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

I lost a dear friend and father figure here in Lexington Kentucky yesterday. He was 87 years young. I have known Baba, as I fondly call him, since 2015. We met at Walmart where he was working as a cashier then. He caught my attention because of his age and posture, and I wondered why an old man was still working at that age. Apparently, it was a choice for him....not that he needed the money parse, he just did not want to be idle nor wait for his well-trained children scattered across to give him handouts.. Dr. Alhaji Sim Oyetunji completed his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University in 1971 and he worked for Shell Corporation Nigeria till 1999 when he finally retired. Baba trained all his seven children through universities across the US. The least educated among them has a master's degree. They are engineers, pharmacists, author, and accountant, working for top companies in the US and UK.   With all his personal achievements and investment in his children, he w...

Omo ale lo maa hun fi owo osi j'uwe ile baba eh - it is a BASTARD child that uses the left hand to describe her father's house.... We should speak honestly about our country, but when you hold a position like Kemi does decorum is essential. She could say the same thing in a way that will not impact the lives of ordinary Nigerians who live and make a honest living across the globe. She is an opposition leader for crying out loud... She is dragging her native country deep into the mud to gain cheap popularity.... She will need the votes of Nigerians if she will ever be Prime Minister one day. Every letter of her words will come back to hunt her... I trust Nigerians in the UK will not only mobilize against her, but they will also mobilize other Africans and Carribeans to shun her...

When you locate the wisdom of the universe, it would be as if you have a magic wand... Your prosperity rolls over, you climb to the top faster and leave many behind... Funke Akindele's movie, "A tribe called Judah" remains the highest-grossing movie in Nollywood (Nigeria's movie industry). I saw the movie last week and could not make head or tail of it.. But something was unique about it. It was the first Nigerian movie that cast MANY actors from all the major ethnic groups in the nation.. These are top actors... For so long, Nollywood has been divided along ethnic lines... You have the Yorubas doing their thing, the Igbos doing their own and our brothers in the North, the Hausas doing their own. But this movie cast actors from everywhere, so, it became a must-see for almost all Nigerians ... Funke Akindele is a talented writer, actor, and producer. But she is also a shrewd businesswoman. She located the wisdom in tapping the talent of diverse ethnic groups in Nigeria...

The founding fathers were motivated to leave Europe because they did not want to live under a King. They wanted to be led by leaders who are equal under the law, who are not above the law, who respect the rule of law... Leaders who will not appoint their children to plum positions in government. Who will not appoint people whose main qualification is that they are their in-laws. They will not pardon their loyalists who have broken the law or their in-laws. They will not pardon their friends. They will not pardon their son and retroactively apply the law to the last ten years... From Trump to now, Biden, American Presidency has been soiled... Soon, the nation will inaugurate the first convicted felon as president... That seat in the White House is stained forever because any element can aspire into that office, so long they can lie their way there... These are dangerous precedents and put the entire humanity in jeopardy..That is the most powerful seat in our world today, take it or leav...

The Democrats should stop pointing fingers. It was a herculean task to win against a master salesman who sold lies and many bought his lies, line, hook, and sinker. This could not have happened in pre-2004 America... not in a million years will the seat of power in America be occupied by a subject with the strangest record ever... 1. Some (Sanders, AOC) said "they abandoned the working class and did not pass enough progressive agenda." Incorrect. Biden's policies focused on the working class on many fronts... 2. While on the hand, some said they did not curb inflation by spending too much money on progressive ideas. If they did not do that to clean up Trump's mess, in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years, the impact of a recession would have been worse. 3. Some blame Harris for not focusing on her plans (her rival did not focus on his plans - he spent most of the time name-calling all of his opponents - using the most vile language you can imagine) 4. Some s...

Both major parties in the US election tomorrow claim flame and brimstone will descend if they do not win the presidential election... one of the two must be gaslighting the electorates...   I believe in the exceptionalism of America. I trust that my fellow Americans will see beyond the lies in the rhetoric of those who want to take them for a ride and they will vote their conscience (over 80 million have voted already)... they should see through the lies and deception of one of the candidates who appears to be desperate to be president.    I believe only one of the candidates will bring the house down if allowed in again... we see all the fingerprints on the wall with all the promises of retribution, revenge, hate, vindictiveness, chaos, xenophobia, racism, a dictatorial mindset that will set America back over 100 years... There is so much at stake beyond loyalty to one's party. Immigration, the economy, women's rights, and all other key issues in this election will not m...

The inflation is high - the price of groceries has gone up, and the cost of insurance and interest are all up. But an average American has seen his or her worth skyrocket in the last four years. Look at the equity on your homes and tell me what it is worth - many have seen between 20 to 200% increase in equity on their homes. Even your old cars have increased in value. Because this is not liquid cash, many do not see this as a value that they have gained under Biden... Perhaps, Biden should have done better. They spent too much money, gave money to people who did not need it... The spending started under Trump though but Biden did not do enough to check all the leakages... He was so concerned about the soft landing of the economy that he overspent... If the current policies were not implemented, there would have been another recession in the scale of 2008. This was predicted across the board. What many also do not think about is that unemployment is at a record low in the last four yea...

Those saying, "separate the message from the messenger," are not looking at the bigger picture. Many say this when talking about Trump's character in comparison to his conservative agenda. They claim he is good for the economy (FALSE), he is good for business (MAYBE - deregulation under republican government have led to a chaotic and damaged economy in the long run - that was the foundation of the 2008 recession under another RNC president, Bush Jr.)... The consequences of ignoring the character of a leader of a diverse and super-power nation like America was what happened towards the end of Trump's first tenure... Over 22 million Americans lost their jobs, unemployment skyrocketed to over 14.7%, inflation set in, and hundreds of thousands that should have lived died from Coronavirus that he championed misinformation about - first, it was DEM hoax, then it was the "China virus"... he kept spinning it until he was infected.... The last RNC presidents since Re...

I speak directly to Americans of African descent who are considering voting for a candidate who thinks the only job they deserve is janitorial and low-paying jobs. Think again. The concern many of these people have is "Can a woman run America?" If many of you reflect on who raised you, perhaps you have already answered your question. If you were raised by your grandma who instilled the fear of God in you, or your single mom who worked three jobs to put food on the table, then you know a woman can definitely run any organization. The US is one of the Western countries that has not had a woman leader since its founding - the UK, Germany, Canada, and France have all had a form of female leader at some point in their history. The gender question was one of the reasons why Hilary Clinton lost the 2016 election. Some Americans just could not see a woman leading. You see the element of religion in this also - The Southern Baptist Convention does not appoint a female priest, and the ...

Exactly a year today, the terror organization Hamas struck terror in the hearts of Israelis. Over 1200, mostly innocent people were murdered in cold blood in the most barbaric way. The evil wrecked by Hamas reminds us of the evil we are capable of as humans if we think there will not be any form of accountability. The attack is condemned in all of its forms. Such should never happen again. My heart goes out to families mourning dead family members, and those still waiting for their families taken hostage to return to them alive.   Since then, the Israeli army has unleashed terror of their own on Hamas, in the process killing so many innocent Palestinians in an attempt to exterminate Hamas, and their own terror continues, mostly on innocent Palestinians. Israel engaged in what some called genocide by cutting off water, food, power, internet, and major resources to over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza. The world has condemned the way Israel is prosecuting the war because they have bee...

If the Middle-east is engulfed in fire, it will be Biden's Benghazi. A failure of U.S. foreign policy and an inability to use its powerful muscles to force all parties at war to the table under his watch. It will be seen as a failure because it was strong in rhetoric but weak in substance. You can not be calling for peace but giving weapons of war to one party. The U.S. did the same in the Iran-Iraq war that lasted for years. This a policy that has failed severally. Support without morality is hypocrisy. There is not going to be peace when one party thinks they can kill everybody and refuses to abide by all rules of engagement they have accused those they call terrorists of jettison. You can not stoop to the level of low lives who kill children, women, and the elderly.... on the excuse that they use humans as shields. This situation should not have been escalated if not for the parochial interest of one man who does not want to go to jail for alleged corruption. There should have b...

Republicans who are on the fence because they feel they will be betraying their loyalty to the RNC they have supported and voted for all their lives, should not be afraid of change. The RNC you have today is not the RNC of 2016. The party is a MAGA party now... otherwise, the RNC, pre-2016 will not nominate twice impeached, and the 34-time convicted felon who boasted of assaulting women and does not shy away from saying he will break the law that he had broken several times. He has only survived because some in the SCOTUS have bent the rules to keep him afloat... RNC of Ronald Regan/John McCain will not nominate a candidate that allegedly instigated an insurrection. The party will not nominate a man who uses the most vile language you don't want to hear as a normal - decent human being. You will nominate a man who appointed members of his family into plum strategic positions with the sole aim of making money out of government (otherwise, Ivanka's husband will not be the Middle-...

I am often bewildered when privileged people choose to disregard the humanity of others. When they are called out, they become offended. When you intentionally mispronounce someone else's name; you are corrected and you say you don't care. Like calling VP Kamala's name anyhow, or calling Iraq and Iran like you call Apple's products: I-ran and I-raq. Wrong! Wrong !! Wrong!!! This is a lesson in social intelligence quotient FAILED. A cardinal rule in social IQ is to "treat people the way they want to be treated." Deliberate and nonchalant attitude towards mispronouncing others' names is the hallmark of race supremacy that was exemplified during the slavery era that extended into Jim Crow, and now into today's mindset of some right-wing white supremacists in the name of opposing "political correctness" - they erased all the cultures of the enslaved Africans - and forced them to take on their master's name, to never speak their native langua...

  I used to think that Kaitlan Collins of CNN was too young at less than 30 years to have been handed the CNN White House Chief correspondent position before she became the primetime anchor at 9 PM on the channel. However, the day she earned my respect was the day she cornered Trump's second Attorney General, the renowned lawyer and two-time AG, Bill Barr. This was a man who called DJT names for wanting to overturn Biden's election but has now endorsed DJT for president again. Ms. Collins asked Barr what has Biden done that was worse than a man who wanted to thwart the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in the history of America. Barr quivered and stuttered that Biden's whole government was a disaster. Collins asked him again, do you mean that is worse than a man that wanted to steal an election. Barr said, stammering again, did he succeed. Barr should know better that attempted burglary and murder are criminal offenses in America, he was a two-time AG of America...

When your support goes to a leader who uses racist epithets to describe you, and you follow him because he lies to you that he is creating jobs for your people. If we go deeper, what type of jobs is he talking about? Here are the types of jobs in his own words paraphrased: "Biden is a disaster with his border policies - he is letting in thugs and rapists from the south, and you know what, they are taking Black jobs... I have done more for the blacks than any president since Abraham Lincoln. Unemployment was the lowest in my time. Now Biden has opened the border, and they are taking black jobs" What are black jobs? Low-paying jobs.... Janitorial, construction, housekeeping, cleaners, and auxiliary nurse jobs that require no skills, and keep you in the low class or lower middle class in perpetuity. This statement and insinuation not only insult the African American community but the Hispanics... All Americans deserve an equal chance at all the opportunities in the land. There i...

Nigerians have been protesting the prevailing economic hardship that has worsened in the last 15 months since President Tinubu took office. While we cannot blame the current administration for all the woes of the land, they have surely added to it, and they have not been up to the task of alleviating the suffering of ordinary Nigerians. Inflation has run riot, the naira has been devalued beyond any other time in Nigeria's history, and the majority of our people are hungry, I mean people are hungry... it is 1984 again for many families, even worse for some. Buhari ruined the country with his lack of oversight and ethnic bigotry that fueled Fulani and banditry activities and took them to another level. President Tinubu has a chance of a lifetime to re-write the wrong he did to Nigerians by forcing an incapable man on us for his own political ambition - you all know what I mean. We all know the cure to the issues preventing appreciable progress with all the goodwill of Tinubu. His go...

  Why is the federal government of Nigeria afraid of lawful protest by ordinary Nigerians because of hardship that stemmed from the failure of successive governments? Are they afraid it will produce results as it did in Kenya?   Protest is part of democracy... using traditional rulers, who are trumpets of the government and not the people, to force a stop is disingenuous. Saying they have identified sponsors of the protest is an insult to ordinary Nigerians who truly are suffering... Is the government saying Nigerians are idiots who cannot think for themselves and exercise their civil rights?   Listen to the people; engage them and pragmatically address their concerns... implement policies that will alleviate poverty and stop sharing one bag of rice to 200 families... address the root cause of Nigeria's problem - corruption, insecurity, incompetence..

Americans whose example of a strong president is a "WHITE" MALE have their hands full in November... Right or Left of the tickets does not represent that. They will have to choose - Kamala is of Indian heritage, JD Vance's wife is Indian. You would wonder why they did not choose Niki Haley - she is Indian too. JD Vance, Donald J. Trump's Vice Presidential candidate, is married to a beautiful woman of South Asian (dark-skin South Indian) heritage, and she has experienced slue of racist attacks since JD was announced as the VP pick for Trump... Some right-wing MAGA people have attacked her in the typical way that these extremists do.... they want a caucasian dominated America. They want the country to go back to the Jim Crow era when women had no rights, where Americans of African descent were valued as 3/5 of a human. When women don't work, and subjects at home they have no voice..... America of today has been sustained on the talents of immigrants like myself and ...

Today marks another landmark in the long career of President Joe Biden. He dropped out of the race for re-election... he demonstrated his patriotism again - nation over self and the greater good over personal interest. I was among the first to call for Biden to step down as a patriotic act after his disastrous debate outing. This is leadership, this is TRUE patriotism, this is a man that loves his country above all things... he is willing to relinquish the most powerful seat in the world for the greater good of his fellow citizens... Biden did not say like his rival, it is either me or the nation will burn - literarily quoting Donald J. Trump . Biden dropped out, not because he failed to deliver during his first debate but because there is no recovery from old age. It is time to go and rest and enjoy the rest of his long life with his wife who has stood by him all the while. I do not know a more patriotic fellow American than President Joe Biden - in the face of an accide...

Aliko Dangote's wealth has diminished by more than 66% in the last decade because of his choice to invest in Nigeria where the currency has seen significant depreciation in value and the economy has not been so stable, yet he remains. He has not given up on the nation... this is worth considering as a Nigerian in the diaspora who wants a better country. Especially in the wake of the re-capitalization of the Nigerian banking sector.   The Nigerian Banks under the directive of CBN have been mandated to increase their capital base and some of them currently have public offers. I did a due diligence to look at the strength of some of these banks, they have done so well over the years. Huge dividends were paid out year after year and their shares have seen significant appreciation over time. Some of their indices show that they are on a path of growth.   As a Nigerian in the diaspora, I have concerns about investing in Nigeria. The number one concern is the devaluation of the naira...

When you cannot question the leadership of an organization without fear of retribution, then you are in a cult... That is the feeling in some churches. If you dare speak the truth to the so called "men of God," you will become an outcast and a pariah immediately... These abusers hide under, "touch not my anointed" - who said the rest of us who are not anointed? They also hide under "rebuke not an elder," they forgot Paul rebuked Peter publicly not long after he was converted when Peter would not eat with the Gentiles.... Many read the bible upside down to control and abuse the flock God asked them to tend for him. This is why many people suffer in silence in many religious organizations, especially the church. They are afraid of being blacklisted if they challenge the "authority." It is so bad that many will rather keep quiet, and not associate with, support, or care for those being abused for fear of being accused of going against the anointed m...

This is a very long piece. If you want some tips on how to maintain good health, post your 50s, it is a must-read... Life expectancy in Nigeria is a paltry 52 years. It is one of the lowest in the world, one of the lowest in Africa. People die young everywhere. There are certain causes of death that are beyond our control as human... Death is eminent but... I mean but... There are a few things we can do as soon as we hit our 40s and 50s that can help prolong our lives. Our lifestyle and diet. What we put in our mouth, and how and type of exercise we do. You do not need a gym membership to exercise, nor do you need to spend tons of money to eat healthy. You need information that will guide you. I am not an expert dietitian or an exercise specialist. I am in my 50s, and I am a food professional, so, I write from a position of knowledge and experience.   Beyond a certain age, you need to refrain from certain types of foods if you want to live long. Sugary foods (coke, Pepsi, sweetened...

New tariffs and new taxation can only be justified when the economic situation in Nigeria improves. Otherwise, they will compound an already bad situation for the average Nigerian. Nigeria is not Lagos... The majority of poor Nigerians can not bear the burden of recovery due to the reckless behavior of a few.... The burden of recovery MUST be borne by those who have benefited from the largesse of the past - rich Nigerians, corporations who make so much - oil companies, Banks, organizations like the telecom companies... They MUST pay their fair share... Entertainers - many Nigerian celebrities (musicians, actors, creative artists, etc.) do not pay a dim in tax/ pay the bare minimum, and they rake in millions/billions every year in local and foreign earnings. The likes of Burna Boy, Davido, Charlie Boy, P-Square, Dbanj, Tiwa, Funke Akindele, Arya Starr, Don Jazzy, Rema, Asake, Wizkid, Toyin Abraham, Mofe-Damijo, Kunle Afolayan with all his Netflix millions, etc. It is high time Nigeria s...

  At a time of austerity, the Nigerian government continues to use (waste) taxpayers' money to subsidize religious pilgrimage to countries that are multiple times richer than us. We refuse to develop our tourism sector. We allow terrorism to drive potential tourists away, and we have refused to explore a gold mine and continue to waste billions on private quests of individual Nigerians - and the people that are often sponsored on these trips are close relatives of the politicians, not ordinary Nigerians. Any Nigerian that wants to go to Jerusalem, Mecca, or Medina should spend their own money, not taxpayers' money. It is the height of stupidity for supposed poor country like Nigeria. Nigeria has the potential to make triple the amount we make from petroleum from tourism if we make the right decisions. Address insecurity, and make laws that will encourage and provide credits to private sector participants to invest in the sector. Streamline visa application process...

Except Nigeria changes its approach to project execution fundamentally, I do not see the Lagos - Calabar Coastal Highway project finishing in my lifetime. This project was conceived in 2006 by OBJ, 18 years ago. They are just starting today... 2024. If things are done properly, it will take 8 years - 8 years oh... that could be 80 years in Nigeria. How many decades since the Ibadan - Ilorin highway was conceived (since 1979) - it was restarted in 1999 during OBJ who conceived the road during his first stint in government as a military head of state. The road is yet to be completed, and the portion completed is already dilapidated, worse than the old road. Lagos - Ibadan expressway is yet to be fully completed 25 years since it was awarded. There have been several awards and re-awards since 1999 and billions of dollars have been wasted on a major road that links the commercial hub of Nigeria to the rest of the nation. There are so many other Federal highways like this, especially those ...

A lot of people say Toyota vehicles are very good. They mention its reliability, durability, and affordability. The reason for this is that Toyota Auto Co. embraced the culture of quality decades ago. At the center of their trade is continuous improvement. Coincidentally, the Japanese who brought that culture to Japan learned it from the Americans. It is a major part of the American organizational system. The public system in Nigeria needs to embrace the culture of continuous improvement for it to thrive. Nigeria has yet to attain a level of quality that is productive and profitable. When we do, for these to be sustainable, we must find a way to evolve to meet new challenges that a world that is constantly changing will force on us. We cannot continue to do things the same way without consideration to changes that we have and are experiencing. We have a lot of these within every public system in Nigeria, especially the public university system.   A major bane to development in ...

The suspension of Senator Ningi for outing his colleagues shows top Nigerian politicians are unrepentant. They continued to siphon our commonwealth, and the one who had the courage among them to speak out about the injustice was suspended for 3 months - they had wanted to make it one year. When you watch how the Senate President, Akpabio presided over the session, you see a man without conscience... There was no way to know if the motion to suspend passed or failed... there was no count, it appeared to be based on loudness or yay or nay. Akpabio's constituency alone was appropriated over N21 billion for silly projects, which obviously shows that these are meant to steal taxpayers' money. Akpabio has demonstrated this callousness since his election. He has not hidden the fact that he wants it to be business as usual in the Senate... This is why it is difficult to see the hope of change in Nigeria... These people are not ready to relinquish the pump that is supposed to draw and d...

It was early morning in Nigeria on this faithful Sunday - around January 2004. That day was important because it was the deadline for me to pay my application fee for graduate admission to McGill University, Canada. I already had the nudge of my prospective advisor (supervisor) to go ahead and apply. There was no proliferation of credit cards then. All-night efforts to get a company to help pay online failed. I placed a call to a former high school mate and a dear friend in Atlanta US. He and his wife spent the entire afternoon trying until they were successful. Without that payment, I probably would have lost that admission that year and the trajectory of my life could have been different... After the admission was granted, I needed to pay for the Quebec Acceptance Certificate (CAQ) to complete my visa application. Another friend was the one who helped me. He paid my CAQ ($100 CDN) fee without asking me to refund him. It was a lot of money from the type of job he was doing then. He wa...