Akinbode's BLOG on Faith, Politics, Science, Engineering, Education and Health

A Yoruba proverb says "oro arokan, ni fa ekun a sun da" - meaning when you overthink a hurt, it leads to endless crying. One of the most difficult virtue to learn is forgiveness. It is the premise for the Christian faith. People of faith are commanded to forgive 70 times 7 times a day, that is 490 times a day. I do not think someone exist that get offended that much in one day. When you learn to forgive, your life is better, you sleep better, you are able to focus and walk around without feeling the weight or burden of the world on your shoulder. Who has offended you that you have not been able to forgive because it hurts so bad? Make conscious intentional effort to forgive the person - whether they ask for it or not. It does not mean you will forget, but a choice to let go releases the pain you feel when you remember. You are not doing them a favor but yourself. We are all imperfect and we live in an imperfect world. Let us learn to forgive on another.

It is important to know when to quit and have the courage to do so without a second thought. When you do not have principle, and you do not have a red line, you are messed up and compromised. Ask Reuben Abati, the foremost Nigerian political critic and then famous chief-editor of Guardian Newspaper - he dined with the people who ruined Nigeria, people he had spent his career criticizing, then he joined them. Abati did not know when to call it quit and his legacy is forever stained. Abati cannot recover for being the chief spoke's person for President Goodluck Jonathan - he was used to perpetuate and peddle lies for years, and he would not quit even though he had a flourishing career at Guardian before this job.

Many relationship have been soiled because of disappointment that one good favor was not returned. I act based on love spurned by immediate need, not on expectation that you will reciprocate when it is my turn. If I gave you so much when you are in need, I do not expect the same level of support from you when I am in need if I am aware you are incapable; I expect my friends to act the same way, not to expect me to support them by a measure of how they supported me but based on their need and what I am able to provide at that point in time. Giving (whatever it is) should be based according to ability and the present need, not reciprocity. Doing otherwise creates imbalance and place unnecessary pressure on relationship that eventually leads to animosity, contempt and break up.

Atiku is allegedly a thief, right? I do not dispute it because he is guilty as charged in the court of public opinion - when a man cannot explain the source of his wealth and he is a trillionaire in naira (billionaire in dollars), what do you call him? What of APC and their lead progenitor, Asiwaju Tinubu? They are all saints? Court case records are always free for public consumption in the West, including the US. That is why it is difficult for any Nigerian who have had a criminal court case/record in a country like the US to lie about it. We have made many of them Kings, Princesses, and Princes. We have handed over the key to the treasury of our commonwealth to them. Here is the URL to the criminal court case against Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 1993 - he was charged on profiting from proceeds of drug trafficking: https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/2jqi9omh8/illinois-northern-district-court/usa-v-acct-263226700-et-al/ Tinubu has tricked many - here is the record of the crimina

In the last 15 years, over 1 billion people were taken out of poverty because of the intentional effort of UN and countries where poverty was endemic like India. However, in sub-Saharan Africa, countries below the Sahara desert like Nigeria, poverty has increased within the same period. Nigeria has taken the first place from India as the country home to the poorest of the poor. How did this happen? Should Buhari continue to blame the previous administrations or it needs to carefully look inward? Here is my take. Buhari's failed economic policies created millions of poverty-stricken Nigerians (87 million people strong) in a space of few months that he became the president. If you live below $2.10 a day, UN classifies you as living below the poverty line. There are over 87 million Nigerians living on less than $1.90 a day (which equals (< N20k a month), this made Nigeria number one among countries home to the poorest of the poor. How did this come by? Let us use what bec

A friend of mine wrote on Facebook "I personally will do my bit to ensure Atiku never becomes the president of Nigeria". Here is what I reasoned based on his statement: What APC is doing right now is that they are building on that legacy of waste set by the previous administration, and they are out-performing them on every index. APC's government in 3 years has out-performed (in the negative) PDP in 16 years, when you look at the indices of growth which have declined under the current administration: debt accumulation, state of the economy, division among our people, election rigging, corruption, significant reduction in foreign investment, high rate of unemployment, lack of security of lives and properties, same and even worse power supply, to mention a few. How can an anti-corruption government justify N13 trillion debt in 3.5 years compared to N6 trillion in 16 years of PDP (even when you factor in the devaluation of the naira, that is still humongous - N13 trillio

Has any economist in Nigeria quantified the immense damage Buhari's pedestrian attitude and economic policy did to the Nigerian economy? The free fall of the naira caused catastrophic loss to the financial sector; the purchasing power of an average Nigerian diminished over a period of few months due to Buhari ineptitude in office. A Professor earning N450k/month could exchange his salary for about $2,700 before Buhari, today, he can only get $1,200 from the same amount. That is a 55% loss in purchasing power - imagine such professor planning an overseas' trip, how useless his salary would be today. The same thing goes for imported goods due to devalued naira - that is why rice is so expensive, and why a lot of imported goods are expensive. We did not know what we were asking for when we said people should consider Buhari in 2015 - he was a better alternative to a president that just rationalized corruption as a way of life he is comfortable with. Buhari ran the Federal ministri

The issue of sexuality and sexual orientation should be left to adults and not to children. And no one has the RIGHT to force his or her own view on sexuality on others, irrespective of the side of the divide you are. The backlash of the leftist activists (mostly Democrats) who made concerted effort during the Obama era to erase ALL possible religious believes - definition of marriage, Christmas becoming holiday, removal of Christian symbols from schools where they have been for decades and sometimes centuries; zero tolerance for anything christian religion. No wonder the evangelical church and conservative support a candidate who has no likeness of God but promised them protection from the leftist position and encroachment and a forced change through enactment of laws that supports leftist positions. What is happening in British Columbia, with SOGI 1 2 3, where children are fed alternative truth about gender identity is dangerous and can be counter productive - in

Anyone who knows how public and private institutions/universities are run in advanced and advancing economies would tell Nigerian political leaders that they have falling short of their responsibility and are failed posterity/ unborn and current generation of university-age Nigerians with the way they have starved and are starving our institutions with funding support Public universities in the US survive PRIMARILY on funding support from State and Federal governments, through a direct and competitive approach of research grant - I know because I work in one. They do make some small money from IGR that come from IP (commercializing inventions); Tickets and TV rights from sporting activities (American Football, Baseball, and Basket Ball, etc.); parking tickets; student housing; etc. They also g money from donations and endowments. These monies are insignificant compared to the funding they receive from the government. No university can survive on IGR anywhere - the society be

I tell it at as I see it - here is my take on the Osun 2018 Governorship Election based on what we know in part: Omisore would have won the election in a place where people make a judgment based on quality and facts displayed, unfortunately, he ran on a weak platform because he was in a hurry and he allegedly connived to destroy the platform that should have raised him and he became homeless only to settle for a forgotten podium, SDP. He showed color, depth, understanding of Osun's problems and how Aregbe got it all wrong and what Osun's government suppose to have focused on - Massive Agricultural Production & Processing, and Human Capital Development; Oyetola, with all his backing, failed to defend Aregbe's many failed policies; the other 2 candidates in the election, Adeoti and Akinbade were mere spectators even though Adeoti may be the reason Oyetola-APC did not win a landslide because he defected to ADP with 75% of APC exco in the aftermath of rigged APC

Exodus 20:3 "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" If I returned to Nigeria today, I will not fit in to many of the current Evangelical - Pentecostal church system because of what I call IDOLATRY. I did not just suddenly develop this mindset, I have always been like this and some in my former church in Nigeria called me "proud" because I would not submit to human worship. Those who knew me would attest I have never disrespected any human authority in the church anywhere but I have never submitted my destiny into the hands of any man as is often demanded of many Christians in Nigeria. Some of my friends would attest to some of my predictions about the outcome of the WITCHCRAFT (effort to control the lives of others for selfish gain) that was (and is still) prevalent in many churches in Nigeria. They put other people's children under bondage and let loose their own - many lives have been ruined, many marriages destroyed, many potential relationship we

When powerful people are exploiting the poor and the weak, they laugh and they feed fat. When politicians steal public fund, send their kids abroad on stolen money, they are happy but the children of the poor drop out of school because their parents are paid meager salary or cannot make a good profit because of a terrible economy. So, what you find sometimes is that the children of the poor will become armed-robber or yahoo boys, and one day waylays the children of the rich who are now COE/MD, maim or kill them. This has played out well with the West posture towards Africa. They truncated Africa's path of growth, which was well defined before the European invasion. To the ignorance of a lot of people in the West who are unaware of African history. Pre-colonization, different Kingdoms/Empires (Ashante, Songhai, Borno, Dahomey, Benin, Oyo, Mali, etc) that had reigned had an intriguing system of government, well-established army, mind-blowing arts, medicine, technology, trade pat

I wrote the epistle below in response to comments by some friends on the social media who said that you do not need certificates (college degrees) to be a successful leader of a country like Nigeria - I totally disagree. While I am a proponent of not letting your certificates determine who you are, not to give in to inferiority or superiority complex because you do not have a college degree, it does not extend to leading a complex organization or country like Nigeria. You need to be adequately prepared to succeed in a high-level position like the presidency of a complex country like Nigeria - we have a good example in the US. Please read with joy. A good certificate or a quality education (not wishy-washy) "can" make a difference in a man where the yardstick for measuring success is clear. We cannot measure success in Nigeria because the apparatus is not available and the people don't even know what a successful government is because they have never experienced one. S

You probably have heard that a strong handshake means strength and confidence. Here is a quote I copied from a website online: "A good firm handshake is a universal sign of strength and assuredness which is why everyone (yes, you too ladies.) should have one. A firm (but not crushing) handshake is a sign of mutual respect from both parties. ... Conversely, a “weak” handshake is a great way to make a memorable impression — a really bad one" The word "universal" inaccurately generalized without consideration for cultural differences across the globe. I can speak for my culture, Yoruba culture where there is so much respect for authority and age. A handshake is alien to us but it is a culture that some of us have adopted. It is disrespectful for a Yoruba person to stretch his/her hand to shake his elder. Where it is allowed, a firm handshake is an absolute sign of disrespect. When you shake someone older, it is often with both hands, and head

I have lived in North America since 2004 (except for few months in Nigeria and Europe in between). I have worked in four countries on 3 continents. I have been lucky to see humans at their highest and lowest conditions in systems where things work and otherwise. The opportunities we lack in Nigeria and how people continue to endure hardships to re-invent the wheel every day is unprecedented. I know the conditions of things when I went to college in Nigeria - overcrowded classrooms, poor quality professors, inadequate labs, the housing system I lived in, lack of scholarship, many of my mates whom we read engineering together have diversified into other things because there was no job and there was no support to start a business of their own, etc. The situation is not different today. There is nothing to encourage any hard working youth to be productive. There is no power; there is no affordable credit to start a business; there is no infrastructure to help you if you have ideas that can

What explanation do you want bros? Are you saying Jonathan built Nigeria - why did Nigerians reject him in 2015? If Jonathan led the nation to benefit the poor, would they have rejected him? All the loots recovered are evidence of Jonathan's incompetence. The fact that he did not accomplish anything concrete - he started projects yes, but at what cost? He did well by organizing free and fair election but he only handed over because he was overwhelmed and he had no gut like other greedy incumbents before him. He stole taxpayers’ money to bribe anyone bribable through Dasuki (the evidence is all over the place) or what is his name. Jonathan was an outright failure - there are two things that annoys me the most about Jonathan, the fact that he went on national TV to rationalize corruption, calling it mere stealing and his posture on Chibok girls. Jonathan is not responsible for Nigeria turning the table on cement export – it was because of the ingenious of Dangote. How can