NIGERIA AND OUR PRESENT STATE: WHAT DO YOU PRAY FOR?

Times without number, a lot of people have embarked on turning great business ideas into reality with a mindset of succeeding at all costs, believing that with a  large circle of friends and family members, the business will definitely succeed.

Alas they are disappointed 70% of the time because the same circle of family and friends would rarely patronize them and even when some of them do at all, a large number of that group will either want it for free or for a token and also  many a times give the attitude that they are just doing you a big favour for even attempting to buy into your idea.

Alright, let’s assume the business eventually sees the light of day, you would be shocked to realize in the long run that your loyal customers are people you never knew or thought would even give your business a thought or two at the time you conceived the idea.

Apart from the human factor, the many other necessities such as unavailability of constant electricity  supply, lack of good road, insecurity and most importantly the many stringent and unfriendly business Government policies on the other all add up to frustrate businesses in this county.

What is responsible for the above scenario?

 Life is complicated! Really complicated therefore, it is impossible to get all the answers to the countless “whats, hows and whys”.

Sadly, it is the same “we” who make the life as complicated as it is. We need no ‘rocket science’ to hit that hard-truth nail in.

Just yesterday, I watched on one of the local stations as a 37 year old man from the eastern part of Nigeria who now lives in Doha was being interviewed about his life in Doha and why he left Nigeria in the first place. I was totally disappointed and deeply hurt to hear the first statement from him was “Nigeria is a killer of destiny”. Those words cut really deep.

I wasn’t disappointed at the man who is now doing so well in Doha that he said those words without any apologies, I was disappointed because our government pushed the young man, a Nigerian University Engineering graduate to that point and I was hurt because the man reminds me of the reality once again that I’m also a Nigerian thus makes me scared that I may one day, if care is not taken, be pushed to that same level of saying “Nigeria is a killer of destiny”. Gosh! May God not let it get to that level for the rest of us even as we pray for a better Nigeria.

We pray for a better Nigeria where the gap between the rich and the poor will get so short by just an arm’s length.

We pray for a better Nigeria where our leaders will think about led positively before policies are made and actualized.

We pray for a better Nigeria where entrepreneurs will be encouraged and not be frustrated out of the country  seeking  greener pastures only to die in the desert, at sea, sold as slaves or killed in places such as Libya amongst others.

We pray for a better Nigeria where every family would not need to toil so hard to put food on their tables, clothes on their backs or shelter over their heads.

We pray for a better Nigeria where the era of “brain drain” will be over thus our great and excellent professional doctors, teachers, scientists, lawyers, sportsmen/women, engineers and more will be well taken care of so that they would not need to leave home to go work in other countries thus leaving Nigeria as wrecked as it is right now.

We pray for a better Nigeria where immorality will gradually become unfashionable, eventually fading out completely as every Nigerian becomes comfortable hence they would be no need for so much atrocities.

I could go on and on as the list is endless!

What do you pray for? Yes, I mean you, dear reader!

STELLA ENE-INYANG

Pray! Pray!! Pray!!!

Nigeria must get better!

MARK ZUCKERBERG: "DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED, BUT WE REMAIN COMMITTED TO OUR MISSION OF CONNECTING EVERYONE"

Just when we were gearing up to eventually shout “hurray” when millions of Nigerians and other Africans would have access to free internet courtesy of the very humble and young 6^th world’s billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg some ’Space X’s’ launch failure” is reported to have destroyed the satellite that would have brought this much anticipated ‘hurray’ sooner to our lips.

Trust a real ‘big boy’ Mark as all that was reported about his reaction according to sciencealert, was that he was  "deeply disappointed" by  the SpaceX prelaunch test explosion that destroyed his  first satellite for Facebook.

Wow! *My eyes rolling*. A project worth as much as $195 million, convert that to naira and tell me if you don’t get a headache, especially at this era of how much to a dollar. Even some calculators would go “out of rage” given that amount. All that money, just gone down the drain. Just like that! Was this some form of sabotage or what? Imagine the number of communities that amount would feed for the next couple of years.

Nevertheless, we are consoled in the fact that our “hurray” may still be heard as Zuckerberg has assured us that they would still remain committed to their mission of connecting everyone and would keep working until everyone has the opportunities the destroyed satellite would have provided and this according to him will be made possible by other technologies which they have developed such as Aquila, the company’s drone project that will still connect people as well, having been designed to provide high speed internet.

Hmmm! Talking about always having a ‘Plan B’ in all projects we embark upon. Thank you Mark!

And so while we wait, let us keep managing our data, pending when this ‘miracle’ from Zuckerberg manifests or materialises.

ENDURE CHICKEN 'SMELL' WHILE YOU SLEEP AND BE HAPPY BY MORNING - SCIENTISTS

Do you have a poultry in your house or do you have access to a poultry? Anyhow it turns, whether you have or have access to poultry, this could mean good news for many of you in any of the categories, depends on how you receive the news though. *winks*

Recently, a group of Ethiopian scientists reported that they have discovered from their research that ‘chicken smell’ can repel mosquitos as the smell seemed repulsive to the insects thereby giving way for new way of preventing malaria which is still killing thousands of people every year especially in Africa.

According to Professor Habte Tekie who led the team of insect experts who went into proper investigation after they noticed that mosquitos stayed away from chickens but would rather bite human and other animals, told AFP that “We went into the chemical basis involved in repelling malaria mosquitoes by odours emanating from the chickens… The results show that compounds from chicken have very good potential as repellent. One theory for their behaviour is that mosquitoes see chickens as a predator, so seek to avoid them.

  

The group of scientists were said to have used three villages in western Ethiopia as their population sample by carrying out tests which revealed that the group of families that slept overnight underneath a chicken in a cage were not bitten by mosquitos all night while those whose homes were without indoor poultry were not  spared by the mosquitos.

Now many people will say that looks and sounds weird especially when you have to imagine a chicken cage over your head while you sleep at night. Laughs.

You are not alone because I and many others who have also discussed it also think it is not only weird but gross.  Someone actually said sounds not only weird but would term it a sort of ‘ritual’ on seeing it if he walked into one of those homes sampled in Ethiopia.

Understandably, the scientist s are not ignorant to peoples’ concerns that it would be a ‘long walk in the park’ for many to sleep underneath chicken cages tried another method which as a follow-up experiment by supplying the same sampled villages with vials of chicken extract which revealed similar results thereby proving another step further that mosquitos really get repulsed by the mere smell of chicken.  

So, is this good news or not?

For me, I think if properly refined and looked into given the proposed collaboration as  published in the medical publication Malaria Journal that the findings will be used in a new collaboration with Swedish scientists to develop an odourless repellent, then it should be received as ‘good news’ even as Professor Tekie has affirmed that  “This repellent will be safe for human use, (with) no residues contaminating soil or water or poisoning people and it can easily be integrated into malaria control operations,”.

We truly hope this turns out right as Malaria which according to the World Health Organization  killed about 438,000 people in 2015,  is still ravaging and threatening thousands not only in Ethiopia but also other African nations and sadly, scientists are yet to come up with an accepted vaccine as research is still ongoing hence we have to keep our hopes alive that the ‘chicken stock’ alternative may very well turn out the ‘way out’ of the fight against malaria even as the scientists have acknowledged that  it will be  “entirely natural,” and the chance of mosquitoes developing resistance “minimal”.

So let’s keep our fingers crossed and our hearts at rest since we are now assured that we wouldn’t have to sleep with chicken cages over our beds.