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

Brilliance alone will not suffice for you to climb the ladder of success – you will need shoulders at some point. I was a very precocious child, my mother said to me. I asked many hard questions and was always inquisitive. Growing up, I challenged the status quo to the fury of some grownups. I slipped a little bit when I was in Grade 2, I played a lot and did not pay attention to my studies so much so that in one of my exams, Bible Religious Knowledge, we were given a multiple choice question, and we were asked “In what river was Jesus baptized, and there was option of River Ogunpa (a popular river near my elementary school then) and River Jordan, and I chose Ogunpa . I remember because when I came back to my senses at the end of the session and I saw red marks in my Report Card for the first time, I cried for days. I never looked back since. I was always among the top 1% of my class for the rest of my Elementary School, Secondary School and during my Bachelor’s degree. I prided ...

The incident of the last few weeks has beamed the light on the law enforcement departments in the US as if policemen are all monsters and the racism in the system is peculiar to the police force alone. I agree we should start with the police force, where many have died in the hands of police officers because of a culture that gives the police power to harm suspect and in many cases, kill people who are otherwise innocent or would not have been sentenced to death if they were found guilty of the offense they are been arrested for - this excessive use of force has led to the death of people of all hue (color). Where this is a greater problem is that most victims are people of color. When you look at the statistics of people who are killed by the police, you will find more African Americans. Is the police force the problem or the racial issue in the society they live in? I do not believe the US police force is the sole problem. The underlining problem is racial inequality. Look at mortali...

Over the years, I have written about racial inequality I have experienced as a person of color in North America (not just US, but also in Canada, though most of my bad experiences have been in the US), and many of my African friends abroad that responded wondered what I was talking about. This speaks volume - until a critical mass (until we saw a caucasian policeman literally snuffed life out of a helpless black man) was reached even people who look like me could not empathize. I know African immigrants in the US who blame African Americans for their woes and I tell them, you came here from a free country as an educated person, you do not carry the stigma that these people have carried from birth, and have not witnessed racial injustice of seeing your father, auntie, brother, uncle shut off from the society because they rebelled, because they could not access the wealth of the land they live, they rebelled and some live a life of crime. We did not have to reach a critical mass to have ...

I have been writing on the subject of racism in the West (not just America) since I arrived in Canada 16 years ago. My conclusion was that if the "White" America does not acknowledge the issue of systemic racism, every other effort will fail to exterminate this cankerworm. There is a need for "White America" to acknowledge we are wrong, we have been wrong and we have not done enough to stop this evil culture of racism, then, the healing and equalization will begin. Before now, many caucasians have lived in denial of systemic racism and many of them have acted in racist ways unconsciously because this has been a culture they have known - like a lady in New York who called the police on an American African man in the park because he told her to put her dog on a leash, and she was faking a cry on the phone as she was calling 911. When she was interviewed, the first statement she made was that "I am not a racist" but the video of the interaction showed otherwi...

Communism died, and capitalism survived. Capitalism is a supposed system that allows freeness in an economy - market forces in the hands of private owners control what happens to the economy with minimal influence by the state. Capitalism has produced enormous wealth in the West. There are so many millionaires and billionaires. The question is, what is the ratio of the stupendously rich and those who are just scraping by - living from pay check-to-pay check? The gap is huge between the rich and the poor in most capitalist states. When President Trump was going to deliver his tax reform, it favored the rich with about 80% of the tax benefits going to the top 1% richest people in America. The argument was that they create jobs, they should benefit more - money is being given to those who really do not need the extra cash but those who need it the most, aids is been taken away from people who are at the bottom of the ladder because of a few who lie on their social welfare claims. I h...

In the 1960s, Nigeria was an important location for medical tourism. The Saudis and other Africans use to come to Nigeria for medical care. Today, the reverse is the case. Then, the state of some of Nigeria's regional hospitals like University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan was comparable to what you find in the West. The hospitals were well equipped, the doctors and other hospital personnel were well trained so much they rub shoulders with their peers abroad. What do you find in the last 30 years, most of these hospitals are shadows of themselves because of lack of funding to support the infrastructures, training, and resources to replace old systems? Many times, important surgeries will be going on and power supply will fail, many have lost their lives and confidence is eroded in the system. Nothing has been done to improve patient care and experience. At UCH Ibadan, they still use a physical file system where patient medical records are still in paper files that often lead to...