“If we get into a controversy we shall light a fire, which no one can foretell how it will become extinguished
I would advise therefore that no notice be taken of these articles and the attack will soon be forgotten”
-Banker Jacob Schiff to a group of Jewish leaders, June 1920
1) (in response to a wave of anti-Semitism promoted by Henry Ford).

Schiff was wrong. Hitler happened. 6m Jews died.
—
NdiIgbo,
We must take swift action to stem Nigeria’s rising Igbophobia and protect ourselves

WARNING: Igbophobia is bound to rise as economic conditions worsen
2)

Success and Privilege: A Gentleman’s Guide
(From mortgage payers to haute bourgeois owners of the means of production)

1/ Live.
Life is too short

Take care of your business
a) Pay all bills promptly
b) Fair wages for workers
c) Best schools for the kids
d) Plenty of ice for her 2/ First Rule: Clean
Keep it scrubbed and clean.
This is speaking of personal hygiene- hair must be trimmed neatly at all times- even those in the nether region.
Bidet.
Regular mani/Pedi.
If the face hair gets too gray, color it, if you chose to do so. No shame in that game.

The business model:
“Government as a giant breast”

Sit in government your whole life and steal money. Fund a lavish lifestyle.

Spare us the highfalutin claptrap about making a difference. You’re lazy, and not terribly competent or hardworking else you’d not be there. Hush!
1) You’re in govt because it’s a good gig and it’s easy. We all know you’re not the sharpest pencil in the pack and can’t cut it elsewhere and Nigeria’s ‘anyhowness’ culture and politics seems a perfect place to pitch your tent and have someone else pick up your expense tab.
2)

African leaders talked a good game in Paris last week.

At home they run systems rife with corruption and economies that abound with structural rigidities.

To create prosperity and improve lives we must earn our way in the world - increased productivity, trade and investment
1) If truth be told, Africa is not open for business.

On the whole, doing business here is still a very frustrating experience.
A hostile tax environment, kiss-the-ring regulatory agencies, poor public infrastructure, etc all make the conduct of business a nightmare.
2)

“Nigeria doesn’t like my kind.”
(And I’m ok with that).

Two weeks ago I spoke to one of Nigeria’s most formidable intellectuals and foremost activists. As they beheld it, having attained a certain age, they’ll now like to retire and live out the rest of their lives in peace
1/ We’re constantly abused here for our contrarian albeit reasoned disposition regarding the misgovernance of Nigeria.
And yet for me and “my kind”, Nigeria offers NOTHING but a drain on our resources and intellect.
2/

A Call to NdiIgbo.

“All peoples, Jews or Gentiles, who dare not defend themselves when they’re right, who submit to punishment not because they’re wrong but because of who they are, are already dead by their own decision”
-Bruno Bettelheim
(Nazi concentration camp survivor)
1) You must learn to defend yourselves.

An election cycle has passed and we have witnessed yet another round of Igbo “slurring” and open violence, intimidation, murder and various forms of punishment for daring to exercise our constitutional voting rights in Lagos, Nigeria.
2)

“Every…revolution passes through a lunatic phase before a higher, happier point of social equilibrium is reached”
-Norman Finkelstein.

The so called “unruly behavior” of the Obidients capture perfectly the plaintive devastation of hope.

Pain and suffering externalized.
1/ History is indeed a process of dialectical change (the Dialectical movement of history per Marx’s theory of social change)

To wit, “history conforms to a “dialectical” pattern, according to which contradictions generated at one level are overcome or transcended at the next..”
2/

“Ministry of Abandoned Projects”
Day 1.
Immediate remedy for unemployment and infrastructure dev.

Direct labor. Est employment: 500m +.
Rehabilitate. Use for original purpose/Repurpose/Or public sale.

Lather, rinse and repeat for road construction, others
(Ref: FDR’s WPA)
1/

https://twitter.com/utomipat/status/1622658745456111618

Abolish the LAND USE ACT.
Will enable asset securitization. Allows every piece of land to have a book value and be mortgageable.
Releases the tremendous wealth tied up in land and capital for investment

PWC est “$900bn of “dead capital” trapped in real estate due to law”
2/

“We can always resort to spare parts and hugging containers.”

(Well, we can’t all resort to politics and the purloining of public resources).

The way you bear down on NdiIgbo one imagines an avatar of Puritanism and virtue and not a key player in the Igbo leadership crisis
1/

https://twitter.com/chimarokenamani/status/1587017797858742272

Notwithstanding your jeremiads, cartoonish portrayals and repetitively caustic, ornery and contentious remarks regarding the Igbo (which mirrors the prevailing anti-Igbo tropes elsewhere so startlingly well) Ndigbo have acquitted themselves rather well - in every sphere
2/

My sister, Uju.

Uju nwanne m, is so brilliant and passionate about her causes that sometimes her passions drive her.

This indulgence provokes a curmudgeon-like persona imbuing her poignant messages with a deleterious taint and a tendency to get lost in their acerbic carriage
1/ Her passions are so strong and relentless and her beliefs so deeply held that they leave her with a perpetual snarl of rage. She fulminates, harangues or simply pontificates.

Suffice it to say, these methods of conveyance are essential to the propagation of her activism.
2/

SELLING NIGERIANS SHORT
Apparently there’s an alleged UAE ban on travel by Nigerians under 40 and those always eager to justify their indolence or limit the capacity of young Nigerians to thrive are selling the narrative that the ban is justified because some commit crimes.
1/ It bears stating that when the difference between effect size and p-values is considered, it can be shown readily that a statistically insignificant number of Nigerians abroad commit crimes
2/

Colonoscopy!
Visited the doctor with wife @gechife for a routine check up and she volunteered that I have a dodgy stomach. Next thing you know he ordered a Colonoscopy.
I protested but she insisted saying “at your age” yadi yadi yada.
And that’s how I went to hell and back
1/ First they give you two small “The Matrix” -like Red pills after your last meal at 3pm. Then two large bottles with 25% liquid you fill up with water. Take one at 8pm and the other at 4am. Orange flavor. Tastes nice.

And then the ordeal.
2/

The Coming Recession

High inflation, Fx scarcity, high food/ energy prices, etc - all the signs are already there. And these events will have a wider cascade effect - low productivity output, debt defaults, social dislocations, etc

Sri Lanka is the canary in a coal mine.
🧵
1/ Oh yes! It’s coming!

How should African governments react?
2/

THE CHRIST METAPHYSIC

Christ, the son of God?
The Divinity of Christ has long posed a thorny question; a contentious subject even amongst Christians (the source of great controversy and schism since 1018.
See: “Filoque” and “Trinity”; Eastern vs Western Church).
1/ “Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem”
...qui ex Patre Filioque procedit.”

This is the Filoque.

2/

THE POLITICS OF CHILDREN
(for Dads only).

Family support. School fees.
That’s just 50% of the game. The other half is winning their love and attention (money alone doesn’t get you there).
Your seemingly innocent wife is a consummate player of domestic politics.
Pay attention.
1/ My 10-year old tells me that he prefers his school runs with mom and mom’s car (mine’s super luxury, but the pesky little Sputnik doesn’t care).
I take Ls like this everyday but it’s a long game.
The decks are stacked against you but you must persevere and play the game.
2/

Are our kids smarter than us?
Some time ago here, @andyRoidO reported that the heir had beaten him at chess and thrash talked him.
We’ve all had this experience that comes with a sudden realization.
Here’s my own encounter.
1/ I had picked her up from school on the last day of her A levels and during the 2-hour journey to Oxford we discussed “Woke” and Feminism. I highlighted the intellectual poverty of Woke bifurcating it from Feminism even as I conceded that it was a dialectical movement.
2/

The Real Story:
In 2002 I returned from Silicon Valley as an Apple exec and worked with President Obasanjo to build technology infrastructure for the country -
E-Immigration, DL, Higher Ed, etc.
The Economic Team led by Prof Ode Ojowu and the young progressive ministers -
1/ El Rufai, Oby, Frank, etc - championed the digital transformation initiatives (Credit to OBJ’s trusted “Prime Minister” El Rufai as a leading champion).

Nigeria was different then. OBJ sought out talent and didn’t care where you came from.
2/

Food inflation is the greatest threat to national security. Millions of Nigerians are presently tethering at the edge of precarity and vagrancy.
And the government’s response?
Propagandize the canard that millions have been lifted out of poverty etc.
1/

https://twitter.com/edoyakulo/status/1407102588517036033?s=21

It has also invested a great deal of energy in making the immoderate claim that government (which apparently owns a secret Möbius strip of job manufacture) will create 10 million jobs.
2/

https://twitter.com/gazettengr/status/1419903294504423428?s=21

Dear ACF, NCF, NE @baba_hakeem,
I do not presume any authority or judgement but blaming Ndigbo for Biafra and violence in the SE is an overreach by a fair margin. And I dare say an object lesson in moral cowardice.

The SE was peaceful until PMB visited his medieval barbarity
1/

https://twitter.com/thecableng/status/1402150139792433155

NK/IPOB was a fringe group in the SE until PMB came to power determined to exclude Ndigbo from Nigeria.
Remember his 97:5% and recently “Biafra boys” and “Spare parts?”
A few days ago he threatened the Igbo with a genocidal tweet (I’m a child survivor of the civil war)
2/

YOUR BANK A.K.A TECH COMPANY

. @asemota shared the GT Bank announcement below earlier this morning and my first response was that it might well indicate a new thinking.
A successor to GT Bank as we know it - a sort of new Phoenix rising from the ashes of its dead predecessor.
1/

https://twitter.com/frankeleanya/status/1369645078034186243

Whatever the case may be, Nigerian banks need to be retooled and reinvented. And fast. The era of monopoly trusts mollycoddled by the regulator may be fast approaching its expiration date (Nigeria is broke and there’s only so much paper the regulator can print after all).
2/

A THREAD ABOUT IDENTITY FOR THE NON-IGBO IGBOS.

I’m from Anam. Our ancestors are Igala and we’re located as far away from Igboland as you can imagine. So far removed we’re not even physically connected (the present bridge over the Anambra River was only built in the 80s). 1/

https://twitter.com/chifedr/status/1364151317191516163

Take a look at the map below. We’re not in physically in Anambra. We’re physically in Kogi. A mighty River separates us. Do you see the mighty River Niger and Ilushi in Edo State at the other bank? They’re our blood brothers. Nzam too. (And Okpanam on the other bank in Delta) 2/