#WCW - Venus Williams: Triumph in Adversity

Hi there,


Trust you're doing great. Today, I'm blogging about my woman crush this Wednesday- Venus Williams. The 36 year old veteran tennis player qualified yesterday for the 2016 Wimbledon Ladies Singles semifinal, and that single piece of good news made my day yesterday and kept me going today. Why, right? I'd let you know:

WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT: TALENT OR HARD WORK?

Many factors contribute to success in a thing. Talent, the natural ability to carry out a particular task, is a necessary factor to accomplish success. Hard work, the act of putting in considerable effort to getting a task done is also very important in achieving success at a thing. Of these two factors, I favour hard work over talent as a more important factor in achieving success. The reasons for my position are enunciated below:

BUSY BEE...

Ada was brooding again as she started out on her way home. After dashing out of the house early to get to the centre in order to complete some deadline tasks, after the early morning drizzle falling on her new hair do, after having to trek for about 20 minutes in order to save some transport cash, she couldn't achieve what she had come to do. "The firewall wouldn't allow you to log in from our network" was the message she got. To start her week on this very disappointing note wasn't what she had anticipated. She felt unhappy and frustrated. "ICT can be such a bitch sometimes," she groaned.

She was still pondering her ill luck today when, out of the corner of her eyes, she saw someone stretch out a fast-food pack to a homeless lady sitting on the steps of the Pentecostal church near the centre. The homeless lady smiled a thank you to her helper and her helper nodded and continued on her way.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?????

I have seen a lot of ladies of (or sometimes past) ‘marriageable’ age still very single. Often times these ladies are the good ones, the ones we all expect to settle down long before the bad gals begin to join the fray. But unfortunately- or fortunately- they are still unmarried while their mates keep sending down the IVs for their weddings every other Saturday. These seemingly not-very-fortunate ladies are pretty, well behaved, domesticated and even have respectable jobs. They are the ever smiling and kind tailors, hairdressers, doctors, secretaries, nurses, tellers, lab scientists and front desk ladies we meet every day who willingly and efficiently help us fix one issue or the other.  And then I wonder: why are these ladies not yet married?

RANDOM MUSINGS: ICT ADOPTION IN NIGERIA AND TREATMENT (OR NOT) OF GUNSHOT VICTIMS

I sit at my reading table and instead of working on the report I sat down to do, I am reminiscing about very varied things that are wrong in my country- the fuel scarcity going on at the moment; the benefits ICT will bring various sectors in other parts of Nigeria, apart from Lagos and Abuja; the electricity problem that has stagnated the growth of entrepreneurship in Nigeria, amongst other things. In the midst of my reminiscing, I suddenly remember stories from my mum about how patients with gunshot wounds are not allowed treatment in the hospital where she works until they provide a police report authorising treatment to be carried out on the patient.

I wonder why I had never thought about this before. But why in heaven's name is there a law like this? And what exactly does the law state? I quickly google the said law and I come up with the following from here about the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provision) Act, Cap 398, 1984, which states thus:

THAT SOLUDO'S RESPONSE...

Professor Soludo
Photo Credit- Bella Naija

I’m not a fan of lengthy articles. Especially ones with big grammar, or on areas I find very boring- like economics. But Professor Charles Soludo’s response to Madam Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s rebuttal was just a pleasure to read and was more than worth the time spent digesting it. Firstly, it didn’t have all the economic mumbo jumbo I would have expected from a Professor of Economics. It was written very explanatorily, such that lay people like me can understand the piece and appreciate the message therein. It was also quite the eye opener. And for the first time in a very long while, I am excited enough to write a piece relating to politics in Nigeria.

THREE THINGS I WANT FROM MY PRESIDENT BETWEEN MAY 2015 AND MAY 2019

The election season is here again...but wait, we’ve been having elections off and on in various states ever since Maurice Iwu’s 2007 widely disputed  Iwuruwuru (s)elections and the subsequent tribunal judgements that trailed almost every state election, led to deviations from the regular standard gubernatorial elections calendar. But this time around, in addition to the remaining states’ governorship elections, we have the big one- the presidential elections coming up in February next year. The drama and excitement are steadily building up. Are you excited yet?

Quite interestingly, noise about the elections had been very few and far between, mainly because our incumbent, Oga Jona, wasn’t very keen on declaring his interest early on (or maybe, he just pretended he wasn’t very interested in occupying Aso rock a second time and therefore, will need to consult or be persuaded before taking up the thankless but highly enriching task of leading Nigeria again); and also because the APC guys were still shuffling their feet, trying not to step on each other’s toes, in this very important event that will be make-or-break for the party (I mean, let’s be frank, the main purpose of the formation of APC by the PDP castaways was to grab Nigeria’s central seat of power from their former party).

But in the past one month, Buhari’s announcement of his intention to be president, which seemed to suddenly wake GEJ (and PDP) from slumber and enable him to conclude consultations and finally get “convinced” to contest the coming elections, has led to plenty of the much-anticipated noise and debate about the February presidential elections. Suddenly, news and social media are discussing the elections with more gusto. Suddenly, the coming elections has become the major topic of discussion during lunch break at workplaces, among okada riders at their stands, and among bus commuters sweating in Lagos traffic. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like GEJ will have a smooth-sailing ride to victory in the elections. Suddenly, APC does look like it will put up a fight in the coming elections. Suddenly Buhari looks like the man to beat- or be beaten again.