Brought up in a home

"I was brought up in a home where elders cared for the young and are respected duly but launched into a community where elders cheat the young"

Okay, something happened of recent. As a member of a team, I guess I reserve the right to challenge my 'oga' whenever I think he is not doing the right thing.

Talks are sacred. I felt what my team leader betrayed my trust for him and I challenged that act. I just demanded an apology for that act and all I got in return were insults from some of the team members and him inclusive.

Although I could garner the reason for the action from the reply and I just said okay, one of our colleagues said I should be the one to apologize because I didn't address him well.

I believe in a democratic setting, if you feel cheated, you are free to challenge the authority involved anyhow.

Am I right or right?

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA DR. GOODLUCK EBELE JONATHAN (GCFR) BY COMRADE OLUWAFEMI WILLIAM OLUWASEUN A.K.A JABULANI

Necessity had necessitated this letter at this material time, having keenly observed the lackadaisical and unperturbed altitude of the Federal Government towards the lingering ASUP and COEASUP strike. Distinguish and indefatigable president no doubt that polytechnics and colleges across the nation has been under lock for 10 months. We nigeria students are expressing our dissatisfaction with the government’s penchant for always reneging on its agreements with the trade unions in the education sector. Com. JABULANI has always be in the struggle of fighting for the polytechnics right from his days in Kwara State Polytechnic and will always stand tall for the struggle because injury to one is injury to all and will fight the contentious issue together with ASUP which is harmonising the First Degree and HND dichotomy. Infrastrutural development, rehabilitation and provision of teaching and learning materials are essential and should witness tremendous upliftment in due time. We also Condemn the use of techniques of intimidation by state security agents by using tear gas and cannons water on members of ASUP, COEASU, NLC, Students and civil groups in Abuja, while exercising their rights to peaceful protest and expression. An idle mind is the devils workshop, I hereby plead to Mr. President, Minister of Education and all other concerned bodies to come to the aid of Nigerian students and safe them from becoming thugs and prostitutes in the society. We youths are the leaders of tomorrow.

COM. OLUWAFEMI WILLIAM OLUWASEUN A.K.A JABULANI writes from FUTA

Aluta Continua! Victoria Ascerta!

God bless Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Don't look down on yourself - by Oluwatobiloba OGUNNIYI

This mind-blowing article was written by my best friend. She wrote it as a mere Facebook post but it gat the motivational spirit in it. I submit T.O.B's motivational piece for this week by Miss Ogunniyi:

This goes out to those with low self esteem.

Why do you live with the mentality that you can't do it?

Why do you think so low of yourself?

The fact that you have been abused in the past doesn't mean you are irrelevant in the present. The way you see yourself right now tells how far you will go. Yes you might have failed in everything you embarked on, in fact you might be failing at the moment but it is not the end of the world.

Don't look down on yourself. You might feel you ain't beautiful enough, brilliant enough, social enough, financially buoyant enough God is saying I've made everything about you perfect.

No matter what you've been told, please stop looking down on yourself. You can do it if you set your mind to do it. See yourself as an important personality. Never lose hope,don't stop fighting and in the end you'll be fulfilled.

Happy Sunday.‪ #‎Teemag‬ cares# I LOVE & CELEBRATE YOU!

PRESS RELEASE: It's One Year Already

Today mark the 365th day since I took the oath of office as the Public Relations Officer of Agricultural Economics and Extension Students' Association (AEESA).

How time flies. On the 16th of May, 2013 at the Students' Union Conference Room, the Positive Transformation Team was sworn into power by the Chief Justice of FUTASUG, Hon. Justice Opeyemi Olabode.

I have worked with the best team of executives; The Positive Transformation Team and we actualized unimaginable goals together. Kudos to my ever-conscious non-relenting and ever-progressive President in person of Comrade Emmanuel Olowoyo.

Together, we have achieved the first ever AEESA-branded National Agricultural Students InterVarsity Debate, an outstanding students-lecturers forum, great welcoming and departure parties for the freshmen and part five (Klass '13) respectively, an AEESA magazine of international standard (first of its kind), souvenirs and lots more.

I, as the Public Relations Officer, also set indelible records for my successors to contend with and achieve better. With the help of the Positive Transformation Team, I instituted a stable Bulk SMS platform for the dissemination of crucial information to AEESites, programmes of the association were well publicized (even online), I also supported my Departmental Rep. to institute good information dissemination platforms (WhatsApp Group & Bulk SMS) for my level mates.

In the words of Henry Ford, he said: "You cannot build your reputation on what you want to do". The AEESA EXCOS '13/'14 (The Positive Transformation Team) has thus built a good reputation for the association and set indelible records for our successors to break.

GOD BLESS AEESA FUTA
GOD BLESS FUTA
GOD BLESS NIGERIA

ALUTA CONTINUA... VICTORIA ASCERTA

Signed: Comrade Tesleem Oladayo, OKUNOLA
(A.K.A Doctor Gaga)
AEESA Public Relations Officer

Discover Yourself

Have you ever thought of discovering your inner characteristics?

Have you ever thought of discovering what you can do and how you can do it?

Have you ever thought that you are different from your friend or sibling?

If you've not thought of any of these or even more, you really need to. When you think about this, you start to check yourself closely to discover more about your personality.

You think your friend is good in music and you too want to go into music. You think because your friend is good in reading at night, you want to start reading at night.

I could remember when we wanted to cross to the Senior Secondary School back then, our teachers always say don't go to science class because your friend is there or your parents want you there.

These people you call your friends or siblings are not you and can NEVER be you. You are completely different from the next person.

If you are diurnal (assimilates more in the day) and your friend is nocturnal (assimilates more at night) and you feel you could follow your friend to night class and pass. NAY! your inner characteristics show that even if you read a 5-page book at night, you will not assimilate but if you read a 100-page book in the day, it will sink into your brain.

You are good in dancing and your friend is good in music. The best is for you to pool resources to form a strong duo of dancer and singer rather than you joining him in singing or vice versa. Even the duo of P Square (twins for that matter) are not good in the same aspect.

So, why force another person's talent on yourself?

why force another person's inner characteristics on yourself?

Check yourself critically and discover the best you can do to produce the best out of you. You are born to be at top only if you could DISCOVER YOURSELF.

My name is Taslim OKUNOLA and I am a progressive Nigerian youth.

Thanks for reading.
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The President I want' - By Chimamanda Adichie

Award winning author Chimamanda Adichie writes on the kind of President she wants. I love this. Read below:

Some of my relatives lived for decades in the North, in Kano and Bornu. They spoke fluent Hausa. (One relative taught me, at the age of eight, to count in Hausa.) They made planned visits to Anambra only a few times a year, at Christmas and to attend weddings and funerals. But sometimes, in the wake of violence, they made unplanned visits. I remember the word ‘Maitatsine’ – to my young ears, it had a striking lyricism – and I remember the influx of relatives who had packed a few bags and fled the killings. What struck me about those hasty returns to the East was that my relatives always went back to the North. Until two years ago when my uncle packed up his life of thirty years in Maiduguri and moved to Awka. He was not going back. This time, he felt, was different.

My uncle’s return illustrates a feeling shared by many Nigerians about Boko Haram: a lack of hope, a lack of confidence in our leadership. We are experiencing what is, apart from the Biafran war, the most violent period in our nation’s existence. Like many Nigerians, I am distressed about the students murdered in their school, about the people whose bodies were spattered in Nyanya, about the girls abducted in Chibok. I am furious that politicians are politicizing what should be a collective Nigerian mourning, a shared Nigerian sadness.

And I find our president’s actions and non-actions unbelievably surreal.
I do not want a president who, weeks after girls are abducted from a school and days after brave Nigerians have taken to the streets to protest the abductions, merely announces a fact-finding committee to find the girls.

I want President Jonathan to be consumed, utterly consumed, by the state of insecurity in Nigeria. I want him to make security a priority, and make it seem like a priority. I want a president consumed by the urgency of now, who rejects the false idea of keeping up appearances while the country is mired in terror and uncertainty. I want President Jonathan to know – and let Nigerians know that he knows – that we are not made safer by soldiers checking the boots of cars, that to shut down Abuja in order to hold a World Economic Forum is proof of just how deeply insecure the country is. We have a big problem, and I want the president to act as if we do. I want the president to slice through the muddle of bureaucracy, the morass of ‘how things are done,’ because Boko Haram is unusual and the response to it cannot be business as usual.

I want President Jonathan to communicate with the Nigerian people, to realize that leadership has a strong psychological component: in the face of silence or incoherence, people lose faith. I want him to humanize the lost and the missing, to insist that their individual stories be told, to show that every Nigerian life is precious in the eyes of the Nigerian state.

I want the president to seek new ideas, to act, make decisions, publish the security budget spending, offer incentives, sack people. I want the president to be angrily heartbroken about the murder of so many, to lie sleepless in bed thinking of yet what else can be done, to support and equip the armed forces and the police, but also to insist on humaneness in the midst of terror. I want the president to be equally enraged by soldiers who commit murder, by policemen who beat bomb survivors and mourners. I want the president to stop issuing limp, belated announcements through public officials, to insist on a televised apology from whoever is responsible for lying to Nigerians about the girls having been rescued.

I want President Jonathan to ignore his opponents, to remember that it is the nature of politics, to refuse to respond with defensiveness or guardedness, and to remember that Nigerians are understandably cynical about their government.

I want President Jonathan to seek glory and a place in history, instead of longevity in office. I want him to put aside the forthcoming 2015 elections, and focus today on being the kind of leader Nigeria has never had.

I do not care where the president of Nigeria comes from. Even those Nigerians who focus on ‘where the president is from’ will be won over if they are confronted with good leadership that makes all Nigerians feel included. I have always wanted, as my president, a man or a woman who is intelligent and honest and bold, who is surrounded by truth-telling, competent advisers, whose policies are people-centered, and who wants to lead, who wants to be president, but does not need to – or have to- be president at all costs.

President Jonathan may not fit that bill, but he can approximate it: by being the leader Nigerians desperately need now.

By Chimamanda Adichie