So my mind went wandering (as its’ naturally want to do) as I was jamming and doing my laundry Saturday morning, and I tried to take stock of the various online aliases and passwords I’ve used in my life’s journey through the internet high way. In the end twas a sweet reminisce which eventually led me making new decisions. Below though is the reminisce reproduced in print just for the fun of it.

The first 5 variables are passwords used, with only the base word of the password given. Actual password used is usually a corrupt alteration.  The remaining 5 variables are usernames, with only the first 3 letters given. The rest are asterisked for security reasons, lols. Top marks to you if able to guess correctly.

lovemedo
This was actually my first password ever. Chosen back in 2001 in my first or second year at the University when the internet bug finally reached Nsukka. Love me do was the title of a song by The Beatles. Back then I was a skinny little 17 or 18 year old with delayed puberty who didn’t have many friends. One of the things I liked to do in my spare time was go to the Nnamdi Azikiwe Library (as it was in its’ old form behind the present building) and read up books on sociology, psychology or the arts. Which back then consisted largely of old books from 70s, 80s and 90s America/Europe.  It was during one of such visits I took an interest in the Beatles whom I had heard of as a child, read up a lot of their memorabilia. So when password choice time came I wanted something personal to me and lovemedo it was cos back then I really just wanted to be loved.

1enugu1
This has become my standard initial password used (lest I forget) before changing to something else when a firm decision is reached. I think it started on my first job when instructed by the IT guy Yinka to choose a number and letter password combination I went with the familiar. Enugu, the State I schooled in at University, and the 1 at the front and back to make it harder to guess. Lols.

shakaraINC
Madonna was the only other girl ever I had made a firm choice about and would have married at the drop of a hat. Met her at work in Makurdi in 2008 and kept on and off on her case through Jos, Abuja and the South West up until 2012. I finally dropped out of the chase when the “she’s just not into you” message finally sunk in. Shorty got married last year to some other lucky guy though. Shakara because of the challenge it was to me which in its’ whole form was heavy an institution like “Murder INC” was when Ja Rule ruled the hip hop air waves.

illbliss
This was chosen as my first portable Wi-Fi hotspot password in 2012 when I went totally Android mad. Illbliss because the semantics is just totally cool in a Hip Hop sense. And Illbliss because the Nigerian rapper who goes by the moniker is an Igbo brother whose flow I totally respect and feel.

liquiddeep
This is my present day Wi-Fi hotspot password. Top hats to you if you find yourself surfing beside me when I’m on my phone or laptop. Liquiddeep because I totally adore the South African band and isha Allah will have them play their hit track “still” at my wedding.

Sal*****
We used to have Tom and Jerry, The Two Mouseketeers episode as a child which I loved watching. Towards the end of the episode after Tom is executed, Nibbles (Jerry’s nephew) exclaims in French: "C'est la guerre", meaning “that’s war”. This username was my interpretation of the spelling of that phrase. A phrase I was very fond of quoting as a child while playing with friends.

Sor*****
This username also goes back to my first or second year at the university. My roommate then Chike used to have this Sony CD player, which was the student rave of the moment at that period. And it so happened then that Wyclef Jean’s “guantanamera” was one of the favourite tracks we loved playing on repeat. Wyclef’s love interest in the song goes “Soy una mujer, sincera” which in Spanish means “I am a sincere woman” to which Wyclef responds “Do you speak English”? This username was my roommate Chike’s attempt at mimicking “Soy una mujer, sincera” which became a common alias we started referring to ourselves as at the time.

Nwo******
This one was pure vendetta like shit. The Facebook moniker of some fake ass dude who cramped my hustle a few years ago. The moniker, in my opinion a funkifysation of an Igbo name. A funkifysation I found very cool and eventually found myself using. I also used this as a password at some time.

Kwa******
This one came about from my first visit to Kano. An impromptu unexpected life lesson learning visit. It’s a combination of two words. One the Hausa word for an Islamic rite, and the other the Hausa word for a common fast food up North. This name packs so much meaning to me and is a constant reminder of times past.

Ken*******
This word was born in my consciousness at the end of the Westgate shopping mall attack in Kenya, September 2013. When the Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta addressed the press. Such eloquence, clear thought, calmness, passion and charisma won me over totally and got me wishing I could feel such pride in our own president, Goodluck Jonathan for even a day, **sighs and resigns to fate**.

Songs about Jane, rants about love and marriage. Sort of a time induced sequel to my “Let’s talk about girls, kids and favourite teams” post of May 2006. Social engineering, a recent love interest of mine after pondering the recent Amos Adamu and the slightly older Sarah Palin email hack. So here goes

8] So I’m at the stage of life where my mates are starting to tie the knots one by one or bullshit aside working seriously towards that. And in a couple of cases where both parties work in the same office a party has resigned for the other in order not to fall foul of HR laws. Worse still that party remained jobless after the ceremonies with the income of the union now tied to one source. My opinion: big mistake. Could be really pretty risky especially as in many regards money is the fuel which sustains love. This is backed by test number 12 from “Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships” by Chip Ingram (adapted from “marriage for moderns” by Henry Bowman". Available for download here).

A couple that is genuinely in love and not infatuated do not feel an almost irresistible drive towards haste. Infatuated couples tend to feel an urge towards getting married. Postponement is intolerable to them and they interpret it as deprivation rather than preparation.

When it comes to marriage I’m pro long courtship. I believe it should be about genuinely time tested and trusted best friends wanting to commit together. All other reasons for commitment are not really healthy. Especially in a society like Nigeria where government social support is nonexistent and insurance is bullocks, it’s best to play into the hand of someone that’ll stand by you if shit should ever hit the fan. Stall the wedding date till the other party can fix up another source of income; what will be will be.

9] After reading an article online about a wedding called off due to astronomical student debts owed by the bride, I’ve come to ever more realize that marriage in reality is like a business deal which makes the best sense if it’s mutual benefiting. No one goes into business with the aim of making looses. Everyone wants to enhance his or her portfolio, which in many regards is expressed in monetary terms. One party coming through packing debts or obligations which become overbearing with time should be a big no no. Both parties should endeavour to review their financial positions and possible outlook before doing the do.

10] Coming down home we as Nigerians would be better off if we learnt to treat marriage like we treat our homes; the Inside clean and the outside dirty is the best balance. Nigerians are selfish like that, we go to great deals to pimp up our homes but don’t care much about our collective surroundings. Likewise if we (hint...ladies) cared more about keeping our relationships alive and less about showing off with big weddings and bragging about our marital status we could actually be better off.

11] As above in tune with keeping your marriage as comfortable as possible keep the conceptions down, in line with your income to maintain an above average standard of living. A family holiday every year should not be a pipe dream or something you just watch in movies. The creator put man on earth to conquer and explore not to spend a life time living from hand to mouth.

12] Finally on a parting note I think I’m now seriously pro natural hair and would go to any lengths to support and convince my girl (girl in this case means one of my own race) to carry such. Nappy headz rule!

Social engineering is when an attacker/hacker uses human interaction (manipulation via social skills) to obtain or compromise information about a person, an organization or its computer systems. As earlier mentioned I got researching on this after actively pondering the Amos Adamu and Sarah Palin incidents. In the end I was able to successfully hack two email addresses and got pass the first question of many a friend's Yahoo! Mail Forgot Password feature. This article will bring you up to speed on the technique I used to take advantage of Yahoo’s decision to cut customer service costs associated with attending to password recovery queries. Yes people yet another reason to choose Gmail over Yahoo.

Update!: Please see this post for a follow up on the Yahoo password recovery process as regards to social engineering.

Written for the new gig...

Can you relate with this?

“The tellers and customer service ladies of Bank EW are just plain rude; imagine going to withdraw your own money and being told to wait for hours or to come back tomorrow because the servers are down; I don’t remember them telling me that when I came to open the account!”

“My sister I cried to my creator from the bottom of my heart today. I was made to feel subhuman just because I went to one office to submit my CV”.

“I can only blame myself for taking my own two feet into that place. The reply I got was so cold and unhelpful just for the simplest of enquiries. It was a total waste of time and energy.”

“Why do these ISPs keep employing clueless and dumb people? Can you imagine the guy at the help desk telling me “I was not trained to activate this plan on a phone. I can only activate on PC. Please go and bring your laptop”. Source.

“My people I don’t even know why we waste our time on this the Police is your friend mantra in Nigeria. Do you know that I always have to make sure the money in my pocket is enough before going to the Police station to report a genuine issue? It’s like those guys work on a pay as you go basis.”

If you can relate with all these read on, if not please quit reading.

Colleagues we’re in that shoe now with our present job, we can either prevent people from further experiencing and saying the same or we can tow the status quo. Let’s do away with the “everyone wants to fix humanity; no one wants to fix themselves syndrome. It begins with you, change begins with us.

Just like relationships crumble if one party doesn’t offer to say I’m sorry, or a traffic jam gridlock persist if one driver doesn’t say “I’ll be patient, you may go first”. Things can only be better off if we decide and start to make an effort.

Like the hotel bell boy let’s learn to work like our only form of remuneration was based on tips arising from the level of satisfaction our customers get from our service. Let’s learn to treat our customers like we would treat our mothers

Let the below thoughts and often made statements be things of the past

a) Nkemakonam Ezidinma Ifejika opined on Facebook that for Nigerians anywhere in the world, customer service is a gene extracted at birth. That is to say Nigerians are incapable of being consistently polite and helpful. They are the kings and queens of mood swings.

b) In Nigeria there’s no place for merit. We can’t queue or be patient. Everyone wants to cut corners and get served before others. It’s like a “my family comes first” credo. And that’s why poverty persists because those in top positions don’t allow for the wealth to flow down to the bottom, hence everyone wants to be at the top and so corruption is birthed. We were brought up this way and so bring up our kids in like fashion too. A vicious cycle.

c) There’s a deep rooted rat race or jungle mentality in Nigeria that impedes development and breeds nepotism and tribalism. Like Mark Shuttleworth said: “Tribalism is when one group of people start to think people from another group are “wrong by default”. It’s the great-granddaddy of racism and sexism.

d) Nigerians are only bothered about the self, there’s no sense of concern for maintenance of public/company property. That’s why the civil service is in shambles. That’s also why the white man is brought in to instil discipline; we then fight to go abroad to enjoy the perks of a disciplined society we have denied ourselves.

In line with the above and bringing the matter back home mycustomer advocates the following

1) And end to the “applications are not working please call back” sing along. Especially when we don’t even bother to get them working in the first place, have no idea of their workarounds or can’t even be bothered to remember our passwords. Food for thought: Do you know that telling a customer that the applications are not working please call back is akin to telling a pensioner who invested a lot of energy and money to go back home and come tomorrow because the bank for some flimsy reason or another cannot pay today.

2) It’s good to pick 200 calls a day but it’s even better to pick 150 and deal with them decisively. We’re lucky to have a strong brand and a consequent low elasticity of demand but we should bear in mind that ultimately customer service goes a long way in determining customer retention and business profitability.

3) Stop leaving your mails unread. You stand to keep yourself ignorant (no product knowledge) when you do so consequently manifesting in frequently putting your customers on hold and running around the call center asking questions. You also leave the knowledgeable customer shaking his head on the opposite side lamenting your cluelessness.

4) An end to the “I’ll end call on you”, “I’ll block your line” incidents. Let’s learn to manage our irritations and show compassion to the slow to comprehend and confused. You become a better person, the bigger man when you learn to tolerate customers venting their anger on you yet reply politely to empathise and educate. It shows there’s substance in your character; consequently you’ll see that people will want to look you up for a repeat dealing.

I now hope that upon everyone reading this, this other incidence that some of us regularly experience will decrease: “customers asking for a way to get back to us directly as they are afraid of speaking to others because they have no confidence their queries will be resolved on a random call back.

“Like the hotel bell boy let’s learn to work like our only form of remuneration was based on tips arising from the level of satisfaction our customers get from our service. Let’s learn to treat our customers like we would treat our mothers”

Effective information management is a bit like multi tasking and getting it right

Anyone that really knows me in person should be aware that I like to be on top of things information wise. Like the seeker I take great pride in getting relevant info and go to great lengths to organize that info for effective use (I think I got this quality from my dad). And feeling particularly generous or scholarly today I want to bless you with my “Seven habits of highly effective information managers”; hereby referred to as HEIMs. On a Zain level I’m in a frenzy like one of my previous bank big boss, who was twice flown in from Lagos to lecture us in training school, and on both occasions ended up basing his talk (both talks independent of the other) on Stephen R Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. So let’s get started on capacity building information management wise.

1) HEIMs abhor illiteracy in all its forms because to really appreciate the importance of information management one has to be technologically aware, pragmatic and open minded. HEIMs would probably work in intelligence if they were in the army. For the young ones in secondary school my advice would be not to limit oneself to only reading the Bible, religious books and self help books but to explore the world of contemporary Nigerian fiction. Personally my favourite reads are informative/write ups/novels which come with a heavy dose of humour.

2) We would all the more be HEIMs in Nigeria if we probably had a good database management system in place. All my analysis leads me to the conclusion that if we fixed that we would be on the road to resolving a lot of our national problems. From census and population planning, to voter registration, to crime detection/prevention, to fiscal control and bank loan supervision, to academic records availability and so on and so forth. That’s why it behooves on us to take the issue of record keeping and maintenance seriously in our daily dealings. There are little things in life as sweet as being updated about the past in a jiffy and thus being privileged to make inform choices in the present that will affect your future positively.

3) HEIMs excel in phone bookkeeping and are forever grateful for the miracle that is telecommunication. They understand the beauty of talking the talk and getting thoughts across at the touch of a button. So characteristically they are always reachable by phone, text and call generously as the need arises, excel at colleting contacts of useful people and those they just must deal with on the daily, have a good contact backup culture, have more than one line considering the peculiar unstableness of our telecoms networks, and understanding the importance of networking strive for phone number retention. Some extra tips: for ease of backups you might want to jot down your numbers daily as you collect them and exploit the PC suite and sync function of your phone. Also aim for hand sets with unlimited contact storage. To get ahead 200 SIM memory plus 200 phone memory handsets are not the way to go. Additionally learn to save names in full or with descriptive suffixes for ease of recall.

4) HEIMs understanding the reality that is information overload, trash programming and junk content are constantly trying to stay geeky/nerdy yet work and leisure balanced. By analyzing and sieving what is available before brain consumption they stay on the natural high. Personally I try not to over indulge myself and stay away from things that don’t add anything substantive to my IQ. This means I’m constantly battling procrastination in favour of studying and computer programming. And when it comes to news feed, favouring blogs with original content as against gossip blogs and news recyclers.

5) HEIMs being aware of the power of the world wide web/computers practice the complete use of it as a means to an end. Here’s what you’ll find them doing. They streamline their email addresses as much as possible and harness the powers of Gmail and email clients. You’d be hard press to find them on the loosing end of domain drops because of unread/unreceived renewal reminders. They are on top of password management (at my former job FinnOne, a banking suite software failed partly because of the issue of password forgetfulness). And they embrace the idea of website and company portals as information nests. A case in point: it’s dumb…almost criminal for INEC not to publish the list of qualified candidates/test invitees on its website during it recent recruitment exercise. Also as seen in many companies the issue of sending out important memos/policy updates only via email without repository on the company’s portal for easy long term reference is akin to dishing out instructions and the receivers inundating it from one ear and letting it slip out through the other.

6) HEIMs are by nature effective. In line with this they wholly embrace the use of a diary in their day to day planning. Not being cyborgs people grapple with the issue of forgetfulness but HEIMs keep on top of their schedule and plan accordingly with diary entries and reminders. Be them electronically on phone/computers or in hand in books. A follow up trait of effectiveness is getting things done without having to be prodded and doing so as if the direct gain was for oneself. In other words HEIMs treat with dispatch issues which require their attention. And in doing so they keep it scientific, scientific in the sense that their workings are carried out in a way that on analysis a third party can easily understand what has transpired thus and take relevant follow up action.

7) Lastly but also very importantly HEIMs don’t have an attitude problem. With globalization should come the common sense that nobody’s indispensable and that we all need each other sooner or later and as such we should treat each other with courtesy and respect. On a Majek Fashek-2face Idibia tip, little little patience and cordialness in our conduct now can have big positive implications later. Tolerance, politeness, a thank you here, excuse me or sorry there can in some way get you that information when the need arises that’ll help you break fronts.


The world Cup South Africa 2010 being now 40 days away, the true Super Eagles fan should have these three World cup songs on his/her playlist:

1) Power of Naija. Guinness commissioned World Cup song performed by Omawumi, 2face Idibia and Cobhams
2) Waving flag (Nigerian Version). Coca-Cola commissioned K'naan’s World Cup song performed by Banky W & M.I.
3) Goalaaaso (Inside The Net). Paj featuring Tolumide. From Paj of “Ghana go hear wien (2006)” and “skatta dem (Ghana go hear wien part II 2008)” fame.

What is peace of mind? Peace of mind is what you experience within in a system where there’s accountability. It’s a situation where the supplier strives to satisfy and the customer gets to clear his/her head of all worries in association with the particular service provider. It’s excellent customer service and to ensure it great quick feed back is key.

At my former job we once had a customer walk into the bank and try to create a scene in the banking hall. The issue: he was a debit card holder from another bank and while attempting to withdraw money on our branch’s ATM he was debited but cash was not dispensed. The Issue happened over a month ago and after repeated complaints at his bank in frustration he decided to come over here to see how he could get his money back. Ideally such issues are resolved thus:

-Customer complains at his bank giving ATM officer there all necessary details of the incident
-ATM officer of his bank logs complaint into Interswitch website.
-Interswitch forwards complaint to “erring bank”
-Head Office of other bank liaises with branch (branch ATM officer) responsible for particular ATM
-issue is investigated and if other bank’s claim legitimate entries are reversed and feedback given to Interswitch
-Interswitch in association with customer’s bank makes sure customer is credited (pay back) accordingly

After some questioning it appeared ATM officer of customer’s bank had yet to log in complaint or did so erroneously as though our ATM officer observed the error he hadn’t prior being petitioned about it. Customer in lamenting the situation brought the “do you know who I am” angle, and in response a good number of my colleagues went cold towards him and thought the man was making a mountain out of a mole house (paltry 15 thousand Naira), especially for someone of his calibre. This is where the peace of mind angle comes into play. My money is my money, be it six hundred naira or sixty thousand Naira and I have every right to be extremely cross by its perceived theft. The right way to handle the situation was to empathise with customer (no matter the extent of your own perceived personal problems), explain to him the process flow for resolution and to truly show you understood his plight and to prevent him from continually running from post to post offer to speak on phone to ATM officer of his bank explaining to him your findings.

More often than not we’ve complained about treatment meted out to us by perceived aloof bodies, but on occasions when the tables were flipped we did the same to others. The inspiration to write this arose out of the recent experiences I had with my website in regards to its Registrar and its hosting.

I’ll be forever grateful to Chippla Vandu for taking care of my site’s registrar bills for the first 5 years and Kayode Muyibi for doing same hosting wise. The favour was truly invaluable. But alas we at times sadly fumble in an otherwise smooth long run. To use some economics jargons (hopefully correctly) Kayode went beyond his elasticity and the economics of scale proved counter productive. This is where Nigerian entrepreneurs (a good number of Nigerian web businesses are solely run, or handled by 2-5 hands) must beware, try and expand within your capacity so that you don’t get overwhelmed in providing support to your clients. Else it would be a case of abandoning your solid bowl in place of a porously leaking bucket in your attempt to fill your water drum stationed in your kitchen. The issue of Oluniyi David Ajao (owner of web4africa.net) versus Naira.Kbps (first register of nairabytes.com) is another sore case. It’s truly shameful the way the issue deteriorated. Even if it was against Web4Africa’s policy to refund hosting payment the moral thing to do was to push the domain name ownership to Naira.Kbps, as against the case now where the site’s registration having expired has been acquired by a domain parking shark.

So in conclusion for your peace of mind I strongly recommend Netfirms and Hostgator to Nigerians resident at home when it comes to the business of Domain name registration and hosting respectively. Slightly expensive they might be for some people; the truly informed and knowledgeable know that no price is too expensive to pay for peace of mind. And that it’s better to be a king in the jungle (run your own shit, have full ownership/control) then to be a dog in the city. Props to Sound Sultan.

Domain name registration on Netfirms is presently one of the cheapest on ground. You can easily pay with your Nigerian bank issued VisaCard or MasterCard. But be sure to have a scanned copy of your ID and your card available for confirmation purposes. And you can easily search online for coupons to reduce you bills. Props to Sawyerr Ken for the plenty tips.

Hostgator is undoubtedly one of the most reliably Domain host in existence. Their customer service is second to none. Tickets are replied typically in less than an hour and you can even chat live with a support staff 24-7! Site content transfers can also be done free of charge for new customers, who also get the advantage of price coupon discounts on their first signup. Like on Netfirms payments can easily be made with your Nigerian bank issued VisaCard or MasterCard (this time preferable issued in your own name). And be also sure to have a scanned copy of your ID and your card available for confirmation purposes. In extreme cases and sadly due to the wide spread fame of our 19 boys Nigerian customers have been known to be asked to send in pictures of them holding their ID cards. Cost might be pricey but peace of mind is guaranteed! In this case props to Udegbunam Chukwudi Emmanuel for the plenty tips.

True peace of mind is people helping people

Two weeks in the villa "no be small thing oh!" I’m just glad that in the end I can say I was wiser for it; I paid my last respects and I gave my mum the befitting burial that she rightly deserved. Props to all who have had my back (via the internet, sms, calls, gifts, words, presence and deeds) over the past few weeks, I can't thank you enough, you made a brother feel loved.

And talking about love, it's now official! After years of languishing in singledom and waiting on love I’ve got me a girl. It feels good to finally find someone who I can afford (to keep). My new boo is a laptop, the Toshiba satellite A110-195! I’m still trying to get to know it better, do a little tweaking here and there and install one or two stuffs. I wish us many fruitful years together (I’m monogamist oriented, hope I don't have to get a second wife or upgrade too soon), and now just like Globacom I can truly rule my world! "No be small thing oh!"

My mum's passing away got me feeling all religious or more correctly coming into contact with a lot of religious...paraphernalia. In my usual religious musings way (don’t mistake my brief writing for simplistic analysis, I’m not one to expound too much in blog posts) I now strongly subscribe to the thought that atheist are getting it wrong big time by living in ignorance. I’m saying the Bible…Koran is too much of a highly structured literary work for one to still doubt that Jesus existed (or that there’s no God/Creator/Supreme Being) and still think that all that are in those books are mere fiction. I mean we’re talking about decades of logical history here, clearly the Bible is no super James Hadley Chase (bookworms fix your favourite author here) novel. Another point is the Mastermind argument (which I’ve always loved) which counters the Atheists’ claim that life just evolved on its own and as such there’s no Supreme Being. The argument goes thus: on sighting a television set common sense tells you that with all its complexity it must have been created by someone/something, it didn’t just evolve on its own. Thus common sense should also tell us that the world/life we live in was orchestrated by some Supreme Being. Yet another point is the barber story. An atheist who was a barber kept blabbing that with all the suffering in the world that surely there’s no God but someone shut him up by asking him with all the mad scruffy haired people on he streets will it be fair to say that there are no barbers? On the other hand…like some atheists I do have good reason to (partially) doubt the Bible and question God as to why he no longer reveals himself as explicitly as he did in the past; but with my Liberal Christian ideology I’m happy to say that I can sleep in peace at night. My brother/sister “no be small thing oh!”

P/S: No be small thing oh! (Nigerian Pidgin English) = It’s not a small matter. The phrase is increasingly popular these days due to 2face Innocent Idibia’s extensive use of it in his new album (titled Grass 2 Grace).

With all humility: The Toshiba satellite A110-195 “no be small thing oh!”

I confess that I had serious fears about teaching because save for minor tutoring of friends and relations on different occasions I’m seriously inexperienced in the field. But now I’m more confident, and sadly it’s partly due to the fact that the students I’ll be working with ain’t educationally sound (it won’t be an intellectually challenging job). The general standard of schools where I’m at is low. The students are so knowledge hungry yet so slow on the uptake. They were never given a solid educational foundation; the second-rate training repeats itself in the primary and secondary schools so they end up being merely “learned on paper”. I guess lack of finance is to blame and when one grows up in a community of non eggheads one can never reach his full intelligence potential.

Teaching as I see it is basically explaining what one knows to others. What you give your students they imbibe; you become the Alpha and Omega...students are so manipulatable! Anyways looking back at things now I feel that I could have done a much better job than some of the people who taught me when I was in school.

But talking about the present you should see the way I’m respected here. Good morning sir this, excuse me sir that. It’s all new to me and it’s a really pleasant surprise. Another pleasantry is going to be having a room to myself for the first time in my life! On the unpleasant side is the fact that there’s no strong FM radio or TV signal here! I never taught I’d find myself in such an information poor situation :(. Anyways thank God for compact discs. Hip hop album check: Modenine’s “Pentium ix”, check; Freestyle’s “free at last”, check; OD’s “don’t hate”, check and Pherowshuz’ “House of raps (rap-representaTIVs)”, check. I sure do hope to have a “SOUND” service year :). Nice play on words huh ;)?

And for the really unpleasant: we’re “loosing” a lot of quality bloggers in the Nigerian blogosphere; it pains me a lot. Back in the day it was Teju Cole, Obifromsouthlondon followed suit weeks back and now it’s Sir Aihammed Delot. Because of that let me put you up on some (if you're down with the blog thing). Your blog is meant to complement you and not to stress you. What I’m saying is blog easy and on your own terms. And please don’t put stuff that’s too personal online or stuff that you’ll regret later…especially when you’re not blogging anonymously. The internet has a very good memory you know...Ok class dismissed, i'm out.

To Sir with Love; great book, great film.

Where are the Northern Nigerian intellectuals? The question came to mind after reading two articles from The Nigerian Village Square; which by the way is an excellent site. Someone might argue that the south controls the press and so the North is suppressed but what about the internet? It’s supposed to be no mans land but surprisingly of the blogs, forums and Nigerian portals I read input from people of Northern extraction is often minimal. Even a look at the Nigerian diaspora in Europe and Northern America suggest that numbers from the north are but a handful. Or could it be that since the North is predominantly Muslim they prefer the Arab countries? Or maybe it’s the simple mathematics that since they’re less literate there are subsequently less intellectuals? I might be going up North in a few weeks’ times so maybe I’ll find out for myself.

In light of the fact that a number of the Nigerian bloggers I read recently spoke on religion I’m seizing the opportunity to say my own religious bit. If one was born a Christian he’d love Christianity and think it’s the one true religion. If born a Muslim he’d love Islam and think it’s only way to go. Likewise if born a pagan like in the days of our forefathers he’d love his gods and think that’s the shit. Crazy ain’t it? But bro the fact is that religion is like college fraternities. You join and subsequently follow the rules of whichever you choose. All have unity in mind, all worship the same God and all have their various highs and lows. In fact the biggest bad of religion is that all claim to be un-contradictory and perfect as a way of life when in fact none is perfect. Don’t get me started on the imperfections, Google is your friend. The funny thing is as much as they have contradictions we still need ‘em. So do your thing people; for me I’ll most likely be found in the Catholic Church.

When it comes to male-female stuff it’s often the guy that initiates the topic for discussion and then both get chatting (especially when they’re at the getting to know each other stage). But there’s room for exception, we love a girl who keeps us captivated, listening, laughing and going with her flow. In fact I really hate it when a girl calls me and has nothing to say; you know expecting me to dictate the flow. Bitch you called, speak to me, stop making me look like a jerk, I’m not Dave Chapelle you know, I don’t get paid to talk. Wallahi such stuff makes me want to decree that if you ain’t calling me about money (money coming to me, if you’re a guy) or sex (if you’re a girl) then don’t bother calling me.

Perfection can only be found in football, music, pictures…things of that sort ;)

When it comes to laying out thoughts, Ayo Akinfe of the cybereagles forum does it in style. He’s a ten-pointer specialist! You might want to call me a copycat because for the second time in a row I’m dropping three-pointers in a blog post. This time on what I’ve learnt from my months of blogging and surfing of Internet forums.

1) I’ve become an all round better writer and (a faster) reader. No be lie man. Being all words you can’t be heavily into this blogging and forum stuff and not have improved literarily. It makes me want to beat the shit out of the TRAE of 2003. God know say I don dey blow grammer/vocab small small. Words like hackneyed, pontificate, condescending etc have now become commonplace to me. Chei! Illiteracy na bad thing.

2) My conversation skills have been polished. If there's one thing I’ve learnt in my years of Internet chit-chat/dialogue it’s that violence begets violence. You can't correct a person by abusing him. Your advice might be right but not going about it nicely only creates room for more acrimony. You hit, he hits back, you strike, he strikes back; it all goes on in one childish vicious cycle. Thus the only means of better interpersonal relations is to be civil always.

3) I’ve learnt to respect women. It’s not that I was misogynistic before oh! It’s just that you can’t be reading all this female stuff and seeing life from their point of view and not feel a thing for them. You know sexual harassment stuff, domestic chores stuff, employment opportunities stuff, childbirth and parenting stuff etc. But I’ll be truthful; my newfound respect is partially because of the many “feminist” on prowl. Stick to the script most of the time and just fall out of line for a second and they’ll give your ass a mighty public whooping. At times they just love taking it to the extreme. Now who said force wasn’t a good way of instilling fear and respect into people. And so the females have made a perfect gentleman out of me…but I ain’t without flaws though.

Blogging and surfing of forums sure has schooled my ass…I’m like the happy schoolboy

I’m getting really addicted to reading blogs, especially those with a lot of personal stories to tell. It feels good seeing life through other people’s eyes and learning a new thing or two. But it’s a shame that I can’t be that personal on my own blog; I ain’t got it in boldness like some other bloggers. Worse still I’m not blogging anonymously so my ranting license is limited; how sad. I started blogging un-anonymously so I gots to keep to the status quo. It reminds me of the hint that one has to be careful about what you put online. Because after your stuff has been indexed a zillion times by Google and co; getting it erased off cyber space at a latter date is as hard as erasing the trauma of rape from an abused child’s mind.

That was some sad shit. But on the happy side I recently put face to another of my anonymous peoples’ name…Chxta. As is common in these cases what you conjure up in your mind is often not what you see. I thought he’ll be all big bros and shit and be a little too mature/serious minded for my liking but the Chxta I finally met was one chubby, cool and down to earth guy.

For those who don’t know, Big Brother Nigeria is finally on. I hardly ever follow reality shows or more correctly I hardly ever get the chance to follow reality shows. Things might change this time around though because I know two of the contestants (Maureen and Ebuka)! Maureen and I were mates at UNN. Matriculated the same year, were in the same faculty and even took a few courses together. But back then I was really on the low socially so up until the last time I saw her (late last year) it was basically all light chit chat. As for Ebuka he’s an old boy of CKC Gwagwalada, same as my bro and I. They still got a little under 90 days to keep doing their thing; I wonder how far they’ll both go. ***Shakes head, TRAE which day you join groupies them? ***.

Also we got “a first” coming up tomorrow. It’s the Hip Hop World Awards. It's the first ever awards dedicated solely to Nigerian Hip hop. Too bad that my ass won’t be in Lagos to witness the whole shit.

Maureen and Ebuka. My peoples: when I shine, you shine; when you shine, I shine. It’s all love.

About 12 months ago I did this: "Seven things I’m grateful for in 2004". This time around I’m doing "Outro 2005"; it’s my personal wrap up for the year. We still gots 11 days to go, but what the heck it's never too early to open up your Christmas presents. :D

For Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie it's a high to write about her beloved Nsukka. But for me, being in Nsukka for long periods throughout the year is 'cos a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Anyway I’ve been the better off for it personality wise cos a lot of sensibility has been pumped into my head along with a double dose of meekness. I guess I’m now good to go.

Like drug addicts and alcoholics, cyber space has been my own solution (this year) to getting away from life's boredom and troubles. Getting my own website: "traedays.com" has definitely been the high of it all. Nigeria being Nigeria getting online constantly hasn't been easy, but like Alamieyeseigha who said his escape from London to Bayelsa was a miracle and that he didn't know how it happened, I’m saying my coming online almost every other day has been a miracle. It just happens. :D

In the Time magazine edition of Dec 17th, 2001 Bono said:

"Rock music can change things. I know that it changes our lives" says Bono. "Rock is really about the transcendent feeling. There’s life in the form. I still think that rock music is the only music that can still get you to that eternal place where you want to start a revolution, call your mother, change your job or change your mind. I think that’s what rock music can do".

Well for me I’ve gotten to that eternal place many a time this year via Hip hop. And recording “from ABJ to UNN” in July was defiantly one of them times.

For the outro in this outro I say rest in peace to the souls we lost 10 days ago in the Sosoliso plane crash. There goes a bunch of promising Nigerians. It’s painful but as they say “Nigeria go survive”. Let’s pray we survive the preliminary round in next year’s African Cup of Nations. I can’t wait man!

It’s been a year of ups and down in the world. Here’s one of my favourite pictures for the year 2-double-O-5. Ha-ha, I love my black people!

Our father, give us this day our daily bread/
...give us these days and take our daily bread/
see I done did all this whole bullshit/
and to atone I throw a little something, something on the pulpit/
we took that shit, measured it and then cooked that shit/
and what we gave back was crack music/
and now we ooze it through they nooks and crannies/
so our mammas ain’t got to be they cooks and nannies/
and we gonna repo everything they ever took from granny/
now the former slaves trade hooks for Grammies/
this dark diction has become America's addiction, those who ain't even black use it/
we gon' keep bagging up this here crack music/

Kanye’s closing words (spoken poetry) on “crack music”.

See you in 2006, peace out!

Note: I've since been unbanned.

Yep, that’s right people. I was banned today from posting or participating in the activities of the nairaland.com forum. But I ain’t gonna start bitching or crying over spilt milk. Am a just be honest, objective and straight forward in spitting out my view on the whole issue.

Nairaland is a Forum for all-purpose talk on Nigerian issues by Nigerians. If you ask me I’ll tell you it’s the best Nigerian forum on the net activity wise. It’s owned by Seun Osewa (a.k.a. the site administrator). He also owns mobilenigeria.com, a Nigerian GSM discussion forum. Also one of the best Nigerian forums online. It’s dead now as it has been superseded by Nairaland. On Both sites I was one of the highest contributors post-wise, one of the peeps who made the forums thick.

I was banned by the admin cos of some criticism shit. Well I ain’t sorry anyway, because I believe I was constructive in my criticism. That fella: Seun has been in one too many face-offs with members of his forum. And they mainly stem from his editing or/and deleting of their posts wrongly. And at times (as in my case) this ends in their being banned from the forum. What a shame. If I was a forum administrator I certainly would have been fairer and done better.

Not being able to stand being criticized is the height of immaturity and not being a man. It’s like one is on some Mugabe, Castro, Abacha or Saddam dictatorial shit. They are Political leaders who are/were known to lock up their opposition indiscriminately. Criticism helps you. One loses nothing from being criticized, especially when you know you’re right. If at all you’re wrong you just learn a lesson which betters and perfects you.

Hey, I Hope I wasn’t sounding hyper sensitive? But you know I believe so much in free speech, allowing peeps to say what they want to say. I hate depriving others of their right to free speech (I don’t do it with my blog comments) and I hate it when mine is. I’ll miss the forum for sure and it hurts to know the forum can do without me (no one individual is that important as to stop the course of life). But in the same vein I can do without the forum. Before Mobilenigeria and Nairaland I was and so after it I still will be. Life goes on.

Well I guess forumites have clashes with admins the world…i mean “the net” over. And things will only get better when peeps learn to tolerate each other.

This post has sapped the energy outta me. Repping Naija (like QMHchick of africanhiphop.com) is what we should be doing and not getting into arguments with fellow Nigerians.