 subjects to contend with.

On finding opportunity after failure, that honour and privilege goes to other uncles who faced failure head-on, understood what it meant to fail and fail again, yet never relented until they succeeded. It is to them that I owe that other story of my life’s achievements, successes, privileges and good fortune. To them, my gratitude must remain inexhaustible.

The honour of opportunity

Which brings me to another perspective of opportunity and the use of the situation for the benefit not of ourselves, but of others. In all walks of life, we are provided to opportunity to open our hands and open our hearts, someone needing advice or help, a recommendation or reference, sometimes we are given the magnitude of influence to affect the future of someone else in ways that would put them on the trajectory of success well beyond what we could for ourselves achieve.

At some point in the life of another person, we are the sentinel, the gatekeeper, the possible force for good, that opportunity that has come in its time, yet, I am privy to information and circumstances where the myopia of some has beclouded their ability to see that for them to be in that position, it is an honour and a privilege, for that time alone, everything depends on them, and what do they do, they close the door.

You are not omnipotent

They have the power, the influence, the authority and maybe even the audacity and for their small-mindedness, they refuse others the allowance to progress. To them, there will never be gratitude, no praise shall be sung of them by others because they have sown bitterness and the curmudgeonly in the hope that all opportunity is destroyed.

Opportunity once lost, because of what you have done or refused to do, can be regained without you eventually, albeit, after a temporary setback that you put in place, but power and influence in transient.

The opportunity you once had to help can be lost forever, that does not mean opportunities are closed to the person providence honoured you to do something about at a particular time. The help you give is just a bonus, it makes you part of a better story, people would succeed with or without you.

Prepare yourself for gratitude

Yet, I must come back to the need for thankfulness and gratitude, honour those who see the honour of helping you as a privilege they would never let go of until they have contributed their utmost to the very best to see you get along. We have good people in this world amongst the fair-weather friends who are hollowed-out dregs of humanity, who pretend to smile with you only to find ways to be your detractors.

You know yourselves, you have betrayed the sacred trust of friendships and relationships, when you had the means to make a difference for the better. Your time will pass into ignominy. I am saddened to have lost respect for those of whom much more was expected.

Gratitude is an amazing uplifting spirit like I had my contract extended without prompting last week, on getting the news, I wrote to my managers thanking them for their confidence in me and the contract extension. In response, my manager wrote, “You’re welcome Akin, you deserve it!”

How climbing up the rungs of failure was my ladder to a successful career

Thoughts on how I was taught

If I had the charm and the gab, I probably would be in a professionally different place, but it really does not bother me, I love what I do.

It is strange that in deciding on a career, the many ideas that came to me were not so inspired by some passion, but by example, the example of the passions or decisions of others. I dreamt of being a brain surgeon or an avionics engineer, I never really caught the bug for the grades, especially in additional mathematics, my teachers did not have the tinder that when lit caused me to combust to a cinder.

How I would have loved to master French, I was teaching myself from a book in primary school until we landed in the cane-wielding tutelage in Mr Okonji in secondary school, his sadistic pleasure was to see us parrot French phrases contorted in pain from the beating he generously administered urging us to study. His nickname became Study-Study, he was a nasty piece of work and a bad teacher.

Wailings and failings

After secondary school, I toyed with the idea of Quantity Surveying after a brilliant uncle but ended up on a Chemical Engineering course by the persuasion of an old student. I did not get far with the course; one lecturer was so German in speech and mannerism than to be understood and more than half the class failed mathematics that the engineering department had to lay out special classes to pull us up.

Gbenga Daniel who eventually became the governor of Ogun State was the acting Head of Department and besides learning chess and playing Scrabble, I made nothing of that year. I, however, learnt enough to realise that I was more interested in Electrical Engineering as a gateway to electronics and computing, so as I failed that year and was asked to withdraw, I was admitted as almost the youngest in the class at another more prestigious polytechnic.

After three years there, student politics, religion and somewhat undiagnosed depression, 4 years after secondary school I had no further paper qualification beyond secondary school in Nigeria where the comparison with other failures was the persuasive force towards greater achievement. I was a lost child.

Mentored by one who knew the way

A year out and away from the overbearing influence of my very successful parents, but a ward of an uncle who knew failure young and with luck, good fortune and opportunity had become one of the leading insurers in Nigeria, I began to build my life again, not out of comparison to other failures, but in the spirit of knowing what could be possible for me, if I put my heart and mind to it.

The belief in me, culled the depression, managed the anxiety, emboldened my daring and sense of adventure and though, on my first day back at school, my junior in secondary school was 3 years ahead of me, I neither flinched nor shirked, I faced what I had to do, with dignity and purpose. The little detail that this junior was the very person I first wielded the power of secondary school seniority on, was a minor lesson of karma that I refused to allow consume me.

This was my second spring, no more the youngest in class that I had been from primary school through secondary school into two years of school after, I was a mature student with more knowledge of how tertiary education worked than most of my colleagues. I led the class, represented my colleagues and brooked no nonsense from either veteran students or lectures. Some came to respect the confidence and authority I exuded. In controversy, I was as measured as I was revolutionary, persuading rather than being confrontational. It served me well.

Mastery in immersion

I graduated with good grades, 7 years after secondary school and I landed in a job market without the influence peddling or favours I once could call upon out of the patronage of my father or the precociousness of my youth. Well shod for the roads of Lagos, with the choice of the industrial motors or stepper motors, I chose the latter and every computer outfit I could find I walked into asking for a job.

I had decided, I was the only one who could best represent myself and that is how I walked into this building that housed IT Systems and I was offered a job there and then. Like a sponge for knowledge, I learnt all I could about Personal Computers, repaired circuit boards, fixed software problems, taught myself desktop publishing and within a year, I went into self-employment consultancy and no one thought was a smart thing to do.

It was the smartest thing I ever did, it is strange to know that in 29 years of working in the computer industry, I have only been in permanent employment for 7 years, I suppose I have never been a corporation man, like my father was or anyone else that could have been a mentor, I was also not an apparatchik, my entrepreneurial skills are hardly top notch, but I hope I have been able to sell a skill that helps organisations achieve goals of efficiency, usability and affordability of computer solutions.

Questioning and listening

That is what I enjoy about my job, big problems reduced to simple solutions, thinking in ways that could be silly, mad and interesting, being the clown and exhibiting the furrows of a frown and then we go to town with something of renown. In large and small firms, meeting with people from all walks of life, I have made many friends and encountered the occasional prick of a manager, probably twice.

I guess that is part of the occupational hazard that weaves into a raconteur’s milieu. In that, I looked forward to new challenges, the opportunity to tackle a new subject, meet new people and craft amazing solutions. I am still excited when something works as it should and tenacious when things do not produce the expected results until they do.

My curiosity still has that childlike inquisitiveness, I have questions, I seek answers and much as I can be a fresh pair of eyes, those eyes come with eager to listen ears, each new day is fresh for learning things, tricks, truths and tips. Sometimes, it looks like I stumbled into this career, maybe I was right on course, just not by well-trodden paths.

Laser-guided down memory lane

The man who made it real

The news of the death of Charles H. Townes at 99 yesterday had me travelling down memory lane about an interesting science lesson that came from some of my early days of activism.

Charles H. Townes according to Wikipedia is known for his work on the theory and application of the maser for which he got the fundamental patent and this was the precursor to the laser and for this and a greater body of work in quantum electronics, he shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with two others, taking a 50% share.

A short history of failure

Now, my story was a simply one. After completing my diploma in Electrical/Electronic Engineering at the Federal Polytechnic Ilaro, I was on the mandatory one-year Industrial Attachment programme at an Information Technology services outfit known as I. T. Systems.

I had always been involved in the Students’ Union movement from when I was at the Yaba College of Technology where I was the class representative in the Senate with the resulting academic exercise in futility. Smart, depressed and suffering too many things I never had any idea to get help for, I had nothing to speak of academically, two polytechnics and 4 years after secondary school.

It took a whole year to find my bearings again where an uncle, shielded me from scathing criticism and mentored me towards rebuilding my life again, this is how I eventually ended up at the Federal Polytechnic Ilaro with my uncle as my guardian, distant and removed from the influence of my restless parents.

Back in my mettle

This time, moving from being one of the youngest in class all through primary, secondary and two tertiary schools to being a grandee of sorts. I was elected the class monitor and I played my role fully as a representative of our class. We were the noisiest class by far and I fully represented my constituency in the cacophony we were so good at.

I graduated in the class of 1988 and soon we found we would not be able to return to Ilaro for the higher diploma until the school had fulfilled some additional accreditation criteria.

I drafted a letter to our Head of Department and Rector asking that they work harder that getting us back for the higher diploma. In my free time, I travelled round Lagos and environs collecting signatures of my classmates, I probably gathered about 30.

Technology back then

I had typed the letter on WordStar and printed it on our office Epson dot-matrix printer, saved to a 5.25” floppy disk, my friend Tope Agboba working for desktop publishing firm near the University of Lagos, took the letter and printed it out on their Hewlett Packard HP LaserJet 2 printer.

It was copies of these rather professionally looking letters that we took to Ilaro to present to our Rector and Head of Department (HoD). It was a matter of courtesy to first meet the HoD and he welcomed us heartily. We stated our purpose and presented our letter which he read intently.

Then he said, the quality of the print of the letter was so high, asked how it was produced? We told him, it was created with a laser printer.

A lesson I cannot forget

He then said, ‘Do you know what laser is?’ we said we did not.

He then told us that laser is an acronym for Light Amplification by Simulation of Emissive Radiation, with that, the full implication of what a laser is and does became apparent. I never forgot that little conversation. We never really got what we wanted, but most of us were dispersed around polytechnics and universities continuing our education.

And life afterwards

I moved into desktop publishing consultancy where laser printers were in everyday use and eventually migrated to the United Kingdom fully ready for the market and then eventually embarking on a post-graduate programme, the wealth of my experience standing in for fulfilling all the prerequisites.

There are myriad applications of lasers, too many to mention because of work done by Charles H. Townes, the shoulders of the theorists which he stood and the applications that came from the pioneering work he did. Somewhere along the line, this impacted my life, in fact, I have owned a laser printer of sorts for almost 20 years.

There is no telling what a little funny idea in a head somewhere can do to change the world.

Thought Picnic: My world, their world

Read this first - Blog - Thought Picnic: My long dance with failure

All drama and histrionics

Now for the real reason behind this blog, it was inspired by a video I watched on Pa Ikhide’s Facebook page.

A boy decided to play a prank on his father clearly identifying the idiosyncrasies of people of that generation. Typically, a Nigerian parent reacting to some failings of their heretofore precious brood.

In this event, the boy of 16 announces to his father that he has impregnated his 14-year old Caucasian girlfriend and a flare up ensues.

Now, this video was the boy playing a prank on his father, as we laugh we must realise that there is a majority of cases where this is no laughing matter but the reality of an unfortunate set of choices that presage dire consequences for that child.

I failed woefully

I have a story much similar to this, and I hope this with other interesting narratives that the video represents about parents, their children, their expectations, their disappointments, our mistakes, their reactions and the usually contemporaneous bleak prospects.

The background to this story has been written in this other blog.

Blog - Thought Picnic: My long dance with failure

Having learnt that I failed again, and there was no option for re-doing the course after repeating the class, there was just no way I could return home to face my parents; I had betrayed their trust, squandered their investment and rubbished their expectations of me.

A typical Nigerian household

That is the kind of atmosphere we are brought up in, we are to excel and do our parents proud, we are constantly challenged to improve beyond ourselves, under serious scrutiny of incessant comparison with our betters at everything and in fearful juxtaposition with uncles, aunties, relations, friends and examples of those who have failed.

The trepidation is palpable and yet, I was never under pressure to excel academically from my parents, I was a problem child of a different sort, secretive and defiled through the sexual exploitation of those who were trusted to care for me, there were things I never discussed with my parents and even today have still not brought up, but have shaped many aspects of my life.

Begging and pleading

After a week of going missing, mother in desperation had sent people out to various haunts until word got to me and the friends sheltering me. I had to face the music and deal with the consequences of my situation.

My friend took me back home, my father who had begun a second career as a farmer had returned to Lagos that week too. At first, he would not let me in the house, but after much begging and pleading, prostrating and much else; a kind of grovelling subservience I had never really grown accustomed to, he relented.

Not like my father

Upstairs, he began with his own success stories, and indeed, my father was a brilliant accountant, a successful professional, in the upper tier of adulation of his peers, and he could begin to question whether I was his son having not taken after him.

I was useless, stupid, an idiot, a failure and to make the point more strongly, I was only good for the farm and we were to leave in the morning for the farm, I had no other prospect after that.

The more forgiving aspect of this encounter was no corporal punishment, no threats of sleeping in a police cell or the order that I sleep on the floor rather than in my room in my own bed, but the future looked bleak, very bleak indeed.

You’re off to the farm

That night, I prayed so hard, I probably prayed all night because I was at my wit’s end, and though I have been once suicidal at 13, I have had the grace of hope in the storm since then to know that whatever situation I find myself in, was just a matter of course.

When the morning dawned, I had not even spoken to my mother since I returned, but she left a message, with my sister. “If your father attempts to carry out the threat to take you to the farm, leave the house and come to my school.”

It was close to 10:00AM when my father said, “Akin, pack your things and get ready to go the farm.” I got 30 kobo from my sister, snuck out of the house and went to see my mother. She sequestered me with a teacher from her school for 4 months.

Rebuilding from scratch

In that time, I began to think of what I needed to do with my life, it was good fortune that at times I visited an aunt – aunts and uncles can be extended relations in Nigeria. I was related to her husband, I think 4^th cousins.

She invited me to stay with them, my uncle who had seen failure in trying to pass his secondary school finals for years reminded me of a meeting he had with my dad when we returned from the UK.

My dad had promised him £10 if he passed his examinations, and though the promise is still owing, my uncle passed, qualified as a chartered insurer in the UK, became a fellow of the professional bodies both in Nigeria and the UK, was an examiner for the institute and reached the pinnacle of one of the longest established insurance companies in Nigeria.

Mentored by one who once failed

However, it took one man understanding failure to take my failure in the eyes of my parents and whoever else had a stake in who I was to put me on the path to rebuilding my life. I returned to school after, excelled, started a career in computing and did many significant things within 4 years of that personal catastrophe.

Sometimes I wonder if part of the estrangement from my family is related to this, I have forgiven as much as I can, but forgetting what is significantly part of my life and my story is a much harder job. And much as the reaction of my father might have given place to what my life eventually became, this kind of reaction of Nigerian parents to their failed or failing kids is all too common.

The many disappointments we’ve been

Failing at school, getting pregnant, taking religion, getting involved in gangs, engaging in vice, acting outside unwritten but societally constituted norms like not getting married, not having children being homosexual; these are all drivers for apoplectic rage, repudiation, overreaction, histrionics, rash decisions and regrettable outcomes.

In my next blog, I would deal with the many narratives that the video above signifies of parental reaction to children with problems.

Thought Picnic: My long dance with failure

The smarter of a big bunch

In primary school, I can say I was brilliant, though not good enough to beat Maya from Bulgaria to the first place.

I never revised or liked homework, examinations and tests were always a chore, but I did what I had to do, coming 2^nd most times and probably 3^rd once. In my last year, I was out of school for four months doing common entrance tests for secondary schools in the Nigerian South-West, when I returned, I still came 10^th out of 22 in the class.

Just average

Secondary school was a different regime, homework and assignments were part of the continuous testing regime apart from the end-of-term and end-of-year examinations.

I probably wrote the shortest scripts and was out of the exam hall in half the time, my performance in those terms were mediocre and scores average that I was in the top fifth of the class, but hardly celebrated.

Many of those ahead were naturally gifted and smart though the teaching technique of learning by rote and evaluation in some cases of regurgitating lesson notes verbatim in answering exam questions would have had me handicapped. If I was endeared to any teacher and there were a few, it was because I was articulate, we never had oral examinations, no, not the dentist.

Succeeding at failure

After secondary school, the first four years of study in two different schools yielded nothing, I did not need to report the events at the first where I was advised to withdraw because I made it into the premier polytechnic in Nigeria of that time.

Much as there were distractions, what I realised with hindsight and I have written about before was I never really made headway academically. I attended classes I completely drew a blank in, I was like a zombie in class but able to thrive in student union politics and getting co-opted into religious activities.

I played truant in secondary school and here too, the classes were boring, the teachers were evil and the lecturer was either bombastic or had the worst command of English ever, it was tortuous beyond belief, I had to extricate myself. The die was cast for tragedy.

Depressing the F-key

I was in trouble and somehow I did not understand what it was between depression and probably something worse because the mental capacity was there, but the engagement was missing, it was like I had no purpose or direction and before long my world came crashing down.

Blog - Thought Picnic: Are those blanks signs of depression?

Under duress, I repeated my second year after my father pulled all the strings to get me readmitted but I was far gone. At the end of that year when the results came out, I left home to check my results first running an errand for my dad.

I did not return home that evening, I went missing for well over a week and there began a new chapter in my life, an acknowledged failure, the child of role model parents, between them a successful accountant and a secondary school principal of 10 years.

That is the lay in for my next blog. The link would appear in the blog below when I have written it.

Blog - Thought Picnic – My world, their world.

Thought Picnic: The Plague of Distraction

Distracted

Distraction is the order of the day, damning the mind of the concentration necessary for productive engagement.

Some days come when the mind cannot toe the line of purpose; aims lie fallow in angst-ridden anxiety that assails opportunity slipping away from the grasp.

The will to do is lost to lethargy and worry begins to stretch forth tentacles of the procrastinate failings becoming a new reality.

Recompense

The benefit of hindsight then becomes the certainty of regret, things that in times past never happened are reaped in the sorrow of waste, indolence and haste.

But the time that has past, is past, it can only be profited from if demands are not made for those things yet undone as scope is then left for understanding and focus to gain importance in one's mission again.

Distraction of the mind is seated in the thoughts that drive the doings, many hardly useful. Your attention is divided, you become error-prone forgetting that your vulnerability is exposed by the obstinate, hubristic and sometimes foolish practice called multitasking.

The lesson to learn is to be rid of your distractions before they take a pound of flesh.

Nigeria: Why Candidates Fail Our Examinations - WAEC

I am usually amused when I view the search words of visitors to my blog and find some seeking WAEC questions for one subject or the other. They usually end up on my blog Nigeria: WAEC Exam leaks are unacceptable. [1]

Now, these searches might be innocent, just of people seeking examples of past questions in their subjects of interest but a news story for the first time highlighted an issue I have been at pains to discuss for a while.

In The PM News, with the by-line, ’Why Candidates Fail Our Examinations’—WAEC [2], the West African Examinations Council tries to explain with some interesting reasons that I would tackle below.

There were mass failures from the examinations taken in November/December 2008 and the council lists the following issues

Unpreparedness for examinations

As far as the Council was concerned the standard of the examinations have not changed over the last few years but the attitude of students has changed. Maybe the examiners have become more stringent in their marking but the lack of preparation is quite plausible.

A good example of how that pervades the whole Nigerian system was when ballot papers for an election taking place on Saturday were still in South Africa on Friday. The National Electoral Commissioner believing all the papers would reach polling station in a country that has poor transportation and logistics.

There are too many examples of how preparation is not passed down in example and practice for the youth to strive to, we procrastinate and then hope that we can allow God’s will to correct our folly and in the process earn a miracle of success – no, it is a recipe for failure.

Poor grammatical expression

English is the business language of Nigeria, it is the glue of Nigerianness, it then behoves any Nigerian who wants to express the unity of that entity to master the language of that entity.

It is also the language of education and though for a majority it is not their mother tongue, there is no other alternative to expression when sitting examinations.

As I wrote in A malaise of inexactitudes [3], the Idea la need context is not sufficient for communicating ideas that are reviewed in answers to examination questions.

My mother was a WAEC examiner for 30 years and sometimes she read out answers to some Commerce questions and we all drew a blank, it was just impossible to understand what the candidate was trying to say before she had to read a grovelling appeal to be lenient in marking the same paper.

How much time can an examiner spend on divining the mind of the candidate through telepathy or clairvoyance before deciding that the answer is not catered for in the marking scheme and red-lines the whole stuff leading to a failure?

Failure to expatiate on points

I found this interesting, because Nigerians are generally given to the verbose rather than the precise. The questions have an intent derived from a syllabus that is public domain, the objectives indicated in the syllabus gives general guidance on what should be learnt and understood to tackle an examination offered by an institution.

Questions are phrased in such a way as to determine if the candidate has grasped those elements can relate those ideas in the context of their understanding.

If the candidate has no grasp of what is being asked, it is unlikely they would be able to expatiate on the points they list and hence show that they have mastered the topic.

A marking scheme might score for mentions but the better marks are in the detail that accompanies the mentions.

Misinterpretation of questions

This, I can very well agree with, first, it is a matter of comprehension – if the candidate has done the required study and understood the subject onto whether the student has the wherewithal to tackle questions that probe that knowledge.

Attention is paramount; the need to read the question more than twice and note clearly what points are required to be answered cannot be overstressed.

I am afraid to say that many do not pay close attention to the question and go off on a tangent doing their own thing but not fulfilling the main requirement.

Misinterpretation of questions - Doing your own questions

For instance, just over a week ago, I set a test on months in the Yoruba language which only 2 people tried. In the process, one commenter published the right answers to the questions for public viewing, destroying the need for the test and others published their own answers to questions that were not part of the test.

For any examiner, it would be annoying and really a bloody waste of time if they have to read through a diatribe only to find that it was completely irrelevant. It is a Nigerian malaise, I am afraid, because it also appears in comments to blogs.

On the sudden death of the wife of a Pentecostal church leader in Nigeria, I thought I was going to read she died at 75 only to read she died at 57. I was quite shocked at the death and then at the circumstances with the testimony of power in Christianity and the question of healing.

Unfortunately, I failed to excite intellectual discourse as it got subsumed in emotive, sentiment and hysterical fawning – basically, I was not supposed to as that question.

Illegible handwriting

We might write for ourselves, but when others have to read our writing it must not end up being an advanced course of deciphering cryptographic inscription.

I really feel for examiners who have to indulge in crude graphology to determine what the candidate is trying to say.

The fact is, writing is also a mode of expression, poor handwriting is poor expression, it is strange how after the writing lessons we have in primary school we end up with writing no better than animal tracks in the bush.

In my view, I think writing classes should continue into the early years of secondary school because once writing develops its personality and character, it can be impossible to adapt and change for legibility.

Wasting of time on unnecessary preambles

That probably speaks for itself, it would be different if I could say that it is an element of intellectual arrogance creating blinding ignorance but I have to ditch the word intellectual. People are wont to showing their knowledge without necessarily addressing the issue itself.

It is a waste of time on the part of the candidate, it wastes the time of the examiner and basically, it is just a waste of time.

Preambles? If only we really had to time to read through all that too, you are answering questions in examinations that have a set time in which to tackle the required questions.

Poor diagrams

We are not being asked to be artist but candidates striving to be scientists who can only make doodles are on to a failure. Diagrams require a bit of practice, lines that need to be straight should be, curves need to be regular and there is a world of difference between a diagram and a sketch.

Read wide

The last paragraph reads, “tasking candidates to read novels and newspapers”. You don’t say? That would mean there would be no time for the Bible, as if many read that to any level of understanding or comprehension.

Chxta [4] my blogging friend has many a time lamented the fact that many do not read. Reading expands horizons, creates inquisitive minds necessary to ask to the right questions and obtain good answers.

It helps people participate in intelligent debate and hones expression in ways that being spoon-fed doctrines, traditions and customs cannot begin to do.

Ask questions too

But then, we are averse to asking questions because our paternalistic society considers asking questions a sign of disrespect. It was interesting that in secondary school; very few of us did not see teachers as demigods, unapproachable and fiercely evil.

Religiously, we consign everything to God’s will, though I do wonder if we really do know God’s will but use our fear to enquire borne of our human relationships as indication of disrespectfulness to God if we were to dare to ask questions of God.

My frustration on the question I asked about healing for today was fully vented when I asked for a Gamaliel [5] to step up to the conversation; I was already fed up of listening to the Sons of Sceva. [6]

In fact, that is why in a very religious Nigeria many fail in a lot of their endeavours because they tackle issues like the Sons of Sceva rather than a learned Gamaliel, we need to approach these things with a sense of authority which comes from preparation, understanding and application. If God put a brain in man, it must be there for a purpose – Use it.

Sources

[1] Nigeria: WAEC Exam leaks are unacceptable [akinblog.nl]

[2] The PM News - Nigeria’s leading evening newspaper - ‘Why Candidates Fail Our Examinations’—WAEC

[3] Thought Picnic: A malaise of inexactitudes [akin.blog-city.com]

[4] Chxta's World

[5] Gamaliel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[6] Sons of Sceva: Spiritual authority and warfare