Nigeria: Independent of Feeling

Childhood Celebrations

A time of my childhood returns as a fleeting memory of Nigeria's independence celebrations, as today marks the 66th anniversary. Back then, at primary school in Jos, we practised marching like little soldiers, ready to demonstrate some sort of military prowess to the governor, who stood on a dais saluting the troops on this significant day.

If I remember correctly, it would have been October 1974, and that was the last time I took part in any such event. It was probably the only occasion on which we were close enough to a state capital to have a governor in attendance. Rayfield was home, Bukuru was for school, and the stadium in Jos was for marching.

Another notable public holiday would have been Children's Day, on the 27th of May. We donned our school uniforms and wore white socks, and there was a preference for canvas shoes; I had none, however, considering that my feet grew faster than shoes could be acquired to last a year.

An Outsider Looking In

Yet, for all these shared rituals, I am not sure I ever truly belonged. I had returned to Nigeria with my parents from England, and I was betrayed first by my accent, then by my outlook, and finally by the dawning realisation that many thought me different and apart, even when I tried my utmost to integrate.

There were benefits to this; I was excused from many traditional requirements that bound others. Being the outsider, though, could be difficult too, and one learns early that exemption and exclusion are often the same coin.

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

Percolating in the recesses of the unforgettable is the national anthem of the time, "Arise, O Compatriots", the one adopted by the military junta in 1978 and sung until 2024. The very word "compatriot" has always sat with me as "comrade" does; it speaks of a bond forged around an idea, a creed, or a cause, rather than the quieter fact of belonging to a land or a people.

That is the slant I could never warm to, worsened by the servitude of unquestioning obeisance, and worse still by the pledge, recited by the people yet ignored by the rulers. I have written before of my want of any reverence for it, and I will not rehearse that dismissal here. [The entity is Nigeria, the identity is Nigerian]

A Fading Affinity

As I sit here today, mindful that Nigeria is marking its independence, the refrain of the readopted anthem rings in me like an earworm, a tune that lingers though its meaning has long drained away.

Then again, even the colonial slant of that original anthem, now sung once more, still seems to exemplify what Nigeria remains. My affinity for what she represents is fast fading. Beyond heritage, she no longer exerts the pull of nostalgia, save for her cuisine, nor offers any real sense of identity as the years pass.

In the first stanza alone, everything militates against its reach and appeal; it has long become a historical artefact, of things told rather than lived. When I left Nigeria, I was also released from the grip it once seemed to have, until I realised that, by jus soli, I was indeed of a wholly different nation to my parents' jus sanguinis.

There is an irony I can no longer ignore. On the day a nation remembers its independence from an empire, proclaimed from a dais to a saluting crowd, I find I have quietly come into an independence of my own, won not at once but by increments. Hers was from a crown; mine is of feeling, the last tie to loosen and the hardest to mourn, settling in only when the heart finally stops answering a call it no longer recognises.

Nigeria, we hail thee,
Our own dear native land,
Though tribes and tongues may differ,
In brotherhood we stand,
Nigerians all, are proud to serve
Our sovereign Motherland.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Thought Picnic: Identity Formed by Timing

Returning After War

Way back in my late teens, I had a friend, or someone I thought was a friend. We were agemates, and something interesting and significant caught my attention. It seemed that those who returned from the UK at the end of the Nigerian Civil War integrated better, taking up the growing opportunities in a recovering country, than those who did so almost a decade later.

Between those who returned well under the age of ten and those in their early teens, there was a generational difference in adaptation, a sense of being caught adrift. Staying in the UK for longer proved less beneficial to their sense of belonging or identity; though they had better English accents, they were unsettled, and sometimes having a less prosperous time of it.

A Shared Beginning

For some context, the people I write about and I were all born in the UK in the 1960s. I returned to Nigeria well under the age of ten, having barely been exposed to inner city mechanics and situations; they returned in their teens, late in the 1970s. What separated us, then, was not origin but timing. We were cut from the same cloth, yet a few years of divergence would shape us differently.

My observations are, of course, anecdotal rather than academic. Even so, I think the age-of-return hypothesis is significant, and I have alluded to it in other blogs. It is the quiet variable running beneath everything I am about to describe.

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

What They Brought

What they brought into the fray was a sense of fun. They were the best chess players and had figured out how to solve the Rubik's cube, though they were not better Scrabble players. The Nigerian educational system was a challenge, amongst the other things that left them yearning to return to the UK, if only they had the opportunity.

They were a restless lot, and of the many, there were two who, on reflection, had been exposed to the race and deprivation politics and the discrimination of the 1970s into the 1980s. They carried the scars of inner-city influences, influences that would not have engendered the most positive sense of self and status, even in Nigeria.

They were suspicious before they were trusting, questioning more than listening, ready to respond with violence on a dare without first putting things in perspective. That people envied their exposure, without understanding how they were the personification of a social construct beyond their control, one that amounted to a material deficit, could make for an interesting study.

An Identity Formed at Home

Here is where the timing mattered most. My blackness was always simply part of me, and that was settled in Nigeria, quietly and without apology, long before it was ever questioned. I grew up where blackness needed no explanation and carried no burden; it was simply the ground I stood on. There was nothing to defend, because nothing had been challenged.

So, when I returned to the UK, and the racist abuse came, as it did, it met an identity that was already whole. The abuse did not shape how I saw myself; it had arrived too late for that. I could regard it as a reflection of the abuser rather than a depiction of myself, precisely because the depiction had been drawn elsewhere, at home, on my own terms.

The teenage returnees, I suspect, had that sequence reversed. Their sense of racial self was worked out amid the hostility, not before it, and so the hostility got inside, where mine never could.

A Sudden Slap

This friend of mine gave me a stinging slap after a dare, a playful situation that suddenly turned strange. It taught me a few things. I would not rise to a dare that I had no intention of acting on in the first place. I do not care if I am called a chicken; they are the hardiest and most abused of animals, and they probably possess the greatest survival instinct and resilience in the animal kingdom.

As a consequence, I have no fear of missing out. I am usually told that I do not know what I am missing, to which I would respond that I cannot miss what I do not know. A slap is a momentary event with no follow-on; the embarrassment quickly fades into irrelevance. My temperament is not conditioned for violence. I am comfortable letting things slide, because what defines me is character, not machismo. Class is always understated, never dramatic.

On Character and Circumstance

I think environments and societal settings can influence character as much as mould it, though to varying extents. I cannot speak to the sociological truth of that. Yet I am left wondering whether my own equanimity was truly character, or simply the good fortune of a gentler formative environment, a self settled before it was ever tested.

Perhaps that is the paradox worth sitting with. The returnees had the richer exposure by one measure, the metropolitan UK, the accents, the chess and the Rubik's cube, yet the more unsettled outcome by another. I had the lesser exposure, yet the steadier sense of who I was. Sometimes, it seems, less can be more.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Heritage Without Nostalgia

Observing Heritage from a Distance

Two events this month should have created a kind of nostalgia in me, but I seriously failed to be excited about either. I had become an observer of sorts of elements that have formed part of my identity.

Whilst in Cape Town, there was the Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey on the 9^th of March, and then yesterday came the conclusion of the first UK state visit in 37 years by a West African head of state, the Nigerian one. [The Royal Family: State Visit by The President and First Lady of Nigeria]

The first event gained significance through someone I follow on Twitter/X who had been invited to a reception at St James's Palace, though he could not attend because he was indisposed. As an activist for Nigerian immigrant causes, he had become prominent enough to be noticed and recognised as an important Nigerian diaspora figure.

For the state banquet at Windsor Castle, several people of Nigerian heritage were invited to represent the Nigerian community, many of whom have stronger roots in the United Kingdom than in Nigeria.

An English Identity

My living parents are Nigerian, but I was born in England, and though I have strong influences of Nigeria in my identity framework, I do not identify as such. To any question about where I am from, I respond that I am an Englishman, and I am originally from England.

This is reinforced by the fact that two-thirds of my life has been spent in Europe. Even for ethnic purposes, I would describe myself as Black English rather than the typical Black British or Black African.

This distinction matters to me because Black British functions as an umbrella term that groups together vastly different backgrounds and experiences, often implying a hyphenated identity or connection to a diaspora narrative.

Black English, by contrast, centres my English identity as primary. It asserts that I am English who happens to be Black, rather than suggesting divided loyalties or perpetual newcomer status.

The choice is deliberate: it reflects where I was born, where I belong, and how I understand myself. It challenges the assumption that Blackness and Englishness are somehow contradictory, and it refuses to accept that “English” is synonymous with “white.” For someone like me, whose connection to Nigeria exists more in memory than in meaningful attachment, this specificity matters.

The Outsider's Accent

I can reminisce about aspects of childhood and development that have served me well from having lived in Nigeria, yet for the simple reason that I had an accent, I was always an outsider.

That accent was no affectation; it was the sound of my formative years, the linguistic imprint of the England where I first learned to speak, to think, to understand the world. By the time we moved to Nigeria, my identity architecture was already established.

The English pronunciation I arrived with immediately identified me as different. In the playground, in the classroom, even within extended family gatherings, the way I spoke became a constant reminder that I did not belong in the same way others did.

Children would mimic my speech, adults would comment on how I sounded “British” or call me “Òyìnbó,” and I became known as “Ọmọ ìlú Òyìnbó,” the boy born abroad, or more literally, the child born in white-man’s land.

The accent was an audible barrier that no amount of time or adaptation could fully erase, a daily declaration of otherness that shaped my understanding of where I truly belonged.

The irony, of course, is that this very accent that made me perpetually foreign in Nigeria was simply part of the spectrum of English voices from the West Midlands. In Nigeria, I was told daily through reactions to my speech that I was foreign; in England, I simply was.

My parents, who moved from Nigeria to England and back, could navigate both worlds with the fluency of belonging. They spoke the languages without pronounced accents, understood the unspoken rules, carried the cultural memory in their bones. I had none of these inheritances.

Where they were returning home, I was simply living abroad. This distinction, between inherited belonging and biographical accident, crystallised my understanding that identity is not a matter of bloodline but of lived experience and genuine connection.

The experience taught me something fundamental: identity is not about where others place you, but where you place yourself, and where you are recognised as belonging without constant explanation.

Detachment and Memory

In terms of identity, whilst I am interested in what goes on in Nigeria, I am more detached than ever. The closest association nowadays depends on whether my flight between France or the Netherlands and Cape Town flies over the Nigerian landmass, where place names trigger some memory or recognition from more than 50 years ago.

In general, I have determined there is no reason to visit Nigeria since I left over 35 years ago. I have the name, I have the influences, I have the memories, but the nostalgia has fully settled into obsolescence and insignificance.

Gratitude Without Nostalgia

Yet I love that Nigeria was part of my upbringing because it strengthened elements of self-identity, self-esteem, and self-respect. For that alone, I am grateful for the Nigerian experience, as it reinforces the context and sense of who I am.

God bless Nigeria, for when things are going well in Nigeria, there is less anxiety for all of us associated, even in the remotest sense, with Nigeria.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Essential Snobbery 101: Letting Mother Help You Choose Good Friends

The Wisdom of Maternal Instinct

Mothers of my generation who happened to be in the UK during the 1960s seemed to acquire a turn of phrase associated with that exposure, which we, their children, sometimes had trouble understanding. However, with hindsight, many of their observations were insightful, intuitive, and prescient.

When your mother said, "This friend of yours is too good for my liking," whilst she was not commanding you to break the friendship there and then, she expected you to find ways of extricating yourself from that relationship.

Usually, this meant bringing new friends into your orbit and having something aspirational within those friendships against which she could compare you, urging you to do better. As our parents cannot essentially make our friends for us, they exercise a kind of judgement on our decision-making in the best interests of our protection, even if we cannot see why.

The Mirror of Association

Another saying of foreboding is, "Show me your friends, and I will show you who you are." Association becomes a marker for discernment, character, and principle. Choose and keep the wrong associations, and watch your own reputation go up in flames, even if you are neither involved nor culpable in the nefarious activities of your chosen friends.

Moral judgement, a good conscience, along with a sense of knowing when something is wrong, are instincts we should all have. Beyond that, we need to be aware of when we begin to think that status and means provide immunity for impunity, creating an aura of invincibility bordering on being untouchable. It is the most dangerous cocoon of existence in which a man can find himself.

It is in this light that I have wondered how wise counsel deserted men of wealth and power concerning Jeffrey Epstein. Firstly, the evil and wickedness he inflicted on young, vulnerable women for his pleasure and that of those he corralled into his circle of influence is unforgivable. Lives were ruined and damaged beyond any form of redemption. The most public of them, Virginia Giuffre, took her own life last year.

The Voiceless Victims

For those still living, I can only hope that they find the love and care to give them not merely the will to live, but a purpose that can help them craft a better story regardless of their past. They remain the voiceless in this atrocity, in which he gave himself the easy exit of suicide rather than be held accountable for his actions.

His accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is in prison but hardly languishing in a gulag. She probably holds a bargaining chip of influence and blackmail that could ease the severity of the punishment she truly deserves. However, apart from these two principals in this influential harem of inordinate abuse, almost rivalling the court of Caligula, no one else has faced the remote prospect of indictment, let alone prosecution.

A Global Web of Complicity

The names on Jeffrey Epstein's Rolodex and roll of shame reach into a global Who's Who of money, power, royalty, politics, and academia, touching the once respected, revered, or adored. We have begun to question our own sanity, yet one can only be in awe of how he networked to create a veneer of respectability over his disreputable and criminal enterprise. Those involved became inadvertent enablers, and within that bubble, they were mesmerised into the suspension of disbelief.

The taint of association has claimed scalps and led to disgrace in many spheres. It started with a CEO of a global bank losing his job, the marriage of the richest man in the world for over a decade collapsing, a prince losing his titles and honours, an ambassador sacked with the prospect of losing his peerage, and today, the chief of staff to the Prime Minister resigning for just being a friend of a friend.

That list is not exhaustive, but it is indicative of how a mother's observation could have saved the reputations and honour of some who have now become part of Epstein's story.

Heeding the Warning Signs

It is obvious that we need to regularly review the kinds of friendships we keep, no matter how influential, rich, and connected that person might be. I know those people my mother took exception to; there are two who never became good friends. One of them became involved in criminality in the UK, such that his history stood against his ability to practise law there.

Sometimes, I hear my mother's voice in my head. There are times I hear her in my own speaking, too. In both cases, I am glad there is that premonition to avoid some people.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Essential Snobbery 101: Leaving the village people in the village

A fear of the imagined

Village People, and this is not the American disco group from the 1970s; rather, it defines a state of mind, the foreboding that any adversity or misfortune is an extension of the negative influence of people from your homestead on your circumstances.

The idea of village people is retrogressive, a concept of people limited by a frame of reference governed by malevolence and envy: detractors who cannot bear to see others succeeding, whose sense of joy is derived from the downfall of others.

Whether the concept of village people is imagined or real, we find ourselves caught in the paranoia of being watched and afraid to stumble. Everything becomes a premonition towards ill. The danger is that we become ensnared by mental constraints we have imposed on ourselves, borne of the irrational yet significantly impactful on our mien.

Leave them in the village

Yet, I aver that village people should be left in the village and not be given any semblance of influence beyond the village limits. They cannot walk where we have walked, nor can they see through our eyes.

Why, then, do we believe that village people have the ability to impact our lives so profoundly that they have such a hold on us? How can they divert not just the course of events far removed from them but also define our destiny? The truth is probably a battle we are engaged with, in our heads rather than something external to us.

To paraphrase Hanlon's razor: "Never ascribe to malice (of village people) that which is adequately explained by incompetence (of ourselves)." If we took more responsibility for some things that have happened to us, the village people might just become the music that gets us on the dancefloor.

With Such Ruthless Efficiency?

Travelling by nature’s gift

One beautiful afternoon walking up Boulevard de Strasbourg in Paris, I noticed on both sides of this broad arterial route were shops purveying a wide variety of hair products catering to the African woman. More notably, were the hair extensions that I was made to believe came from the indigenous peoples of Brazil and India.

The exploitation of this resource and the middlemen that make money from this trade would be a study of world economies and how sources of extraction rarely benefit fully from the market of the produce or products.

The other unusual insight I gained from my observation was the way these indigenous people whose world is limited in its locality have inadvertently travelled the world with their gifts of beautifying customers in Paris, London, Lagos, or any other metropolis where the augmentation of natural hair demands these accoutrements.

Blog - Paris: Boulevard de l'Unpretty (February 2016)

Blog - Paris: Boulevard de l'Unpretty - Revisited. (August 2018)

Readers around the globe

I have had a blog for over 20 years, it started in Germany, I set up the domain in the Netherlands and I reside in the UK. I have posted from many locations and have been completely unaware of the reach of my blog in terms of readership apart from ballpark numbers of readers, locations, search terms, browsers used and so on.

For instance, looking at the statistics on my blog, I cannot account for why there is any interest in my blog from Iran or Cambodia and these are in the top 10 countries with readers from Nigeria coming behind these two countries in the last week. The fact is my blog is travelling to places I could never have imagined, garnering interest that I cannot explain, yet it somewhat engenders something relatable that is not done for engagement, influence, or monetary gain.

They happened upon my blog

Such is the experience I had yesterday when a renowned personality requested access to my résumé which I granted even as I pondered why ever they would make such a request. The follow on was the receipt of an email commending my blog and the work I had put into it for over two decades. They also referred to the fact that my career path which is totally at variance with my journaling and blog deserves deep respect and honour.

Apparently, I have maintained this blog with ruthless efficiency (their words), I only wish I had, as it is the kind of praise that comes to your hearing, and you find yourself looking around expecting it to have been directed at someone else rather than yourself.

My partner and my best friend have already started pointing fingers, “I told you so” said one, “You do not listen” intoned the other. When does self-deprecation morph into self-depreciation? You question your instincts as modesty remains the better virtue to self-promotion. Indeed, I do little to promote my blog, most of the traffic is organic. I have also kept intrusive and cluttering advertisements off it because it is not a commercial venture, nor do I intend it to evolve in that direction.

If like the hair extensions, I am like an indigenous woman who profits little apart from the knowledge that my hair, of which primarily I have none, adorns the heads of sophisticated women around the world, even for the praise and acknowledgement I have received, I would be both fulfilled and grateful. My blog is made up of many stories and I hope each day brings inspiration for another story. 

The identity complex of community collateral

At cultural crossroads

Much as I try to convince myself that I fully integrated with the norms and mores of the major cultural influences in my upbringing, I am ever so rudely brought to the realisation that I am very much distant and sometimes barely belong and understand certain situations.

What is becoming quite evident is the Western influences are both dominant and defining, the Nigerian and Yoruba influences whilst giving me the benefit of experience and appreciation, my worldview only inculcates snippets rather than full concepts.

Decades ago, when my father said, “You have always thought like a Westerner.” Whilst not taking offence, I felt my quest to adapt and integrate with the culture and norms of my parents’ roots was being discounted. My years of being toughened in secondary boarding school in southwestern Nigeria were more a reinforcement of my difference than sameness.

Accented differences accentuated

Some afterwards, my brother would say, in jest and yet with more than a scintilla of truth that, “You are not one of us.” I guess even where I have challenged that presumption, I might well be in denial. My mongrel accent of various influences leaves me speaking in Nigeria as if I have an English accent and, in the UK, I have West Midlands and Estuary pretensions and pronunciation with enunciation deliberate but not received. I don’t desire a posh accent.

It is my accent that immediately set me apart in the 19 years I lived in Nigeria, and from the time we landed in Nigeria, there were people who saw me as a foreigner of sorts to the day I left. There may be instances where I try to so hard and relent when I understand that I am indeed different and I should embrace that fact.

An individual at divides

Today, I was given another perspective to contextualise my reaction to a conversation where I thought the discussion had deviated from the issue to the collateral. To a person steeped in Western individuality, the issue revolves around the individual and that is where the focus should be. At least, that is where I would naturally gravitate.

My sister however suggested another perspective, in the communitarian construct of African identity, the individual exists in a community and the issue affecting the individual has impactful collateral that the community is burdened with for which the community sees incumbent to ingratiate, intrude, and intervene to address and ameliorate for themselves, the individual and the instigating issue.

The enlightenment is I probably have been too individualistic in the things that pertain to me, my engagement in the broader community has been on my own terms alone with little consideration of who is in that community or how what happens to me affects that community. To that community, I can be radical, a maverick and a possible outcast. Unfortunately, for the said community, just by my Western outlook I have sworn no allegiance even if it is implicitly demanded of me.

A renewed acceptance

It is unlikely that my perspective will change, but I need to give the periphery some thought. Already, I find myself reviewing some of my viewpoints before publication because of these allegiances, weak as they might seem. In the quest for a better understanding of my sense of identity, rather than battle with the differences and drown in the confluence of the conflicting influences, I will just accept I am an Englishman in the main, with an inept understanding of traditions and culture of my forebears.

I am a study of the Third Culture Kid that will be found in disagreement with an ancestral community and in agreement with that in which I was born, for the good and for life. There are many like me who still face these issues, I am just surprised that at close to 60, the question of identity is still a work in progress.

My own All Saints' Day

The saints in my canon

It would appear strange that quite deep into the Advent season so close to Christmas, I am celebrating my own version of All Saint’s Day which in the traditional Christian Church calendar starts at the end of October with All Hallows’ Eve, then All Saints’ Day and ends on the 2^nd of November with All Souls’ Day.

As it has come up in conversations that I have had recently, I find that there are men interesting and significant who are no more with us, such who have become canonised in my own life story, and this is not a list to supplant that of the church. In these men, usually not deliberate, but significant, I have found direction, insight, and light, even if for a transient and sometimes for longer, they are lauded.

This list is hardly exhaustive, but it is probably the beginning of recognising the influence, impact, and mentoring of people that have mattered in my life.

Unculu

Unculu, he was my uncle, my father’s younger brother, and as a child, he was a deflection from the personality that my dad exuded as a high-achieving and successful man with a home life that strict, stern, and terrifying in the way he disciplined his youngest sibling, my aunt, along with how he commanded an entire of relations that genuflected and regarded him with fear and adulation.

In Unculu, I found that adults can be approachable, you can engage in conversation with them and there were no limits to the expression of ideas or viewpoints that it was of him that I asked if he could wait at his own age for me to catch up. He smiled, as he explained how that age-gap is constant. It was also in him that I observed that being respectful of everyone does not in any way diminish your standing.

Tajudeen Oladipo Akintayo, became Unculu to me, and it was out of respect for him that the Ola part of my name Akinola was not used when I was addressed and I believe when his son who met an untimely death was addressed the Akin part of his name Akinyemi was not used, in consideration of me. Much as there could have been ways Unculu could have influenced me beyond my childhood, I became more of an observer than a follower when he left our household. He passed on in June 2019.

Blog - Thought Picnic: In the husbandry of futility

Uncle Jimoh

Uncle Jimoh, at first, was the son of a patriarch in the north, his father, Baba Bukuru ran a bicycle shop in Bukuru, a suburb of Jos. However, I began to notice that Uncle Jimoh was quite academically brilliant, the kind of person who would go places given the opportunity and whose potential was unlimited in terms of what he could achieve.

I could see the mutual respect that grew between my parents and their younger distant cousin, if there was a beacon of excellence, they desired any of us their children to aspire to, Uncle Jimoh would be a clear example. His success was shared with such unflinching generosity as I experienced in gifts and conversations, especially when he was completing his Quantity Surveying studies in the UK as I was leaving secondary school.

How he influenced me was at the time subtle because I was quite persuaded to consider the same career and it was through certain exchanges with him that I focused more on attending a polytechnic rather than a university. Eventually, I did start with Chemical Engineering but veered towards Electrical & Electronic Engineering which formed the foundations of my career.

For advice, he was present, sometimes commanding, other times adjuring, but mostly advising. He remained through his life someone to look up to and was a significant contributor at the point when I was ready to depart for the UK. Jimoh Ogunnaike, he left indelible footsteps in the sands of time. He passed on in November 2013.

Blog - A great man, we've lost

Uncle Cash

Our initial encounters were relayed to me for I do not have any recollection of an older man observing a precocious child of 5 that arrested the attention of everyone with his speech and his actions, I got told many times of that, it was impossible not to have it encoded in memory.

Around that same time, my father had promised him £10 if he passed the school examinations he had until then failed, a debt still left unpaid, a family canard or more besides, I was not a witness of that shaking of hands.

We had more engaging encounters after he returned from his studies in the UK and through his wife, my aunt, as my first job was also at the same place of work. Many family backstories followed.

He became my guardian in January 1986 by invitation of my aunt and it was from then that he became a purposeful and consequential influence on my life. Much of what I have become is a result of the example he was.

More significantly, he built up my confidence to be assertive, to think with clarity and work at being less encumbered by the emotional or the irrational, it is difficult to quantify or qualify how impactful that was in character building whilst allowing me the courage of my convictions and beliefs.

That relationship-building and cultivating work never stopped and this piece would never capture the essence of who he was to me. Christopher Ademola Soyinka, CASH! To all who knew him passed on in June 2022.

Blog - Uncle Cash!

D-Shash

When I walked into the calico white building at 203 Ikorodu Road, I was in my best shoes knocking on Information Technology company doors looking for work, I had finished my trek of Ikeja and was on my way to Lagos Island and Ikoyi when I caught a glimpse of IT Systems Ltd literally opposite the famous Baptist Academy. Even with that school, I have some old history.

I walked into IT Systems and asked for work, after a few questions and answers, I was offered a job to start the following Monday. Little did I know of what was happening upstairs apart from whispers about an unassuming larger-than-life lawyer with his team of researchers working on the Nigerian Supreme Court Cases and about to beat the renowned Gani Fawehinmi at the game of annotating, cataloguing, and expositing the cases of the supreme court from 1963.

My first encounter with Deji, D-Shash to everyone was when they asked for some help with their computers, I went upstairs, fixed the issue in minutes and for that, Deji dipped his hand in his pocket and offered me NGN 50; that was a quarter of my monthly salary, but I politely declined it, what I did to resolve the problem was just too trivial to charge for, I had sown a seed of some recognition in his mind.

Meanwhile, a classmate who was staying with me out of the generosity of my Uncle Cash because he had another job with an IT firm in Lagos shared some discs with me containing the desktop publishing application, Xerox Ventura Desktop Publisher which in my spare time, I learnt to use quite proficiently and that opened many doors. Another long story.

I fixed a number of problems happily for Deji upstairs and still refused any payment or gifts until I left IT Systems to go contracting. A month into my stint, word got to me that Deji wanted a meeting with me. He had a sporadic business relationship with an African American desktop publishing consultant¹ where he needed additional commitments, and so he wanted me not as an employee, but as a consultant to support their desktop publishing projects and also train the staff on the basics. (¹I have since learnt Rhonda Dabiri, passed on in April 2020)

The deal he offered was borne of a level of respectful courtesy rare in people of means and power, before I had thought of it, he said, whenever you are ready to leave for England, your ticket is paid for, apart from that, I will give you a monthly stipend, and you can come and go as you wish because I know you have many engagements. How that boosted my professional confidence was beyond belief, I was in a high-profile role with considerable visibility to clients seeking desktop publishing expertise.

It opened many doors including my first return to the UK as a business representative and technical directory of a fledgling desktop publishing company veering away from traditional printing methods. Deji Sasegbon SAN, was a towering influence that helped set the course of majorly contracting career with the seed of negotiating terms that best suited my kind of personality. He passed on in December 2016.

Blog - Adieu D-Shash! (Deji Sasegbon)

John

He had placed a job advertisement in the Pink Paper that I had no qualifications for, but I was seeking to break out of the public sector into the private sector without much success.

I sent my CV to John without expecting a response, but I did get a call, and the first thing he said was he liked my CV, but it was not saying enough about my knowledge and experience. He then offered to spend time with me on my CV to fix it and make it more marketable.

I visited his office and the next 4 hours that evening were spent shaping up my CV, the result of which was a job in the private sector in less than 2 months.

For an older man in the technology field, John had constantly reinvented himself, and engaged lots of young talent, giving them not just opportunities but opening them up to challenges that stood in good stead for the development of their careers. He even offered an engaging internship to one of my friends who need essential tutelage to prepare him for the UK IT market.

Then John was more than an encouraging voice of support, where I had doubts about my abilities or capabilities, John would say, “Akin, I know you can do it.” That was the impetus to believe in me.

Beyond that, John was generous with his time, a mentor with great insight, a supporter with a stern teacher’s background, yet empathetic to the core. His work on my CV is foundational to the way my CV looks today, and that skill has been transferred to me to help others realise value and recognition out of their CVs.

John Alexander Coll passed on 9 years ago today in December 2013.

Blog - John Coll: Friend, Mentor, Gentleman

The UK: Why Kemi Badenoch is not the poster child

The lady runs to lead

Kemi Badenoch’s elimination from the contest to lead the Tory Party and hence become the Prime Minister must have been a great disappointment for her, though it would have been well received in some quarters.

Kemi Badenoch, née Adegoke, is someone I have encountered since the mid-2000s when she appeared to camp in the comment sections of a blog run by Jeremy Weate and controversial does not begin to describe the views and opinions she shared.

Now, if Kemi Badenoch had been successful in her quest to lead the Tory Party, it would have presented the first time that an ethnic minority led the United Kingdom if we are to discount Benjamin Disraeli’s Jewish heritage when he was Prime Minister in the 19^th Century.

Everything but representing

In her case, besides the issue of her identity, race and heritage, there is little about her that is common to the apparent identity constituency people might think she represents. We are consequently products of influences, circumstances and situations more than of the ethnic minorities we are, and it is essential that we begin to disabuse the view that ethnic minorities represent a monolithic or homogenous political leaning.

Beyond Kemi Badenoch, the issue is simple. Much as having an ethnic minority ahead might present inspiration and possibility to the youth aspiring to be significant members of communities and society, we need to ensure we are choosing the right examples demonstrative of embracing common humanity with all its diversity.

That is not essentially codified in having similar backgrounds as I would be the first to say that from a reflective and policy standpoint, Kemi Badenoch and I are so radically different and divergent as it might be as the east is far away from the west.

Equipping us to become roles

Yet, we have work to do. Our parents before us and similarly, many of us have been pioneers or first movers in various areas of endeavour. We did not see people like us in our roles or ahead, rather, we, from what was imbued in us through education, opportunity, possibly privilege and influence, forged ahead to become recognised and respected in the things that we do.

In some way, we had role models that did not look like us or come from our kind of background. Quite as we might want to have visible role models and high achievers that might give our children a sense of what is possible, those scenarios might well not be as packaged or presented for them to see as they grow up.

It is then incumbent on us to give our children the tools and the wherewithal to be able to walk into places where they might be the first and only, the confidence to be able to hold their own, the assertiveness to be able to speak with a strong voice and the mien not to be caught out in a victim syndrome when situations, opportunities, or encounters turn sour.

Choosing the right examples

Sadly, I have seen too many academically high achieving ethnic minority people unable to realise their full potential because they are lacking in confidence or have been emasculated by a system and institutionalised settings that suggest they do not belong, where, by merit, they are more than capable, if given the opportunity.

I doubt the likes of Kemi Badenoch making political progress of the sort she aspired to would open doors for anyone like her, even as it might be uncharitable to suggest that she having gained opportunity is kicking the ladder away for those like her. Even one might be inclined to feel she is trying too hard to endear herself to the radical rather than a broader embrace of inclusivity.

Indeed, we can do with exemplary and amazing achievement amongst ethnic minorities, if we cannot agree, my view is Kemi Badenoch is not that example, her controversial track record highlighted in The Independent would suggest we deserve better. [The Independent: 10 of Kemi Badenoch's biggest controversies as she is knocked out of Tory leadership contest]

Thought Picnic: On these sententious Nigerian streets

Skeletons on the streets

I have watched aghast, disappointed but probably not too surprised a series of exposés about rotten corporate leadership, workplace abuse, untrammelled impunity, corporate malfeasance, domestic violence, and generally reprehensible conduct that leaves one gasping in astonishment.

Whilst I do not intend to revisit any of the issues, I have noticed that the concept of a moral compass is totally missing from the biases that emerge from the sides and neutrality of those who are either invested in the situation or cannot hold their counsel for the need of notoriety or to exacerbate the situation for their continued entertainment.

Private misdeeds revealed

What is more galling is the vaunted public morality and uprightness of the persons involved as juxtaposed with the private atrocities and mendaciousness of the same people. A total lack of integrity and character with the feeling that they are inviolable, infallible, and untouchable by reason of the means they have and the influence they can peddle.

However, social media democratises even if not for the best, the information space, but with the way things are, someone somewhere needs to keep us honest even if the methods and means are not to our liking. If those with means, power, or status cannot find in themselves the necessary controls to demonstrate good virtues whether under observation or not, then, some external feature needs to engage their minds to redress the situation.

It might well be that such people need to step back from the public coalface for a time of reflection towards possible redemption, if possible and that after contrition and genuine apology, along with restitution to set things right.

Messing more with the mess

Besides, the sententiousness of the commentariat leaves much to be desired, in the excusing of the inexcusable or the defending the indefensible, the absence of a frame of reference that gives regard to humanity and virtue is an astounding thing to behold, with unrelated issues, joined to distract and a penchant for the disingenuous revealing a default for dishonesty, dissembling, and a mockery of anything wholesome or good.

As we are so schooled to respond, deploying the device of argumentum ad populum becomes the refuge of the scoundrel, they appeal to our patriotism or beliefs by trotting out religious texts to find some cover from scrutiny by calling the divine to witness. That you have taken an oath is no guarantee that you would not perjure or suborn. They seek to deflect rather than address and we have seen this many times before.

Fix up or shut up

No one is interested in what you believe, however, if you are the object of scrutiny, it is only right to address in particularity the issues, allegations, or accusations made with simplicity rather than with sophistry and solipsism. We have seen it all before, who are you when no one is watching and as we are not gifted with omniscience to see as the divine sees, you are left to speak for yourself in the language we understand or admit you have been found out and face the consequences of your decisions with a sense of responsibility.

There is a lot more to be said and exposed, they who think they stand should beware lest they fall by reason of the things that come to light that are questionable and below the standard of equity and probity. If your hands are dirty, they will only get washed at a prominent public faucet in an overcrowded Coliseum of the baying mob asking for your head. Selah!

Rise with your hopes or fall with your fears

Guard your ears, till your heart

Our fears can so limit our ability to thrive, some fears fed by a passing comment in our past that takes root and grows into a humongous impediment to progress and success. The caution we must exercise in who we lend our ears to is one of eternal vigilance, for the grounds in which seeds can grow in our lives, are more fertile than we ever realise.

Words from the mouths of our parents triggering involuntary responses that determine the course of our lives and can make a difference in a lifetime, you wonder, how do you escape the clutches of what you have taken to heart? There are damaging consequences, from people of considerable influence that you can still hear their voices decades long after you have forgotten who or what they look like.

We can be different

We should not however concentrate on the negative, there are other inputs that engender the amazingly productive, that word of kindness, of encouragement, of hope, of prayer, of beauty, of praise and the good of our humanity, lighting up a path for us to travel, rescuing us from danger, infirmity, or calamity, bringing a sense of determination that girds us and strengthens us that we have no choice but to win. Those voices are begging to be heard but we are too attuned to the contrary.

As individuals, we fight our uniquely arranged battles, but when we enter into partnerships where our fortunes are pooled, we can rise with our partners or sink with them because of the baggage that burdens our inability to either live beyond our fears or the grip of the impending defeat sowed by experiences or words we have heard before.

Imagine where you can be

The greater disaster is not to see the newness in life that gives you hope against all situations to write a better story and create a worthy narrative of your life beyond the fears and low expectations of others who stole our power to thrive with their selfish perspective of what your life might be if it turned out different and successful.

If I am saddened, it is with those who never tried to dream of the extraordinary and when given the opportunity take off from the ground, rise to have the wind beneath their wings to soar with the eagles. It is possible, only if we uproot the forests of fruitless trees that took hold clouding the warmth of the sun with the fear of a future we do not know. Fears based on broad stereotypes when they should have based on the uniqueness of the individual.

Even more, the pity is you and your partner are left down in the dumps in an unproductive life just because fear robbed you of the spirit of hope and the experience of better things that you could ever have imagined in your wildest dreams.

Thought Picnic: Sophistication above the fray

We feel what you said and did

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

The quote above is often attributed to Maya Angelou and I will take it as that. In many of my blogs, I have written about storytelling, the telling of our own stories and some stories that were once taboo of generations before us and never given voice to then have somewhat become acceptable narratives in our own recollections.

When it comes to the stories regarding our parents and the relationships, we had that became the broad template of our lives and lifestyles, we could be a little shy of going into much detail. Out of respect, out of the need to heal, out of the necessity not to air one’s dirty linen, or out of honouring them.

Sophistication out of humanity

Yet, some of these factors allow our parents to get away with the reprehensible because they are not made to face up to what they said that hurt, or what they did that harmed, but especially how they made us feel out of their actions or inactions that now defines the kind of relationships we have with them today.

None of this is to castigate our parents, far be it from us, we have through strife, adversity, pain, and privation learnt sophistication. The sophistication that allows us to act out our humanity and kindness regardless of the personalities whose words and deeds have left indelible marks in our lives. We can be formed by these experiences and yet not be defined by the negative things they were at the time meant to portend.

Forgiving after dealing

We can be quite forgiving, but that must not be used as the instrument to forget without addressing the matters boldly, directly and without dissimulation. My father will say, let bygones be bygones, that is convenient for him. However, that bygone is a significant source of the present, a forming instrument of life and experience, an influence of such magnitude as to be a principal actor in my own story, even if it is not in theirs.

What he dismissed then was what was significantly altering the course of my life in ways I could never have thought would happen, when it looked like tomorrow was too far to have a feel of any reality. Those tomorrows became years and decades, and each of those events of how I was made to feel are my story.

Protecting our interests

We are not softies for overlooking much of what a lesser person would seek to avenge or punish, I hope we raise ourselves to a higher plain and have the grace to recognise that providence has given us the capability to teach a better way.

Many things are temporal, including life, that we need to be careful that when we are no more around to sort things out, we will be remembered for the good we said and did, such that people will protect our interests, memories, kith and kin with just as much passion as if we were around to address them ourselves.

When the stories are told, they are about us, the ideas, the events and the people that contributed to the experience and everyone whether they like that narrative or not has inadvertently contributed to it, we are the people who will never forget how you made us feel.

Thought Picnic: Considering the blessing of people in my life

Finding people of influence

I decided to review some of the handwritten notes I took with regards to the Deepak Chopra Creating Abundance: 21-Day Meditation Challenge. The exercise for Day 1 having completed Day 0 which was the invitation to consent participate was to make a list of 50 people who had influenced my life.

Blog - My thoughts on the Deepak Chopra 21-day Abundance Meditation

We were given the latitude to consider people living or dead, relatives, friends, celebrities, writers, and personalities who I might no9t necessarily know who might have influence and contributed to my growth and development.

It looked like a daunting task because at first, I did not think I would have 20 names, then I ended up with 54, comprised of lovers, friends, relations, managers, writers and religious people. I am surprised I had no performers, though some on the list were artists, and I could not find a distinctive identification related to professions, even though they all covered a broad spectrum of endeavour.

Why they each mattered

In listing keywords beside the names, I began from the last name listed through to the first, the first in the list was my boyfriend, Brian and then it radiated out of my immediate circle to different albeit significant influences. I had about 30 keywords distributed amongst the names, some having multiple keywords.

In my review today, I decided the count the occurrences of the keywords to assess the weights in the categories of influence listed. I found that Friendship came first, then Story, Teacher, and Opportunity shared the second place, the shared fifth place went to Mentorship and Leadership, the seventh places were Love, Generosity, and Adaptability, with the tenth places shared with Humility, Companionship, and Belief.

My friendships are significant

Now, this was not to rank the importance of each keyword because it would not tell any story in the proper context, yet, I do cherish Friendship, I was surprised I had that many in the categories of Mentorship and particularly Leadership as I am somewhat averse to concerted efforts to lead even though it is important in the management of people, their talents and towards certain objectives.

Love and Companionship obviously came from my lovers, the current who has the pride of place as first amongst others, yet, I maintain good friendships with most of my previous significant romantic relationships. I think some of the significant ways I have been influenced are not by direct instruction, but through observation, experience, and example.

The seeds they sowed in me

I love to stories, we are story people, I hope that I am teachable much I desire to be able to teach purposefully, and as I have been given many opportunities, I sometimes see an opportunity where it appears there is none and hope to present an opportunity for others to see prospects and well beyond themselves. The people who have believed in me gave me a world to explore well beyond what I could have imagined.

In all, the exercise probably allowed me to reflect on the different people who have entered my life at different times, some having gone, some forgotten and others enduring, everyone, regardless of the state of our relationship today needs to be cherished for I owe them all a debt of gratitude. In each of the people on that list, I find I can count a blessing in my life, naming them one by one and realise what I privilege it has been to be have been given the gift of these people to sow a seed of positive influence in my life, that grew into a tree of life.

Thought Picnic: I will remain curious and work on it

[]

Who is me again?

Recently, I think I have been searching for a better understanding of myself, a kind of review of my past, my present, my prospects, the circumstances in which I find myself, what might need tinkering with and what other things must radically shift.

I guess I am constantly challenging myself to appreciate if I am achieving and contributing, whether my ideas are sound and what I need to do or where I need to go to get inspiration and insight for whatever I am faced with. There are days I do not think I have done much and there are many caught between the shame of being slothful, the guilt of not achieving my goals, the embarrassment of being caught out and the humiliation of being shown up.

Finding my place of vulnerability and being able to deal with it is still a process, the way I find it difficult to ask for or seek help when I need it most. I am working on finding the voice to fix the things I am uncomfortable with.

Guarding the influences

This Coronavirus pandemic lockdown where you are left alone and with your own thoughts, many influences begin to insert themselves in your life, usually from social media and television. I do manage my television influences better than I do social media, especially Twitter. So much jumps out at you to enrage you that you need to condition yourself in terms of initiation, engagement, response, contribution, restraint, disengagement, or indifference.

Then, I am getting better at extricating myself, I do not need to be drawn into issues that drain mental energy, denigrate, or are unedifying. The unpersuadable are just unpersuadable and it is important to see the trait early before the fruitless frustrates. Most importantly, know the unnecessary for it is unnecessary, something to be ignored and where the temptation to tweet must be resisted for your good.

I will remain curious

As I go through this developmental process, I have been trying to find fulfilment in the things I enjoy without having the things that drive others define my sense of achievement. Listening to a number of discussions from many interesting people, the pep talk is quite off-putting to the point of detestation.

The life coaches and motivation speakers who go on about using this period of sequestration or rather retreat to say you should focus on something, have a purpose in life or pursue your passion, without which you have underachieved leaving you an anxiety wreck as you realise you have let another day slip useless away, again.

Blog - Thought Picnic: In the days of useful ideas

Elizabeth Gilbert in a recent TED discussion brought in a new thought process, suggesting we exercise curiosity; a kind of interest probably in the mundane, which I do so well, observing beyond just seeing, the stakes she said are lower, there is no anxiety, for looking closer brings to light things easily missed.

I know I am curious, it feeds my learning, the learning to love myself more, it brings insight, it is questioning, precocious, inquisitive, challenging of the norm and I might just end up being proud of myself, grateful of the wonderful people and things that enrich my life. I think I am comfortable with that.