Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXXII

What I thought I saw

For once, I thought I was watching a circus act, an elephant on a bicycle riding on the pavement against road traffic until I noticed he had no trunk, just a truck of a backside to task a tape measure at the tailors.

Manchester as I went out shopping is in a kind of festive mode, as 2024 ushers in the bicentennial of the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University that both trace their origins to the Mechanics’ Institute founded in 1824.

Oxford Road is the artery that links these two universities bustling with crowds of students and all the services that cater to their needs. The banners are up and soon the bands and parties will set up to play.

Pandemic to pandemonium

The number of people still donning face masks would suggest the pandemic still rages, invisible as it might seem, I was chatting to someone on Sunday who had just recovered from a bout of COVID-19, we still need to be cautious and careful.

St Peter’s House used to be the chaplaincy to the broader university community that included the Royal Northern College of Music, though the food bank services remain in the building, the sadly poorly run organisation seems to have closed.

I was an observer of an employment dispute last year that to me showed that there were too many conflicting interests in the running of the place, the trustees were derelict in their scrutinising responsibilities, and it became evident that new engagements that sought to change how things were run met with both resistance and opposition.

It is a sad development and though a Catholic chaplaincy exists further up the road, I would hope this institution is revived with better hands and those with a heart to serve the community for which they exist.

The look and warmth of love

The Whitworth festooned within Whitworth Park is a place I last visited in January last year at the launching of an exhibition that was to run for the full year, I did think I would return to see the exhibition proper, but I never did.

Meanwhile, even in the freezing cold of winter, a few benches were occupied by couples at different stages of the expression of affection, the warmth of love cannot be assailed by the weather. You are left thinking of when you might find the beauty of that expression for yourself.

I rarely allow myself to just watch the heaving beautiful life of Manchester, even with the effects of the pandemic barely out of memory, we have a city that is thriving, lively, and changing at a rate that is, well, astounding.

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - VI

Universities of note

On my outing yesterday which was a 2.8 mile (4.5 km) walk to and from Whitworth Park, the main thoroughfare of Oxford Rd all the way to the suburb of Rusholme was the most deserted I had ever seen Manchester.

Oxford Rd going south divides the main campuses of the University of Manchester to the left and Manchester Metropolitan University on the right. In some cases, the universities share facilities and departments, both tracing their origins to the Manchester Mechanics Institute in 1824, but following different trajectories, amalgamations and name changes to the present day.

I walked up the left side of the road in a leisurely pace, cyclists whizzing past to my right on the cycle lane, a counter located further up the road to show how many bicycles have used the lane in a day. Some restaurants and fast food shops were open for takeaways only, with mainly Deliveroo couriers gathered at the entrances with little consideration for physical distancing.

3 couples and 5 people walked at a faster pace overtaking me, all giving space and some oncoming pedestrians gave a nod of recognition. Taking my time, I read plaques, notice boards, plinth notices and information boards. I was in no rush to get anywhere.

How my city is changing

The citadels of learning with buildings old and new, churches, museums, shops, pubs, meeting places, fields and parks made for an eerie ghost town that left you slightly more alert of your surroundings lest you be taken advantage of.

Though buses ply this route, they are mostly empty; what gives this corridor of humanity life is the student population that could number over 50,000 in semester term time. Most of the students have gone home in this lockdown and it has radically changed things. I saw a local supermarket already boarded up, along with a bank, a public house called a pub and a popular chain hotel. It is anyone’s guess if these businesses would ever open again.

The Coronavirus pandemic is radically changing the face of my city, some things obvious and other things not so obvious and invisible. There would be no return to normal, a new normal beckons, in a future that is indeterminate and being shaped before us.

Button up Edward VII

At Whitworth Park, there is a statue of King Edward the Seventh, he was monarch for only a decade being the longest serving heir apparent until our current Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales. Edward VII was crowned at the age of 59 and ushered in the Edwardian Era.

There was much debate as to the kind of memorial to the erected in memory of the much-loved king along with where it would be situated. The location of the statue on a plinth in Whitworth Park which has the Whitworth Art Gallery as part of the University of Manchester faces the Manchester Royal Infirmary which had a new hospital wing opened in July 1909 by the king on his last visit to Manchester before his death. [JohnCassidy]

On the information panel splattered with bird guano, was a snippet of sartorial history, for the reason why the last and lowest button of the waistcoat is undone. Edward VII was a tad girthy, leaving that button undone made it fit better. It was adopted in the British court out of respect and it became fashionable. [Insider]

Sir Joseph Whitworth, for whom streets, parks, galleries, buildings and other memorials are named was an English engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist, famed for the standardising the pitches of threads of screw bolts, the Whitworth rifle and the breech-loading gun.

Probably, on another walk around Manchester there might be a little bit of history overlooked to discover.

Decade Blogs - Ayo Sogunro - Gone Blogging, Back Soon

Decades Blogs

To the Nigerian Twitterverse, Ayo Sogunro probably needs no introduction as the cerebral and very reasonable legal brain who will tackle issues we so easily get emotive and sentimental about with passionate yet objective adherence to logical thinking.

I guess getting Ayo to write a blog for my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series commemorating my Decade of Blogging is the equivalent of a scoop. Not only did he immediately respond to my request, he came back with reassurances that his promise would be delivered.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

On Twitter Ayo exudes wit and his blogs are well-constructed persuasive legal arguments on thorny contemporary issues in Nigeria as child marriage and the outlier issue of gay marriage.

Why You Should Be Worried About Nigeria’s Anti-Gay Law which he wrote in June 2013.

Ayo Sogunro is the author of The Wonderful Life of Senator Boniface and other Sorry Tales. A lawyer by profession, he also indulges in socio-legal philosophy on www.ayosogunro.com. Interact with him on Twitter via @ayosogunro.

Here Ayo writes about how his desire for the impartation of knowledge has not changed but the theatre has been enhanced by the Internet. Quite a good read from a raconteur.

Gone Blogging, Back Soon

As a university student, I gained a reputation for being rather clever, and the satisfactory nature of this reputation encouraged me to develop an even more satisfactory habit of imparting some of my versatile knowledge to friends and colleagues in the form tutorials.

In the course of time, I had gained a wider reputation as a fine teacher, and I soon got used to hearing complimentary remarks such as: “You teach very well! You ought to become a lecturer, someday!”

Since humans are generally shaped by expectations of society just as much as by their own personal choices, it wasn’t long before the ambition of being a university lecturer gradually settled in my thoughts as though I myself had originated the idea. Also, it was an easy ambition to aspire to: in those days, the qualifications required to be a university lecturer in Nigeria were a fairly simple matter—all you had to do was complete a first degree and then obtain a Master’s degree.

As I was well on the way to finalizing the first requirement, and the second being no more than one more year of the same, I was fairly confident that I would join the ranks of the academia very soon. I was so sure of this that I had already begun to stake out my own office in the staff rooms.

I already had my class schedules figured out, my routine mapped mentally, and in keeping with my character as a young and naïve male—I could picture already the horde of admiring students of the feminine aspect. I was ready to be the archetypal Nigerian lecturer: lording it over enslaved students, my word would be law and my exam scores, final.

But the Nigerian Universities Commission was not so sympathetic to my career ambitions for, just before I left school, it became a requirement that university lecturers had to be possessed of a doctorate degree.

I was quite puzzled by this idea: the logical connection between the ability to educate students and the possession of a certificate for having pursued a research thesis was—and still is—lost on me. And even then, I knew a number of lecturers who bore plain “Mister”, but were absolutely brilliant and even more lecturers that had the now required “Doctor” and who, as the man on the street would put it, “couldn’t teach jack shit”.

But my armchair protest at this unnecessary requirement was in vain. And with that came the dampening realization that three to four more years of study would now be required before I was entitled to brandish my academic lecturing skills. It was quite clear that the NUC had no urgent need for my services.

It was also quite clear that I couldn’t afford to pursue a doctorate degree right after school. In the end, I quietly pushed aside the ambitions to become a career teacher and took up a financially rewarding job instead, and without much ado, the ivory tower and I parted ways.

But along came the Internet, and that has made all the difference.

You see, back in school, the Internet was simply what you called the 30 minute long stare at the rolling icon of Internet Explorer over what was often a dial-up connection that taught you the patience of the gods. Emails and chats were the most interactive form of Internet usage, “Facebook” was just a typographical error to be underlined by Microsoft Word, and blogs—if they existed back then—might as well have been located on the moons of Jupiter.

But, as my professional life budded, and I became more aware of the other world that is the Internet proper, blogs gradually became A THING and soon, I found myself in possession of one. My first blog was a rudimentary package from Blogger that allowed me delusions of grandeur after seeing my name spread out on the Internet browser address bar.

With great grandeur comes great responsibility: blogging was work, and I worked at it. The perseverance paid off. And before long, the readership trickled into the thousands and the lecturing ambitions of my younger years were transmuted into a stream of steady articles for my readers.

The Internet is a school, and the blog is my classroom—and I don’t even have to perform the gruelling task of marking examination scripts. Of course, one comes across comments that make you want to take a stick to the reader, but even with those, the blogging experience is generally exciting.

I might go back to a classroom someday and oppress young students as originally planned, but for now, all the teaching I need to do—all over the world—can be done from my corner. With a click.

  

Decade Blogs - Emeka John Okoye - Welding Relations

Decade Blogs

Emeka is one of my good young friends on Twitter who has honoured me with taking up the offer of writing a blog for my blog to celebrate my 10 years of blogging.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Having given writers free rein to write about anything that catches their fancy, I find myself learning a lot from the experiences and ideas that bring excitement to life.

Emeka is studying to be an international relations and foreign policy expert, but in the time that his lecturers have downed tools, he has forged relations in welding and melding, which by no mean extension is about making things and understanding ideas people have to make things and make things work.

I dare say he is also a sesquipedalianist, but do not worry, all that is in hand. I love this blog for the father-son rapport and the fact he has just applied himself productively to something else rather than just sit at home.

On Twitter his handle is @emekaxi, enjoy this piece. Thank you.

On July 1^st, when the Academic Staff Union of Universities started their industrial action, I was oblivious of what the future portends. Although, I have written all my exams at Nnamdi Azikiwe University. I was only hoping that the strike will end in no distant time, so as to enable me prepare for my sophomore classes in October. Little did I know, that the industrial action will be a drawn-out and a protracted saga.

Days later, I was in the village to see my parents and meet few of my townsfolk. As days went by, it was unbeknownst to me that my father had a plan for me. A week to the day I came back, dad invited me for a tête-à-tête. We discussed at length how my studies has been. During the discussion, he said “son, it’s expedient for you to you to learn a skill now that you’re an undergraduate, in order to forfend the growing cases of unemployment in Nigeria”. I quite understood where he was heading to, and I willingly accepted his proposal.

The next day, I was in his welding workshop to start work immediately. Albeit, I wasn’t novitiating because I had a little savvy of welding, but I still found it hard to adjust to the environment and rigours of welding. Few minutes later, he came in and told me to unray [context - disrobe] and put on my working clothes. I did as he said, and in no distant time he gave me my first assignment.

He told me to paint 13 burglary-proof frames, he constructed earlier in the week. Throughout, the week, I was enmeshed in painting, sandpapering and welding faulty wheelbarrows. The whole experience was operose and gruelling, but in no time, I began to make a little money through working for other people. I relished the moment and blithely went about my work without problem.

As days went by, we began to go for outside work in neighbouring communities, carrying along our start-and-weld generator in the trunk of my dad’s Volkswagen Golf car. My happiest moments were when we were called to work on an oilrig.

The name of the oil firm is Orient Petroleum Plc; this was an oil firm in charge of exploration in Anambra State. They were based in our local government area (Anambra East). We welded some of the faulty rig frames and did some other miscellaneous work. I saw it as a singular honour to have worked in the oilrig, and this increased my keenness for welding.

Five months later, without hearing any positive news from ASUU. I can aver with all hardihood that am now a welder waiting in the wings. I have learnt a lot and can undertake some high profile works like constructing a door and other stuffs.

Private universities in Nigeria: Where are the ‘big’ men? - A Rejoinder on the Moral Element

I originally published this on NigeriansTalk.

A rejoinder is necessary

I have not written for NigeriansTalk in quite a while but after reading Salisu Suleiman’s piece titled Private universities in Nigeria: Where are the ‘big’ men? I could not resist the need to comment on a particular part of his article.

By the time I finished writing my comment, I realised I might well have broken an unwritten rule of concision and brevity required of comments that I decided it was best published as a rejoinder-blog to the original article as appears below.

Dear Salisu,

I very well agree with the main drift of this article which is the need to establish more universities, hopefully of academic excellence and qualitative progressive education with far-reaching benefits or endow existing ones to spread opportunity and access in Nigeria.

However, when I got to the part I highlight below, I do have misgivings I must voice.

“Also, many families have found to their cost that sending children to schools abroad may not necessarily produce the better students in terms of qualification or moral development – many students sent abroad ended up victims of alcoholism or drug addiction. Having private universities here will help parents monitor their children’s development in person, not through vague progress reports from foreign schools.”

This is a generalisation too expressive in stereotype that needs to be challenged. The issue of moral development when put in the context of being at home or abroad is simplistic at best. One had to take exception to this characterisation of foreign academic pursuits that suggests waste, loss and reckless abandon.

Much as many students including Nigerians can be given to social vices abroad, it smacks of cant if that is not juxtaposed with even more serious issues of cultism, abuse of females especially, the shirking of responsibility by academia in terms of incessant strikes, the absence of accountability of authorities for overreach and much else in Nigeria - you castigate serious students abroad too harshly.

The other issue of moral development you allude to in monitoring students is exemplified in the egregious abuse of authority and megalomaniac atrocity accompanied with reprehensible punishments as meted out most publicly by Covenant University and others in that ilk.

These private universities, rather than stimulate development of the mind and the person, tend to diminish the personality and esteem of young adults, creating a glorified secondary school atmosphere of non-inquisitive, non-questioning pliant drones of rote-learning and cloned attitudes of closed-minded conformity.

I say, let universities be mainly institutions of learning, expression and progressive development but leave the moral upbringing to parenthood, community and society at large - the downward trend of converting private universities into fiefdoms and pseudo-borstal homes of presumed innocence in pursuit of academic achievable should be not be encouraged.

It is of the utmost importance that we properly define the purpose of universities and the role of society at large without conflating issues; good moral conduct is generally expected of people in university but morality, no matter how broadly defined and presumed to be essential to our sometimes myopic outlook to life should not suddenly become part of the credit-scoring system of academic attainment.

Ìrírí - How our brotherly love could have blossomed

Pre-term brothers

Just a few minutes ago, I ended a conversation with my father that took us down memory lane with comparisons of realities of life that left me in surprise and shock bordering on rage.

There were many stories but the one I never knew was about my half-brother who before he received a given name experienced the misfortune of being born into an avoidable situation exacerbated by systemic failures in Nigeria.

My half-brother and I were born over 40 years apart, in literally similar circumstances but in different lands. We were both prematurely born, he arrived at just over 7 months, I arrived in 6 and a half months, somehow, we were delivered in maternity homes without facilities to cater for the prematurely born that we had to be moved to better equipped hospitals and that is where our stories begin to diverge.

Our separate lives

On the cold morning in 1965, after I was born, arrangements were made to move me to a major city hospital where as my father recounted to me, I had all the hallmarks of royal treatment – spacious, well-ventilated room, with nurses and medical personnel at my beck and call, I did not lack for care, comfort or succour – I am 47.

My half-brother, let’s call him Ìrírí (Yoruba for experience) was born in Ibadan which at one time was famed to be the largest city in Africa along with many firsts.

He was rushed to University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan the premier teaching hospital in Nigeria where a philanthropist had previously donated 6 incubators to the Paediatric Unit to cater for premature birth.

Five of six, down

Ìrírí arrived to find that five of the incubators were out of commission but was fortunate for a few hours to have the only functioning incubator temporarily vacated for him to at least have a fighting chance to lay claim on a Nigeria of our dreams.

However, alternative arrangements had to be made for Ìrírí, so when he had stabilised, the decision was made to transfer him to an incubator installed in the private practice of one of the UCH consultants, also in Ibadan.

Ìrírí made it to that practice but at the same time, he became an everyday Nigerian at the mercy of too many things out his control. The incubator was vacant and available but the public electricity supply was down and as if fate had colluded to deprive Ìrírí of an inalienable right, the backup electricity supply could not be provided because the generators will not start.

Ìrírí rests

So, Ìrírí mustered all the strength he had to survive, he wriggled and writhed, panted for breath, desperately hoped that his heart will hold out and many other organs that were not fully developed for earthly experience strained at the limits of their ability without the support they all needed – after trying so hard, they decided this earthly experience was not worth it.

There, Ìrírí drew his last breath bidding the earth farewell but leaving a most indelible mark on the lives he has touched for the short while of just about 36 hours that he was with us – over 40 years after Akin was born in England, Ìrírí could not survive similar circumstances in an independent Nigeria in its 6^th decade.

Time, manner and place

Then my father drew comparisons between Ìrírí and myself; as a poor student just about to take up a job in a sorting office for Christmas, I was born just 2 days after they had moved house, my mother’s labour probably brought on by the stress of moving house, I had the best of facilities provided at no cost at the behest of the government and here I stand.

Back in our home country of Nigeria, everything had to be paid for and it made no difference to the outcome, the experience was harrowing, the prognosis was dire and either as a microcosm or snapshot of the Nigerian experience, the short life of Ìrírí exemplifies so many things that are just not right with Nigeria.

The premier teaching hospital in the country had 5 out of 6 donated incubators out of commission, this does touch the matter of pre-existing incubators or what might have caused a philanthropist to make those donations.

Murder by proxy

Then the matter of usage and maintenance that led to the failure of the incubators that none of the management thought it prudent to either seek new funding from the donor or go on a fund-raising drive which contributed to the murder-by-proxy of Ìrírí.

I do wonder what the philanthropist would have felt if he learnt that the equipment he donated to the hospital had fallen into disrepair that the purposes for which the incubators were acquired could no more be served.

Then think of the many like my dear Ìrírí whose experience of this world was truncated by a system that serves nothing but rank incompetence, mismanagement, corruption, malfeasance and worse.

It ought not to be so, but that is one of the realities of Nigeria today.

Dear Ìrírí, Rest in peace, my half-brother, Nigeria did not deserve you.

Thought Picnic: Your Local Website is a Global Shop Window

You are out there

I fear that many businesses that have a web presence are missing out on an essential bit of public relations that is well beyond their control.

Beyond the presentation facade, there is the experience and the opinion dimension that has now become integral to the product.

If you are an airline, a hotel or an outfit that offers services, develops products or even compares things, activities and circumstances, you are now at the mercy of the real life views which can be anything from seriously positive to downright negative, the matter of honesty is a variable that is indeterminate, it is taken on trust.

You cannot choose your audience

In the first instance, except where the establishment decides to restrict viewing by filtering or challenge/response engagement, any website, no matter where uploaded and regardless of the expertise of the designer has global scrutiny.

The traffic from outside your locality might not be great, but be assured that it is viewable by all. When I look at my blog, it has a Netherlands registered URL, I am resident in the UK, I write about personal and activist issues in my locality and in relation to my heritage which is partly Nigerian but I get the largest audience from China, then the United States, followed by Norway, the United Kingdom comes 4^th, the Netherlands 7^th and Nigeria 10^th.

I cannot explain why the greatest interest in my blog comes from those locations and I cannot control the access that this audience has to my opinions.

You local website is a global shop window

I make this point because I feel that many Nigerian websites of the government, educational institutions, businesses and much else fail to recognise that their audience is well beyond the myopic confines of who they traditionally think will visit their websites.

This morning, I found myself commenting about the website of a premier Nigerian University, the first observation was though it provided a unique service, the design was poor and the copy was full of spelling errors.

In my view, that was just unforgivable, one expects a tertiary academic institution to apply itself to rigour, correctness and exactness. For a university of that standard not to exploit the services of its languages departments and proofread copy before publication is just beyond belief.

It behoves one to ask, if out of interest in Nigeria for all the good that is known of the country some prospective student were seeking admission or some organisation wanted to bestow a chair the first view of the university being the website shoddily presented will lose the university custom long before the prospects are given the opportunity to explore further – we do not have the attention spans to maintain interest after the disappointment of avoidable sloppiness.

We assess and discriminate better

Then to hotels or other services, forums on the web all seem to come with easy access to review and critique based on experience. Between mood, fairness and honest opinion, by the time a few reviews are read you get a good idea of the product, the service, the people, the ambience and immediately come to some conclusion as to whether you want to use that service or not.

Whilst price can be a differentiator, it is hardly the main variable in the decision making process, there is no point going to an affordable place if you will be treated with contempt and levity, you want to be able to shop with a sense of security.

One discriminating factor I used in choosing a hotel recently was that for the same price point in 5 places only one offered the option to cancel with charge, some were charging up-front with the option to cancel and one even had a non-refundable no-cancellation policy – all for the same price – I chose the most flexible option for my security, safety and convenience – I will never trade those variables off if I could help it.

The reviews make all the difference

When it comes to mobile applications, we are met with choices that are never fully explained but in the experiences of others – more 5-stars than 1-stars and you think it is probably a good product, equal stars for the top and bottom rating, you try to find out why it excites such divergence passions and wonder if your experience will be for the better or the worse. Too many low ratings and you just don’t waste your time trying to be a charitable user of what everyone hates.

At the same time, you can control all the levers before you are exposed to ridicule; this requires planning, consideration, service, responsiveness and proactive remediation, this will always eventually boost rankings or ratings, leave any of these to lie fallow and your business will be pulled down by the negative – you cannot afford to have a stubborn resolve even if you are the only show in town – people will find something else to do than suffer your service for a second.

Think well about what your product is, what your service is, work on customer satisfaction and make sure your web page is an honest portrayal of what you do because nothing irks a customer more than to be lied to.

Africa: China in the minds of impressionable African kids

We are going to ABC school

My less than salutary views of China’s apparent invasion of Africa are continually reinforced with the bits of news that seem to show that China’s activities in Africa are not entirely for the long-term good of Africans.

I was irked this time by a tweet that came into my Twitter stream minutes ago.

It started with this tweet

@eolander If you don't think #China is moving to a soft-power strategy in #Africa: read this - they plan to build 1000 schools: http://bit.ly/g6x3Es [1]

To which I responded

@eolander Building primary schools is commendable http://bit.ly/g6x3Es but that is hardly the vehicle for knowledge transfer, is it?

I got this response

@eolander @forakin Africa's development needs extend beyond pure knowledge transfer. Building schools seems to be a wonderful price of entry to the African market.

There are so many strands of discourse with this development, the idea that the Chinese would build 10 ICT driven model primary schools in Kenya is quite commendable and must be applauded, and this intent would be scaled out to 1,000 such schools across Africa giving the lucky pupils a basic educational grounding in life.

One basic context

This however throws up a host of issues, one of which was exemplified in Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Academy for Girls [2] (OWLAG) in South Africa, the benevolent lady shelled out $40 million of her own money to build that school and it drew a number of plaudits and condemnations.

In my view, I felt building one $40 million school where she had complete control of quality, management and oversight was something she could well do and it might serve as a model for schools that the government and other philanthropists might build in the future.

The other view was that she should have contributed the $40 million for 40 $1 million schools and that would have spread the opportunity but depreciated the quality because spread so thin we would have had to rely on the failing governments who are not making adequate provision for schooling in the first place to provide infrastructure, staff, support, inspection, monitoring and all.

It would have had all the makings of a logistical nightmare and prone to failure if standards could not be synchronised across the whole franchise compared to focus on a single school.

Extrapolating this view, for governments to welcome this idea at this level of the education ladder shows obvious and probably unforgivable failings of African governments to address the need for good primary school education.

Another Sino-African job imbalance

The standard of those schools might well be such that the staffing would not be by Africans but the opening for another influx of the Chinese of another profession – this time, teachers rather than engineers and entrepreneurs. To the million add another 50,000 Chinese ready to mould the minds of our dearly impressionable children.

In the meanwhile, we all think our children are getting a good education which they are, but whose minds would they have when they have finished?

Africans in the Chinese mould

The next stage to this is the building of model secondary schools that would take in the graduates of the primary schools, those who fail to make the grade would be a ready under-skilled workforce for the many Chinese industries that are growing around the continent.

Having been imbibed with the “Chinese Work Ethic”, they would be sophisticated sweatshop fodder for scandal-prone FoxConn-like [3] organisations, herded, kettled, run like the typical country folk of China that man the manufacturing lines of Chinese industry, living in atrocious bomb shelter conditions [4].

{Foxconn has seriously improved its human resources management in China but would Chinese companies have that kind of scrutiny in Africa? Where they do would we trade-off the opportunities they bring for the welfare of our people?}

Indeed, we need our African children at work, the good primary school graduates are 6 years away, then the secondary school intakes have another 6 years of reinforcement to make up the probably shift-leader and foreman class of the industry.

The risk of higher education

One would suppose universities would be the next stage but that is the dangerous part, that is where real knowledge and technology is transferred, that is where the spirit of independence is cultured, that is where ideas, solutions and entrepreneurs will emerge from and that would be the stiff competition to the Chinese Industry Complex [5] that is laying foundations as solid as pyramid bases all around Africa.

Again, on the surface it is all for the good, but the long term considerations of this seemingly “good intentions” use of soft power cannot of essence be for the noblest and altruistic reasons.

Africa already has many universities, they need funding, they need endowment, they need good management, I would rather we had Chinese money flow into those institutions, the Chinese brain-boxes join the faculties, Chinese professors of renown bring their wealth of knowledge just as they are bringing their money to give Africa the kick start it really needs.

Graduates of these universities would have more affinity for their localities; they will contribute to their communities, encourage development in their countries and be the kind of role models worthy of emulation that would really lift both our educational standards and the people in general out of poverty.

A fisherman without a boat or a lake

We are constantly told of the Chinese proverb – Give a man a fish, you feed him a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him his whole life.

That would be too simplistic a recipe for success, they have fed the man a day, even taught him how to fish, but there are no lakes to fish in and where there is water he has a rod but no boat – that is the context of this incipient soft power offensive that looks so commendable if it were not cynically sinister on closer scrutiny.

Sources

[1] Kenya Broadcasting Corporation - KBC News - China to build primary schools in Kenya

[2] Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls [akin.blog-city.com]

[3] Scandal-hit Foxconn sets sights inland - People's Daily Online – Other related articles on the page point to serious human resources issues.

[4] Underground world hints at China's coming crisis - Telegraph

Addendum giving context to this blog.

[5] China's economic invasion of Africa | World news | The Guardian

Analysis of this news story requires another blog but a few interesting excerpts for starters.

"If you want to start something – and be the boss – Africa is the place to do it."

"Chinese work very hard, very quickly," he says. "But here we are training local people to do the work, and if someone does not understand, he works slowly. You have to watch." Read in the context of the engineer in charge who speaks halting English.

Other Sino-African blogs I have written

Nigeria: NaijaLeaks and why China is bad for Africa

South Africa: Why again China is bad for Africa

Comments: Why China is bad for Africa

Africa: How to make China good for Africa

Nigeria: A typical Nigerian communication?

Assistance needed!

I should be incensed and angry but maybe not but it requires I make a very pertinent statement because it is necessary.

Very early this morning, I received an email from a Nigerian seeking “info from as per”, well, accommodation, grants and scholarships in the Netherlands for Africans, especially Nigerians to a particular university in the Netherlands – the text will be posted later in the blog.

Anyway, the person who I do not know had used the email address on my blog to seek this information – it is evident it was his first time on my blog because the trace evidence of visits to my blog shows a search was made about “Nigerians living in the Netherlands” just around the time I received the email.

Basic research

For that information, I visited the said university website where I believe such information will be and as any intuitive person with initiative would be expected to do and as I expected the enquirer to do – promptly and efficiently.

As I closed the email in response I decided it was necessary to clearly state that in emails sent to strangers first impressions could be deterministic – here I was receiving an email from a university prospect which was already too familiar, poorly punctuated and not properly closed.

The more I read the email the more I felt it was necessary to first constructively criticise the man for his poor presentation and in my usual acerbic state I tried to reinforce that need by adding the threat of publishing that email as a sign of sloppiness that would not serve well in seeking admission to a university.

Context and presentation

If the said person had read my blog and most especially the one I wrote the about Facebook and communication [*] the day before, he would have noticed that I am a stickler for the proper use of language even if it comes from a phone.

The email in its presentation had every semblance of a “419 letter” by its informality, context and content; the subject heading was “Assistance needed!” which I would normally never give any attention but I gave it the benefit of doubt and responded anyhow.

Not smart by half

For my troubles, I received an email soon afterwards; grudging thanks, arrogance, defiance and excuses, with a lecture as to how I should behave to other Nigerians and a reprimand to practice what I preach.

I would say this man appears to be smart, but not really smart enough – whilst I did assume the position of being unable to facilitate his admission I did say, “if your intentions and purposes are without prejudice, you have every chance of fulfilling your dream if your qualifications are sufficiently exciting and your ambition shows the promise of an interesting mind and career.”

The Nigerian burden or naivety

I was suspicious of Nigerians; I am Nigerian by heritage and I have been met by people in my 20 years of living in Europe who question our motives and intentions – it would be remiss of me not to use the same filter to ensure that what we legitimate residents abroad do to in small ways give Nigeria a good name is not affected by new entrants with ulterior motives.

No Nigerian anywhere in the world should miss that fact and it would be naïve to expect a different attitude in that respect, as far back as two decades ago, I went through that filter at the British Embassy in Nigeria because seemingly honest applicants turned out to have ulterior motives.

Please don’t tempt me at all

What that man thinks he deserves or not should have been introspective rather than blurted out in the response he sent to me – I would hope he has the chameleon tendencies to be better presented in his application to that university because I honestly think if he or any person from anywhere in the world exhibits that kind of attitude, a future of great frustration is imminent – strangers can both be helpful and deleterious; rarely indifferent.

Like Nigerians would say, “A word is enough for the wise.” Do not unnecessarily incur my wrath. I do wish the man every success in his endeavours, if only he was just a tad less froward.

Our communication, unedited apart from the particular elements of personal information which have been redacted appears below certain comments might appear within brackets, those who know me know what to expect, those who do not should please see the masthead of my blog again.

His initial email

Hi Akin,i am Fesobi by name.i live in lagos.i came about your email through your blog.i need some vital info from as per accommodation,cost of living and scholarship and grant available in Netherlands for african students-precisely Nigerians- that want to study.i am seeking admission in utrecht university.i humbly await your swift response.THANKS and God bless you.

My response

Dear Fesobi,
Unfortunately, I have never studied in the Netherlands but I have tried to obtain some information from the University of Utrecht website regarding the matters on which you enquire.

I do not from your email see much information about what course you are applying for and level of study your application is prospecting for, you have not said if your application has been formally made or you have gotten as far as being offered a place for which you need to find the means.

This is the Students Desk [URL link was provided] usually for prospective students with the attendant email addresses to contact.

This covers Scholarships & Grants [URL link was provided] available to students depending on what you are studying for.

And here you can find matters concerning accommodation [URL link was provided]

The fact is this is information you could have easily obtained by visiting the University of Utrecht site or performing a search using Google, usually the best place to get information from is the university, they have been running admissions and students' services for decades, they probably have the best insights and ideas for how to manage students than any rumour you might have heard anywhere else.

Like I said earlier, I have never studied in this country so I would not be in any position to facilitate your application process or help your entry into this country - if your intentions and purposes are without prejudice, you have every chance of fulfilling your dream if your qualifications are sufficiently exciting and your ambition shows the promise of an interesting mind and career.

I wish you the very best in your pursuits - If I might offer some constructive criticism, it goes without saying that your punctuation and context in an email to a stranger does leave much to be desired - too familiar, proper nouns in lower case, bad punctuation and inappropriate closing - I am sure if you had read my blog you would have had an idea of what I would expect in any communication you send to me.

NB: Do not tempt me to display your email as an example of people who should not be offered admissions in any foreign university, I had part of my education in Nigeria and I really would have considered this utterly sloppy, in the end, if I do use it in a blog, it would have a pseudonym not your name.

With the kindest regards.

Akin

His response

Thanks for your prompt response Akin,I appreciate.I also appreciate your constructive criticism of my use of tenses,this I think its due to the reason that I typed from a phone.You will also noticed that my mail was not paragraphed-I use a nokia s40 phone which I know you know doesn t completely works like a computer. However,I think you missed it towards the end of your response.You sounded like I was seeking your help to facilitate my entrance into the country.If you go through my mail,I only asked you for information pertaining to accommodation,cost of living and scholarship and this I asked knowing that you are a Nigerian living in the country and probably might be of help-help indeed!.More also,I dont think I deserved to be threatened the way threatened me-just for asking for information? Sometimes I wonder why people who preach and teach never follow what they preach and teach.I also wonder why we Nigerians treat ourselves the you just treated me.I
went through your blog and read some of your articles about our leaders.Akin,we all are complaining about leaders,what about the way we individually treat ourselve?Well I am awaiting the university s decision by May ending,I pray its positive-I need to fulfil a dream and you can t stop me by the use of your blog.Still typing from my phone so pardon my errors in any form. Regard

Closing Comment

Apparently, the man is aggrieved that I have treated him badly and I have been hypocritical rather than constructively critical – well, I was honest, forthright and basically objective in my view, regardless of nationality the response I gave would not have been any different apart from the specific reference to how I felt standards of education and common courtesy had fallen in Nigeria.

The man deserves only the courtesy of being given this URL as a response to his email, if he deserves more, time will tell, but I do hope he has as much sense as an old cow – eat the hay and leave the bailing wire – read and digest the useful parts of it all.

New goggles for 2006

Day 365

The year 2005 would go down in history as the year 2005; almost as if one wakes up suddenly and it is December the 31^st.

Anyway, traditionally one has always closed the year from the 21^st of December since one has the advantage and disadvantage of a birthday close to year end but the closeness to Christmas deprives one of the generosities of two presents every so often.

Clean bloods

Besides that quibble, one does have a lot to be grateful for, firstly, health and well-being after a battery of tests that included venesection (blood-letting) for analysis revealed a better picture of health than one could have expected - health matters for the purposes of doing everything else.

After 5 vials, one did wonder if some serious light-headedness would result, I hate needles apart from when one re-attaches that button that just came off.

Consulting for fools

A number of opportunities came by in which ones expertise was called to change and improve practices that were failing the organisations that had “smart” in-house architects feeling threatened.

However, ones professional slant has never been to prove a wrong implementation but to address situations with the view of renewing confidence in the architects and changing the implementations for the better.

Reactions to the deftness differ, one welcomed the opportunity and despite the huge cost of having such expertise on hand one was redeployed to mentoring and development which was quite instructive as normally nonchalant staff got up and took the job to heart with fervour.

As for the other, each suggestion was met with extreme analysis by the self-same architects who implemented a dud. It made one wonder why we were needed if it was all right in the first place.

Besides that, the shameful misrepresentation of facts by the managers to higher management was unconscionable and disagreeable; it is not surprising that after six months they are still talking about talking about talking about how to talk about getting on with it.

This time next year, one would not be surprised that another batch of consultants would have come and gone with the same situation being the same set of problems.

People who want no change would get no change no matter how much expertise, wisdom and insight they gain or hire to review what has now been conclusively proven to be completely wrong.

Online school days

I returned to school last July for a Masters programme in Information Technology with the online programme offered by the University of Liverpool.

This programme is an 8-module programme which last 8 weeks each consisting of weekly seminars of lectures, discussions, projects and assignments.

Four of those modules were completed this year, and though the intention was to finish 5, some radical changes to the specialisations and the programme itself which afforded a realignment of my selected modules.

Now, I have just two to finish in 2006 and then the dissertation with the plan to graduate in summer 2007.

Competing for relevance

What I have learnt is the quest to succeed is on two levels, the first being winning the battle to remain relevant in a mixed-ability class and then the competition with oneself in wanting to achieve the best grades.

All the results for this year came down to the last week of activity I made it away with half on excellent grade and the other half on distinction grade.

The relevance of online degrees is a growing and interesting debate; commentary indicates that business and academia are warming up to the usefulness and validity of such endeavours. [1, 2, 3].

Like the university says, it might be online and flexible but it is neither easy nor laid-back.

It is both been enlightening and instructive, a sure recommendation to anyone looking to enhance their career profile by formal educational methods without losing out on relevant working experience and income generation.

Opinions in general

Whilst one has done be too consistent with this blogging activity, a number of issues have excited commentary from my perspective.

In the light of that, we can rest assured that the preponderance of religious influence on the American presidency would continue as highlighted Terri Schiavo case and stem cell research as would the issues of abortion, gay marriage and the death penalty that exert undue influence on critical political and judicial appointments.

Every public show of acquiescing to demand unpopular with the White House should be scrutinised with greater detail, since the agreement to accept the abolition of torture by US personnel came through after the Department of Defense changed the Army Field Manual just in time to accept what would have been generally unacceptable.

The topics of ethnic minorities, immigrants, immigration and integration would be burning issues through debate and physical realities as we saw after Katrina, in France and Australia.

The fact is the closeness of Mexico to the United States has not led to the prosperity by osmosis in Mexico, many of them still think the opportunities are in the United States.

If the United States cannot bring progressive change to their neighbours in Mexico and Cuba that form does not offer promise for Iraq or Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, no one seems to be able to clear highlight the blatant hypocrisy that leaves ones backyard a mess and seeks to right things in courtyards further afield.

Bad laws encroaching in civil liberties in the quest against terrorism both perceived and real would continue to be promulgated though as least the legislators in the United States are giving the Patriot Act a closer look than before.

Europe however is in need of knowledgeable parliamentarians that understand but the social and technological implications and try not to be carried away with the hysteria of child porn, terrorism and sovereignty.

Get up and do something

We all now need to get involved in a lot of things for the protection of our freedoms and liberties starting with the news.

Filter out the propaganda and extreme analysis, take the news and research the issues and how they affect you, your community, your nation, your affiliations and the globe.

Refuse to be fobbed off with officialdom, walk the red tape if you have to, engage others to weed out the inefficiencies and brick walls that stand in the way of people who are not knowledgeable of rights they have because some mandarin can exploit them better.

Start to blog, you have opinions that need to be aired, probably debated and sometimes corrected a very instructive process.

Machiavelli is alive and well in this civilised age but in a democratic process the end cannot justify the means with due process consigned the bin of expediency and changed times.

Our parliamentarians are either getting hoodwinked with falsehoods or blackmailed with accusations of being unpatriotic, we have to prod them to prevent the dereliction of duty on all sides yours and theirs.

Even if you are not an expert in a field, the expert is not the ultimate authority; your acquisition of knowledge that allows you to make good choices should be your authority. Ask questions and when you get answers review the answers to ensure that is the answer to your question.

If you had all the answers to life you will still have one other question about if that is all there is, be inquisitive, be acquisitive, be interrogative and listen carefully – life will always be the sum of what you make it in terms of how you us knowledge, apply wisdom and exercise prudence.

Become the change you want to the world to become, change yourself, change your life, change your job, change your career, change to remain relevant but keep your beliefs, keep your principles, keep your relationships and grow them productively.

Each New Year offers promise, work to fulfil those promises, then look back and count your blessing.

Happy New Year my friends – you teach me love and enemies – you teach me compassion.

Best wishes and the kindest regards.

References

[1] "[Employers] gain a certain amount of admiration for [online students]. They consider them savvy and creative enough to succeed online."

AOL Research & Learn: Online Campus - Will Your Degree Have Value?

[2] Of the 330 useful replies, 92% accepted online-only degrees (compared with 100% acceptance for traditional 4-year offline degrees)

MSN Money - Is an online degree worth anything?

[3] In addition, according to Consortium findings, three quarters of academic leaders at public colleges and universities believe that online learning quality is equal to or superior to face-to-face instruction (The Sloan Consortium: Entering the Mainstream, October 2004.)

How Do Employers View Online Degrees?