$20 billion naira made to disappear.
Immigration test disaster: Government, after milking about N1,000,000,000 from the unemployed, still couldn't properly conduct an interview test.
Then there's the unending random killing up north.

And for once I can confidently say, the incompetence of our government officials is impossible to exaggerate.

Unfortunately, we are all like that. 
Every country gets the leaders it makes. We are the ones in the government parastatals. We are the ones forcing unemployed Nigerians to pay N1,000 for a job that has been filled. And we are the ones killing ourselves.

And now the thoughtful ones among us are scared of what kind of future awaits their children in Nigeria. And those who can afford it, are already moving out of the country. To somewhere their children will enjoy a better education, a better living condition and an edge over other Nigerians back home. And for people like these, I have nothing to say. Every child deserves more than what Nigeria offers. 

But to youths like me, I have a lot to say on why you shouldn't pack and move to another country.

image: canoramews.com 

1. Be a hero
Heroes are made at times like this, not when everything is well and there are no DIDs. All the guys we quote and refer to as the most influential people in world history were products of tough times: Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Napoleon Bonaparte, Benjamin Franklin, Dante, Voltaire, Joan of Arc, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti...

A real man stands up to the challenge. He starts by being the change he wants to see. Then he doesn't stand by watching, he makes real effort to uproot the evil he's able to.

Finally, you can't be a true hero from abroad.

2. It's easier here
And that's the truth. 

You have little competition here. All your advantages are here: local knowledge, network and constitutional advantage. If you can make the initial leap of breaking from the herd mentality, not competing with millions for the same thing but switch on your creativity and flame on, you'll have an easy ride. And that's why I'm resigning my job. Of all the people I have done Excel work for, none has ever told me he has an alternative in Nigeria. I'm (almost) the only one. Easy ride. Little money, though. But easy ride still. And I'm too active to not figure out how to bill higher someday.

3. Patriotism
No country will ever celebrate its citizen that died fighting for another country. No matter how high you rise in a UK, US or French army, we will never consider you patriotic. And that's what it's like when you leave your country to go build another country's economy. 

Though there's a new way people fix this nowadays. They come here thrice a year to give motivational talks or as a resource person for seminars. It's good.

I prefer the old-school patriotism. The one I read about in books. The one that involves getting in the dirt with others and pushing the country forward.

4. For your Children
My maternal grandpa is the first local government chairman of my home town. My father's family tree has got some warriors in it, even our "Oriki" is built around the Dahomey war. And those are the only things I like about my ancestry.

Stay here to give your children something to be proud of. A family legend.

5. You will always want to come back.
Especially when you're old. So I would rather stay all my life here. The greatest in my list of the world's greatest all lived and died in their home countries. 

The home advantage doesn't apply to football alone.It applies to life itself.



As for me, all my dreams are tied to Nigeria. I can't leave.

Emotions are simply what make us humans and alive.

Though it sounds too generic, it's the only proper and straightforward definition I could find. Think about it, the only reason there are this many people on earth is because of the emotion that ensures reproduction. 

We feel hungry. We feel thirsty. We feel happy. We feel sad. We feel tired. We feel annoyed. Besides death, every part of MR NIGER D can be linked to an emotion. If not for the feeling of hunger some of us will miss out of the nutrition part. I only eat when I'm hungry. If something were to go wrong with my hunger emotion, I'm as good as dead. Even the least obviously connected one, Movement, is aided by emotions. If not for the feeling of boredom, some people will hardly move.

So how do you manage your emotions?

Here are the three steps to managing your emotions:

1. Embrace it. 
The second largest cause of malnutrition is people not embracing their hunger emotion. They simply try to get rid of it by eating easy to get snacks. Then they end up being too fat or too thin. And it's like that for every other emotion. An emotion is a pointer to something bigger than itself. Like hunger is to proper nutrition. 

You don't need a documentary to convince you that some Reverend Fathers have an extremely difficult life. And that's why Paul says you need the gift first. And that's why most people marry in their 20s. 

So next time you're feeling depressed, see it as a pointer to something bigger than just having a bad mood. Embrace it. Find the bigger stuff it's pointing to. Maybe it's telling you something is not going right in your life and needs immediate attention. But if you try to only get rid of the feeling, by going to the movies or hanging out with your friends, you are only doing yourself harm. 

So embrace the emotion and find out the bigger stuff it's pointing to.

2. Restrict your response.
I restrict my response to hunger to eating only proper meals. If I'm hungry and I can't get a proper meal around, I delay satisfying the hunger till I get a proper meal.

Not following this rule is the one of the few causes of rape. And all the evils anger has led to.

3. Avoid extremes.
I know people who are always complaining that they couldn't eat throughout the day at work. Because of work. They are always experiencing extreme hunger every work day. And it makes no sense to me. I have worked in same company as a couple of them, and I know that there was no rule against going for lunch. I still don't know how they manage to not eat till work close. Even the extremely busy bosses go for lunch.

And there are those who seem to have an anger gene. They always get into situations that trigger their anger emotion. It's always from one extreme anger to another.

The only extreme I think is good is the one attached to happy emotion. Always be happy. 

And those are my tips on managing your emotions.

Once people start discussing luck, I shut up and leave.

image: cashartblog.com

Not that I don't believe in luck. Not that I don't sometimes wish that I get lucky. The truth is: every time I check my blog subscribers count, I'm always hoping some luck will hit my blog and my subscribers count will double overnight. 

This past 8 months, traffic to my blog has been more than 3 times what I had for the entire first 4 years of the blog. And after thinking hard about it, I could only attribute it to luck. And the sometimes amazing posts I now write, I also attribute to luck (I remember calling it the luck within).

To me, luck is some external factor you can't control. No amount of thinking about it or analyzing it can make you get more than someone else who's actively living his life, trying this and that.

I have this wonderful list of all the cool ideas that cross my mind. But luck is not there. I plan my life like luck doesn't exist. If I'm doing times 4 of what other people are doing and I'm seeing much less result, I don't feel luck has been unfair to me or think others are just lucky. I even don't feel sad about it, I just keep following my plan and making fact-based changes to the plan.

I leave luck out. 

You will never find me call into a quiz show saying, "I'm not lucky with numbers, just give me any question that has not been picked." Or, "This is my luck dress. It always bring me good luck."

The only thing I do with luck is to include it in my blog posts once in a while, and I love asking people to wish me luck when I have made up my mind to take a life-altering decision. 

Everyday I meet people who have tied their dreams to luck. They'll say, "If only God will touch someone to give me N2 million. I will start that business I have always wanted to start and my life will never remain the same." And I think to myself, if God has been good enough to show me the exact figure I need to change my life forever, I wouldn't wait for luck at all. I will save up to that N2 million and go after my dream life. 

And there are those who love attributing other people's success to luck. They'll tell all the different points in Dangote's life that he got extremely lucky. Everyone that's richer than them is simply lucky. And they will diligently prove it to you. 

Luck is a wind. As long as you are outside it will blow on you, someday. But you can't get more of it than someone else by always thinking about it. It's the wrong way to go through life. As long as you live a life that keeps you outside and active, trying new and challenging things, you will get all the luck you will ever get. And no amount of analyzing luck can increase it a bit. Rather you should try to get for yourself everything you wanted luck to get for you. 

Leave luck out of your plans. Let your thoughts about luck only point out the things you badly want.

When I discovered that I wanted my blog subscribers to double so badly that I sub-consciously was hoping luck would do it for me. I immediately set out to do it for myself, to stop tying something that mattered greatly to me to luck. I set-up a facebook advert to get more blog subscribers. After spending about N3,000, I discovered I didn't want it that badly anymore. I became happy once again. No more feeling sad and waiting for luck. Until yesterday, when my subscribers hit 700 and I began wishing it will hit 1000. Then I remembered my expensive N3,000 facebook adverts and the wish vanished. I'm no longer in a hurry.

And so my special advice for you today -- Leave Luck.

I have written about this in two separate posts before -- one was for DSTV subscription and the other was for Airtel Postpaid bills. 

Unfortunately, things have changed since then. Not just that I have stopped paying for DSTV subscription and now watch CCTV (God bless China. Too bad I'm not learning Chinese). Quickteller has completely changed their site. It now looks like a Windows 8 start screen. And I like it. 

So I have to make a new relevant post, but this time I won't want to bore my readers with two separate posts with lots of repetitions. I will explain both in one straightforward post.

So let's head to the new cool Quickteller site: www.quickteller.com

Sign up, if you haven't registered on Quickteller before. And if you have, like me, then log in.

It shows me the online payments I have made on the site before.

Lemme expand the DSTV one, so you don't think I was always subscribing to the Family Bouquet.

But for you, you'll probably see nothing under "My Services". You'll be starting from scratch.

And here's how.
At the upper right side of the Quickteller site, you'll see a search box. That's what you'll use. That box will take you to any service you want to make payment for.

Let's start with DSTV subscription.
Type DSTV in the search box.

Ignore the suggestions and click search.

You'll get a result page.

1 item found: DSTV Subscription. And that's just what you need.
Click on the "DSTV Subscription" and Select the Bouquet you wanna pay for. (Compact Bouquet is identified as MINI, others still retain their regular names. Family is Family and Premium is Premium).

Click on Continue to go to the next step.
You'll be required to enter your Smart Card number, email and phone number.
Click on Continue again.

It pre-filled my email and phone number because I have provided them during registration. I just have to enter my DSTV smart card number. And click on Continue.

You'll be taken to the payment confirmation page.

Click on Pay.
You'll be taken to the payment page where you'll provide your ATM card details.

Gotcha! You were expecting to see my ATM card details, ehn? 
Enter your details and pay.

You will get a payment successful SMS and email. Call DSTV on 2703232 to inform them about your payment. It's not necessary, but I like the peace of mind it gives.


Now to Airtel Postpaid line payment. 
Type Airtel in the search box.

6 items found. Well, we only need the first item: Airtel Bill Payment (Postpaid)

Click on it.

Fill in the phone number you want to pay for, email and the amount you want to credit the phone with. I used to pay the exact bill figure I owe, but now I pay more than that so I don't get to pay every month, spending time and extra transaction charge.

Click on continue when done.

The system will pull out your name as it is on Airtel database. See how it doubled mine.

Click on Pay.

Enter your ATM details and pay.
You'll get SMS notification and email.

Welcome to the online world of convenience!

Yeah.

Today, I'll be sharing two tips that have greatly reduced my Windows 8 frustration.

Personally, I consider Windows 8 a better OS that Windows 7. It's faster and amazing on a touchscreen tablet/laptop. The only issue I have with it is that it makes the little things I do easily on Windows 7, like launching Notepad or shutting down, a task that now require considerable conscious effort. It is very annoying. It's now my greatest example of why you shouldn't fix what is not broken. I don't see any ease of use in hiding shutdown. 

And today, I will be showing you a couple of things I do to reduce my Windows 8 frustration.

When Windows 8 boots up, it boots into a Start Screen. Below is a screenshot of mine.

To launch the programs I frequently use, I need to scroll and scroll. And then scroll again.

Doing this once in a while is not annoying. But on weekends when I'm working intensely on some project, this is very annoying. Having to go to start screen each time, and scrolling and trying to figure out where that program is. Then occasionally I don't see the program where it usually is, and I have to scroll back and forth a couple of times. 

Then there are some programs I don't see at all. Like Notepad, Command Prompt and Calculator.

So here are two ways I fix this frustration. 

For programs I use a lot, I pin them to the Taskbar. 
Second, for programs I do not see in the start screen, I start typing their name or I launch the "All apps" screen.

So let's start with launching the "All apps" screen.
From the start screen, rightclick on any of the space around the apps. 

You'll suddenly see "All apps" at the bottom right corner of the screen.

Click on the "All apps".
And you'll get another screen with a listing of all the programs installed on the PC. Including Notepad, Command Prompt and Calculator.

Then for sticking the programs you use a lot on the Taskbar, here's how.

For me Microsoft Excel is that program.
I look for it on either the "All apps" screen or the Start screen, then rightclick on it.

All apps screen

Start Screen

You'll notice "Pin to taskbar" in the options that show at the bottom of the screen. Click on it.

Voila! Like me, you'll now be able to launch that favorite program from the Windows desktop screen. In fact, I have done that for PowerPoint, Word, Note, Thinderbird and Chrome.

And those are the two tips that have greatly reduced my Windows 8 frustration.

They are simple tips that I'm sure some of you already know and use, and maybe do not even consider as a tip. Maybe someday I'll post the more techy stuffs I do on my Windows 8. It's just that I'm now a little hesitant to post too techy stuffs, I don't want to cut-off the amazing people that read my daily posts. And real techy guys always figure out what they want to do, with or without help from a blog post.

One of my favorite quotes is: "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." It's by the man I consider the clearest thinker, Oscar Wilde.

One of the greatest good a man can do himself is to be true to himself. 

image: yogirunner.com 

Here are my tips on how to be true to yourself:

1. Stop trying to please people.
2. Live in such a way that you won't find it hard to admit your faults/errors. This is why I don't envy pastors and politicians.
3. Have true friends. Friends that make it easy for you to accept who you are and not ones you are struggling to keep up with. I don't have any friend I can't tell my salary. If I'm ashamed to tell my friend my salary, then he's not the right kind of friend.
4. Don't lie. I try extremely hard not to tell lies. And I fail sometimes. But trying has greatly improved my life. Knowing that I don't want to lie makes me more sincere not just with other people, but with myself.
5. Take risks, go after your dream. While serving in Bayelsa, I took my life savings and went on a tour. I visited all the major riverine communities except Southern Ijaw. Then about a year later, I did something similar. I took half of my life saving and went for a one-month french immersion programme at Cotonou. Taking these mini risks and going after what I really want makes life more than just income and expense. One gets a richer and deeper feel of life. It sometimes put one in touch with one's inner self.
6. Have a life goal. One that you review occasionally. This helps you discover what truly matter to you and be more true to yourself.
7. Break free from the crowd mentality. Break free from the mentality of comparing yourself with other people. You're are unique, and being true to yourself means embracing your uniqueness. So you do yourself a great harm when you're constantly comparing yourself with others (your colleagues at work, friends, neighbours and relatives).

I'm sure you know other tips I'm missing out.

When you are true to yourself, you experience a richer and more fulfilling life. And that's the type of life we all should experience. One that is free of deceit and competing with the Jonesses. 

The future is not 20 years from now or even 5 years from now. The future is not tomorrow.  The future is not now.

The future is every single year, month, week, day, hour, minute and second from now. Tick. There goes part of the future.

image: upyourservice.com

It's the little things we do over time that create the biggest impact. The 5 mins exercise you do daily as against the 4 hours intense exercise you do once in a month. The few minutes you spend to read daily against dedicating an entire weekend to reading every 3 months. The hello you say daily to those you care about as against the 2 hour calls you make once in a while (I'm super guilty of this, and I even don't make any long duration to them at all). The new skill you invest 10 mins a day in as against a 2 weeks intensive seminar (they now call it boot-camp).

Breaking your goals into small daily activities harnesses the power of the future for you. Because the future is not one day in the coming years. The future is every moment from now. That is the future. And when you make plans for the future, it should be a plan that has an execution time that starts today. Because the rest of today is also part of the future. 

Whenever you have a goal, like getting fit, and you plan big activities that happen weeks apart. Like going to the Gym twice in a month. If you stick to it, you will definitely get fitter. But if you break the goal to daily activities, like 15 minutes mix or aerobics and body-weight exercises, you will have an easier time achieving your goal. You will even enjoy it better than dragging yourself to the Gym twice a month, and you will most likely keep it up much longer. This is because you've spread the goal over a greater part of the future, daily rather than bi-monthly. 

The more of the future you harness, the surer achieving your goals will be and the easier the route you'll have to follow.

Understanding that the future is every single moment from now is the key to having great future plans. Plans that are achievable, effective and non-burdensome. 

Most of my plans are already as such. And after this post I'll be reviewing the few ones that are not yet broken into small activities spread across the greater part of the future. I hope you'll do so too.

I'm not going to tell you what you already know.
I'm not going to tell you, "Show me your friends and I will show you who you are."
I'm not going to tell you, "Bad company ruins good manners."
I'm not going to tell you, "A friend to all is a friend to none."
I'm not going to tell you, "If you choose bad companions, no one will believe that you are anything but bad yourself."
I'm not going to tell you, "Friends and money are like oil and water; you will lose both when you mix them."

Did you know that the movie Tarzan is an adaptation of a book, Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs?
I have been lucky to have read the original book, and I find it better than the movie. I got a couple of life lessons from the book. Like on friendship. 

image: furwhatitsworth.com

When Tarzan met Jane Porter and began embracing his human nature, learning to do things the human way. He suddenly found himself out of place among his friends: the apes and the elephant he grew up with. He became very bothered and began thinking about the whole thing. Then he came to this marvelous conclusion: that we do out grow some friendships, that as we change we will have a tough time sticking to the same friends. 

The easiest friends to have are the ones we attract, the ones we share similarities with. They let us be ourselves. We don't have to change to keep them because they became our friends as a result of who we are. The only trouble is that we are constantly changing/growing. And soon the friend you could share your deepest concerns with, changes in ways you do not expect. His ways and thought patterns are now strange to you. So your circle of friends will always keep changing: easy close friends will become annoying close friends, and then longtime friends we seldom visit. 

Only few people have life-long bosom friends. And in some cases, the other person has stopped considering the one as a bosom friend. The feeling isn't mutual. The friendship is heavily one-sided: one person asking all the time, calling all the time and initiating all the activities in the friendship. 

Then there are a lot of people trying to keep up with friends. They make inconveniencing adjustments, always keeping in touch with everyone, present at every friend's event, never letting go of anyone. They give up too much for the sake of friendship. They won't let things follow their natural course. They have the toughest kinds of friends. The friends that don't care about staying in their lives. Friends that have moved on.

So I call it: your friends, your life. 
Just as the course of your life chooses friends for you (your easiest friends), so also the friends you force yourself to stick with alter the course of your life (your toughest friends). 

I have been using Android phones since March 2010. Then they weren't popular. My first android phone was HTC Dream (also known as G1). It was the world's first android phone.

The G1 came with Android Donut. Then I downgraded to Android Cupcake in order to install Android Froyo. 

Later I bought a Samsung S2 that came with Android Gingerbread. Which I have upgraded to Android Ice Cream.

So Android and I have come a long way. And I have tried a lot of Android apps. I once had this cool app called Shazam; if you were arguing with a friend on the title of the song playing on the radio, Shazam was the perfect judge. Launch it and make it listen to the song for 10 secs and it will give you the artist name, album name and the song track name. It's was like magic then.
I also had a metal detector app, it worked liked the ones used by security men at banks. It would make the phone vibrate when a metal is close by. I had the coolest phone then. And people believed whatever I said the phone could do. 

Today, after hundreds of installs and uninstalls, I will be sharing with you the apps that made it to my Fav list. The apps I think you might find useful too. Most are the best in their categories. And others just suit my needs.

I have my apps categorized on my homescreen: Camera apps, Mail apps, Professional/Productivity apps, News Apps, Tweak/Nerd apps, Explore/Search apps, Dictionary apps, Game apps, System (more like control panel) apps, Survival apps (got my Bible, daily expense logger etc. in it), Social Media apps, eReader apps, Calculator apps, Network Tuning apps, Media apps and Phone apps (Call, SMS, Calendar etc.).

So here are my favourite apps

BTW, did you notice the "Life Tips" and "Life Tips from Michael" apps? I made them. And "My First App" too. Too bad I won't be channeling any more brain resources to making android apps. I'm focusing on Excel VBA.

Music is an art. Perhaps the most enduring art. 

Art is the ultimate form of expression. Ultimate because, there's nothing like it. Art is for expressing what hasn't been expressed before. To show what can't be described. To paint what can't be seen or to paint what can be seen in a way it has never been seen. Art is more than just a piece, it is the embodiment of the artist's life. It is a work of the artist's lifetime. It is his obsession. He lives for it.

There was a time big buildings were work of art. They were designed and built by artists. No two mansions looked alike. Then, there came along engineering and automation. They replaced the artists with technical drawings, specifications and construction workers. Big houses are now a commodity. No longer an art.

There was a time writing was art. It was even called calligraphy. Then came typewriters, computers and printers. Now, writing is no longer an art.

Music is facing a similar threat. The advent of computer generated tunes and brain-dead compositions are turning music into a commodity. No more need for talent, passion and insane amount of work; like it used to be. Everyone is now a musician. The untrained voice, the accidental musician and the computer guy are now churning out music tracks. They are dulling the society's music taste. Everyday we undergo hours of brainwash sessions listening to crap. We no longer have taste for music, real music. The one that is a work of art.

And as long as Nigerians keep buying and promoting the crap popular people push on them, every street boy, every school boy and everyone looking for quick cash will release a track. Some will catch the lustful eyes of some of the big marketers and more crap will be forced down our ears. And the next generation will not even know what music should be.

So why do our musicians sing crap?

1. Most are not musicians. Just ambitious regular folks trying their hands on the new in-thing.
2. No research. Art is about creating what doesn't exist. An artist studies all the methods used by those before him. He builds on them. No one will paint Mona Lisa and expect the world to be wowed. Even if he did it by inspiration, and has never seen the one by Leonardo da Vinci. Art is about stretching the human mind, making it see new things or old things in new ways. The legends researched and took what was existing several steps forward. They don't just recycle beats and rehash crap.
3. No brain. You should be able to separate a song into it's components, and each should make sense. The instrumental should make sense, the lyrics should make sense, and the video should make sense. And I don't think these should be too much for someone that makes his celebrity living off music. What more incentive does he need to put some brain into it.
4. No one cares. We don't have real music critics. Someone to show them what's wrong with their music. Someone to help us understand what music should be. Someone to give the real musicians a credibility. Someone to be our music conscience. To be a pain in the butt of those that care only for the money in music. And to intelligently praise true work of art.

Finally, music is meant to be deep. To strike cords in us we never knew existed. To stir strange passions within us. To make us disconnect from the world around us. To make us better and more mature. Not to make us swear and curse and say terrible things all for the sake of a dance-able beat.