Chxta Profile picture
12 Apr, 11 tweets, 2 min read
I had a meeting this morning with a big boy to talk about a job.

During the meeting, an antique car passed by the bistro and we talked briefly about antique vehicles. He told me a rather interesting story...
He worked in Abuja for a decade, and when he moved back to Lagos at the end of 2019, he felt he needed a driver, so he hired one.

Now, Oga has an antique 1968 Mercedes Benz W115 convertible, Wilma, which he drives once in a while when the weather (and traffic) permit.
A few months ago, his new driver, let's call him Bob, took Wilma for a spin and bashed her.

Even worse, Bob didn't tell Oga the fate that had befallen his beloved Wilma.

He simply put her back under the tarpaulin and said nothing.
About a month later, on a Sunday morning after a night of rain, Oga decided to take Wilma out for a spin, and lo and behold, after removing the tarpaulin, there was Wilma, in a pool of her own engine oil, with a dent, a broken radiator, and a cracked oil sump.
Oga flew into a rage, but after Bob did the dobale, blamed poor Lucifer, and begged, Oga relented, and had Wilma towed to a specialised mechanic for repairs.

The bill came to just under ₦500k, and being that it was Wilma, Oga paid without demur.
Two months after, and Oga had still not seen Wilma, so he called Bob to ask how far. This was the week of Easter, so Oga had given Bob the week off.

Bob did not answer. Oga called again after a while, and Bob had switched his phone off.
This unacceptable situation continued for two more days, so Oga decided to call the mechanic, Ayo, directly.

Upon receiving the call, Ayo dropped a bombshell. Bob came last Friday, said that Oga had dashed him the car and that he wanted to sell it.
Bob even came with the buyers, he had taken money from them, and so they started to take Wilma away.
Ayo said nothing, but by Monday, Ayo's boss, Habeeb, looked at the situation and said, "Nobody who has a car like this will sell it to this kind of people. Don't let them take any more of Wilma away until the owner comes and confirms."
Yes, Bob had sold Wilma to metal workers, and they were in the process of butchering her.
Let's just say, it hasn't ended well for neither Bob nor the metalworkers.

What is the lesson here?

Some people don't understand value.

The only person I'm pissed at in this story is Ayo.

How can you fix a car for ₦500k then allow some idiot to sell it for ₦120k?

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More from @Chxta

5 Mar
"Moving on" is no longer an option in #Nigeria. Everything must be interrogated.

As an example, an excuse that was given by those who attempted to do a food blockade against their "fellow Nigerians" was because of the violence meted out against Northerners in Oyo.
To my mind, that excuse fails the smell test.

Food was also blocked from going to Ikpoba Hill in Benin, and Onitsha Main Market, two big markets from which distribution happens to other places in their respective regions.

Are Benin and Onitsha on the way to Oyo?
Why punish Benin and Onitsha for the sins of Oyo if this was not an attempt to show who had power, an attempt that failed miserably.

The truth is that the economics of the attempted blockade simply did not add up, and this should be a lesson for all involved.
Read 20 tweets
4 Mar
Today's lesson is about @GazetteNGR and the attacks that happened on their website a few weeks ago, and yesterday.

Both attacks were the classic denial of service attacks aimed at getting the site offline.
A distributed denial of service (DDOS) is an attack done by multiple computers flooding the server that the attacker wants to get offline with false traffic requests, thus overwhelming it and putting it offline.

Anyone can fall victim to DDOS.
Now here is the thing: a DDOS can be bought.

Most of the people who sell DDOS attacks as a service are based in #Russia or #Ukraine.
Read 7 tweets
22 Feb
The lead story in today's @BusinessDayNg is an absolute must-read for everyone who may be interested in #Nigeria bit.ly/3kaRAEy

We're six years into the Buhari second-coming, and the results are in. Buhari is the worst thing to have happened to this country.
Why is he the worst thing?

It is very simple. Under his watch, our economy has developed a chronic case of stunted growth. And @BusinessDayNg has all the meat. Let me quote a few excerpts from the article...
"With data from @nigerianstat showing a 1.9% contraction
in 2020, it means #Africa’s largest economy has now failed to match its average population growth rate of 2.6% for 6
years."

This means that we've effectively been decelerating for the last six years.

There's more...
Read 8 tweets
19 Feb
Let me build upon this in the light of the murder of six Fulani kids in Oba: bit.ly/3bjFxkp

Each time a new militia comes up, people tend to support them because they think that what the militia are doing aligns with what they agree with.
A very recent example is when #BokoHaram started. A lot of Northerners tacitly supported them because the group's teachings aligned with the Wahhabi Islam that is prevalent in Northern #Nigeria, and so they felt that Boko Haram was something for them.
Of course, #BokoHaram didn't start by killing Muslims, and many Northerners saw the initial victims as "the enemy".

When "the enemy" is being killed by the militia that is "on your side", you either give overt support, or you become complicit by not saying anything.
Read 11 tweets
19 Feb
In the past few weeks, I've been on a nationwide tour. A lot of it by road. I have spoken with people in all of #Nigeria's geopolitical zones. Lots of people.

Let's just say that attitudes have hardened. Nigeria is in for a really rough ride in the coming months and years.
There will be not much added to the conversation if I talk about @MBuhari's absolute failure to manage #Nigeria's diversity.

It goes without saying that Buhari's blatant nepotism and disregard for the rule of law has created precedents that will come to bite us.
Buhari's successor is likely to do the same in terms of narrow appointments to the spoils of office, and in a country as unproductive as ours, the danger is at some point, someone will simply opt to remain in power, with the support of his "countrymen" to "avoid marginalisation".
Read 23 tweets
15 Jan
#Nigeria tells us that today is #ArmedForcesRemembrance Day, a day set aside for our “heroes” in uniform.

We'll do well to remember the lives that have been lost to various atrocities in this blood-stained country of ours... bit.ly/2N8cTdG
While there is no doubt to my mind that many officers in @HqNigerianArmy are heroes, think Sani Bello who saved the life of Gen. Ironsi’s ADC, Andrew Nwankwo, or Usman Jibrin, who flew many Igbo officers to safety during the pogroms of 1966...
or even Mohammed Shuwa, who ensured that Igbos were protected in the area under his command, the fact is that on the balance, @HqNigerianArmy has a murderous reputation, and as I once referred to them, are an equal opportunities brutaliser.
Read 23 tweets

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