Learn to be comfortable with money sitting still.
Most people spend the moment they receive. The moment your account looks full, something must be bought, something must be celebrated.
Train yourself to do nothing with money.
Let it sit. Let it accumulate. Let it feel boring.
@Vfdbankng@StephenPre9372 Hello @Vfdbankng why have I not been credited for a transaction that @getpocketapp sent a notification that money is coming into my account?
What’s the issue with you people?
@getpocketapp Please I’d like to know why I received a notification of money coming into my account and I can’t find it in my wallet ?
What’s going on @getpocketapp
Bank transfers in Nigeria are instant. It is one of the fastest I’ve seen compared to the US and Canada.
I can walk into a Nigerian bank, initiate a 100 Million Naira transfer, and before I finish arguing with the bank manager about Arsenal not winning the league, the money is already sitting in the recipient’s account ready to be withdrawn.
But when it comes to electronic transfer of votes in real time, we suddenly act technologically backward. Taa, gbafuo!
Why is it that Nigerian food is only considered appealing once it’s been shrunk, stripped of its soul, and plated with tweezers?
In this video, I argue that we don’t have to dilute our cuisine to export it.
The entire world did.
The US has almost the entire world on salary. In just 30 years, they have given 1.3 trillion dollars in aid to the world.
That is the GDP of the whole of Ghana 16x, Kenya 12x, Nigeria 3x. They are the top donors to the United Nations, 28%.
They are the top donors to the WHO, around 15%. They are the ones with the largest financial commitment to the IMF, around 17%
They give money through bilateral relations, country-to-country, and multilateral solutions, such as the UN, WHO, IMF, etc.
80% of the money goes to things like education, healthcare, social development, etc.
They pay the largest of NATO's defence budget, aroud 70%, so Europe can be safe, project power, and keep the balance of geopolitical scale.
I could go on and on about how the entire world simply stands in line for US paychecks.
And that is why America feels it is the leader of the free world. They are paying for it, at the cost of their national treasury.
They are in debt, but they keep paying.
If the world wants America's interventionism to stop, let it bring as much financial stake to the international table.
In international politics, the one paying you is controlling you. You can't have one without the other.
This is why the US feels it can police the world. It is like guarding the enterprise they are paying for.
Permit me to address some of these points based on the new tax law:
1. “Government is reducing existing taxes on the masses”
This is Misleading.
The reform is not primarily about reducing taxes.
It is about:
widening the tax net
improving reporting
strengthening enforcement
reducing leakages
Some reliefs exist (e.g. zero rate bands, exemptions, incentives), but for many people, effective tax exposure may increase, not decrease, because:
a. more income streams are reportable
b. deductions must be actively claimed
c . enforcement is stronger
2. “Bank accounts will not be debited from January 2026”
This is misleading.
There is no provision that allows automatic debiting of bank accounts simply because it is "January 2026".
However, the law does allow:
a. recovery after assessment
b. recovery after default
c. recovery through third parties (banks, employers, debtors)
So:
Your account won't be debited from January 1st, but the law empowers the taxman to take money from your account. Check out my pinned post for more info.
3. “Small businesses will enjoy a lot of relief”
Partly true, but oversold.
Yes, there are:
exemptions
incentives
turnover based reliefs
simplified regimes
But small businesses also face:
stricter reporting
more frequent filings
better data matching
lower tolerance for informality
So while some will benefit, disorganized small businesses (like POS) may feel more pressure, not less.
Relief exists, but only for those who can keep good records.
4. “Capital gains exemption applies to all investors, 99% unconditionally.”
False.
Capital gains exemptions are:
conditional
transaction specific
asset specific
They do not apply:
automatically
universally
without documentation
Many exemptions require:
holding periods
qualifying asset types
proof of reinvestment
specific transaction structures
Saying “99% unconditionally” is legally incorrect.
5. “Minimum wage earners are exempt from PAYE”
Incorrect framing.
The law does not say:
“Minimum wage earners shall not be taxed.”
What it does say:
the first ₦800,000 of taxable income is taxed at 0%
Official Minimum wage is ₦70,000/month (₦840,000/year)
Since minimum wage exceeds ₦800,000, tax may apply on the excess, subject to reliefs and deductions.
So:
minimum wage ≠ automatic exemption
zero rate band applies up to a fixed amount
6. “Gifts and remittances are not subject to taxes”
Over simplified and dangerous.
Some gifts may be non taxable depending on purpose and substance.
But:
recurring gifts
gifts tied to services
gifts replacing income
unexplained remittances
can be treated as taxable income.
Under the new framework:
all inflows must be reported
unclear purpose shifts burden to the taxpayer
“Gift” is not a magic word.
7. “Nigerians in diaspora will not be taxed”
Incomplete and misleading.
Residency matters more than nationality.
Generally:
non resident Nigerians are not taxed on foreign income
but Nigerian source income remains taxable
Nigerian companies remain taxable regardless of owner location
Also:
remittances into Nigeria
business activities connected to Nigeria
permanent establishment issues
can still trigger tax exposure.
So this statement is only partially true and often misunderstood.
I have a theory: Nigerian leaders struggle to handle complexity and anything with moving parts. We can pour concrete. It’s pretty straightforward. I guess that is why people see roads being built and say that Governance is not rocket science. If roads are what they mean by governance, they would be right: it’s not rocket science.
When it comes to complexity, multiple components, or moving parts, our leaders tend to struggle. For instance, electricity involves generation, transmission, distribution, metering, billing and tariff management. Complexity. We don’t handle it well.
That is why, when a new governor succeeds one who has already poured concrete, they seem clueless about what to do next. Facilitating the economic activity that will make use of the roads and buildings is harder than pouring the concrete to build them. It requires brain power. Complexity hurts the brain. We don’t like it.
In countries like France, most politicians would be expected to have attended one of the governance schools if they want to seek high public office. In the UK, you would probably have studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford or Cambridge. In the USA, it would be usual for you to have attended an Ivy League university. Same as Japan and Singapore. In all these places, you would be exposed to complexity, innovation and problem-solving.
In Nigeria, all you need is to have completed a course of secondary education. Did you know that you actually don’t have to have a WAEC certificate? You just need to have finished secondary education, you don’t need to have passed WAEC or even NECO. Is it surprising the quality of leaders that we have?
It is not about having a PhD. Most Nigerian governors with PhDs have been thoroughly disappointing. It is more about being equipped with the skills and intellectual rigour to handle the complexity of governing others and making the best decisions on their behalf.
I would suggest that we upgrade the Public Service Institute of Nigeria and the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria into proper governance schools. We should then make
it mandatory that all politicians who want to occupy elective executive positions (like LGA Chairman, Speaker, Senate President, Deputy Governor, Governor, Vice President or President) must attend and graduate from those institutions before they can even seek any elective public office at all.
Do you agree with my theory? If not, do you have a counter theory? If you agree, do you think that this would make any difference? If you think that it won’t make any difference, what do you think would? #NaijaKnowledgeX
According to Nigeria’s constitution:
🛢️ Oil = Federal resource.
⛏️ Solid minerals (gold, lithium, etc.) = Federal resource ON PAPER but not enforced.
The Federal Government legally owns all minerals…
but enforcement is intentionally ignored.
And that legal loophole created the chaos in Zamfara.
Zamfara Gold Is Controlled by Power Blocks, Cartels, Militias, and Politicians.
The gold in Zamfara is not controlled by Nigeria.
It is controlled by:
✅Local political elites
✅Armed bandit groups
✅Foreign middlemen (Chinese, Arab, Lebanese agents)
✅Powerful northern businessmen (99% Fula)
✅And anyone who controls violence in the region
At one point, the state government even created a Zamfara Gold Reserve…
something no oil-producing state was ever allowed to do with crude oil.
Billions leave the country yearly without entering Nigeria’s economy and research shows Nigeria loses over $1.5 billion yearly to illegal gold mining.
So why is Niger Delta oil for everybody… but Zamfara gold for the owners?
Simple:
♟️ The constitution forces Niger Delta resources to be national.
♟️ But political realities allow northern minerals to be privatized.
Why?
It is a structural imbalance created by the same system Nigeria refuses to restructure. #TheyKnowWhatTheyAreDoing.
The South-South carries the economic load.
The Southwest carries the administrative structure.
The North controls the political power.
So we are a nation built on unequal laws, selective enforcement, political favoritism, resource imbalance, and different realities for different tribes... This is why they can never criminalize tribalism and enforce it. It is part of their tools.
Nigeria’s structure forces some regions to sacrifice, others to dominate, and others to operate outside the rules entirely.
♟️Every region should be given 100% power to define its boundaries.
♟️The 100% power to control its resources.
♟️The 100% power to manage its security.
♟️And 100% power to develop at its own pace.
Road in Benin will be killing people, the state government will tell you it is a federal road and they are yet to get approval from the federal government, Politics? Sounds like it?
But if you go to Kano, you will be tempted to activate need for speed. Are we then saying the South's law is different from the North's law? Maybe?
You cannot preach unity to people who feel cheated. And when they voice out, you go after them acting like you are protecting unity, when in truth, you are protecting your part of the bargain.
You take months and years to “track down” terrorists.
You negotiate with them.
You pamper them.
You invent excuses for them.
You call them “bandits.”
You pretend their crimes are complicated.
But the moment a man from the East, South, or West simply expresses his pain,
your DSS suddenly becomes commando.
The people who burn villages, kidnap schoolchildren, massacre communities…
you treat them with softness and diplomacy.
But the people who cry out against injustice…
you descend on them with the speed of light.
People are losing their families, their ancestral lands, and their sanity... You give them empty promises, because you know they are too weak and fucked up to stand up to you greedy blood suckers.
That is not unity ooo.
NIGERIA’S NATURAL RESOURCES.
Northwest: Gold, Lead, Zinc, Gypsum, Limestone.
North-central: Lithium, Tin, Iron Ore, Marble.
Southwest: Bitumen, Limestone, Gemstones
Southeast: Coal, Lead/Zinc, Gas
South-south: Oil & Gas (the backbone of Nigeria’s revenue)
GOOGLE HOW MUCH THESE THINGS ARE SOLD IN THE WORLD MARKET...
Every region is blessed, but only one region’s resources (oil) are nationalized, while others operate under local control and political protection. This is why some of your saint politicians turn to beast immediately they get into power.
Look at the likes of Dubai and Qatar, Nigeria is more blessed than Dubai and Qatar but while Dubai and Qatar built systems, Nigeria built politics & power blocks.
THERE IS A REASON HISTORY WAS REMOVED FROM THE EDUCATIONAL CURRICULUM.
Even the Hausas are insignificant in their own states today. And it is not because they lack numbers…
But because they’ve been slowly cornered by the same people who cornered Ilorin.
This is the same blueprint being applied to you and I right now.
A gradual suffocation masked as “unity.”
A forced coexistence where one group takes and the others adjust.
History has already shown us the outcome of this game.
Once they gain ground, they don’t share power... they absorb it.
And when they absorb it, they erase you.
What you’re seeing today isn’t coincidence.
It’s not politics.
It’s a quiet expansion... steady, deliberate, and generational.
Continuing on this path only leads to one thing:
A future where your children will beg for the land you inherited.
History has warned us before. We just continue to ignore.
In case you don't know, Ilorin began as a Yoruba town under the Oyo Empire.
It was founded by Ojo Isekuse, a Yoruba hunter.
Later, it became a military outpost under Afonja, the Yoruba Aare Ona Kakanfo (General of the Oyo Empire).
Afonja rebelled against the Oyo Empire and invited Fulani warriors (led by Alimi) to support him.
That alliance later backfired... the Fulani gained influence, outsmarted Afonja, and eventually took control after Afonja was killed.
After Afonja’s fall, Ilorin was absorbed into the Sokoto Caliphate, becoming an emirate ruled by Fulani leadership.
Culturally a significant part of Ilorin is still Yoruba. But politically, it has been under an emirate system since the 1800s.
As for the Hausas, before the Fulani takeover, there were seven MAJOR Hausa states: Kano, Katsina, Zazzau, Gobir, Daura, Rano, and Biram.
After the Jihad declared by Dan Fodio, Hausa armies were defeated. Fulani leaders were installed as Emirs over each Hausa city pledging allegiance to the Sokoto Caliphate.
Even though the population remained mostly Hausa, political control shifted permanently to Fulani leadership.
There is a reason history was removed from the educational curriculum.
Because a society that does not know its past is easier to control.
If you don’t know who conquered who,
you won’t question who is ruling you today.
If you don’t know how territories were taken,
you won’t recognise when the same pattern starts again.
If you don’t know the mistakes your ancestors made,
you’re guaranteed to repeat them with your own children watching.
That is why history was removed. Not by accident. But to keep you blind from linking patterns. Because once you truly understand what happened before, you start to understand what is happening right now.
Geographically, the Middle Belt sits between:
♟️The core North and ♟️The South.
They have their own identity which is entirely different from Hausa-Fulani North.
So why are the Far North trying to claim the middle belts by all means?
1: Population advantage.
2: Voting power.
What is happening in Nigeria today is not BojuBoju.
(Digest all this information however it suits you).
#Ozoemena
People can’t keep dying for a country they were never allowed to choose.
Nigeria is due for a referendum.
Pretending everything is fine is the biggest lie holding the nation hostage.
The @ecowas_cedeao and @UN have become some of the most useless bodies to Africa.
Give those who want war their own country.
Give those who want peace their own country.
Stop letting innocent people die for a unity agreement they were never part of.
Nigeria can adopt the UK style of government.
The UK doesn’t run everything from London.
♟️Scotland has power.
♟️Wales has power.
♟️Northern Ireland has power.
But in Nigeria?
One man gets an erection in Abuja and cums on behalf of 200+ million people.
One central government decides everything... and still gets it wrong because there is always someone or a group of people who must be favored over others.
Resident Doctors on strike
Joint Health Workers on strike
ASUU ;Universities to be shut down on Friday.
LAUTECH medical students have been out of school for over 110 days
A nation with no regard for Healthcare and Education.
Girls abducted from schools by bandits and the Government keeps quiet but if it’s to raid Pretty Mike’s Club, and arrest fun-loving citizens, our security forces become marines and navy seals. What an absolute disgrace!
Imagine @GovWike’s child was among the Kebbi students that got attacked yesterday, will @GovWike create time for the PDP drama today? NO.
Imagine @officialSKSM’s child was among those attacked, do you think you would have seen him dancing and dramatizing yesterday? NO.
Imagine @SenGodswill’s child was involved?
Their children move through life... guarded like state secrets.
You and your children navigate a nation where danger is an everyday background noise.
There’s a good chance their children don’t even know how much people are suffering and dying in this country.
Why?
Because their children are busy jumping on private jets, enjoying life, while you struggle, you sacrifice and pay tax so that their children can live comfortably and build mansions on the land they grabbed and stole from you.
Their children get more attention than a soldier bleeding in Sambisa.
More protection than entire communities begging for help in Benue.
That is the imbalance and the truth they hope you normalize.
While you are here, struggling and questioning God, your politicians are here hoping that after you are done serving them, you MUST serve their children too.
Freedom demands the death of your fear.
When people are suffering because the cost of living is too high, and you (as a policymaker) intend to spend public money to fix this, there are two main routes:
- subsidize demand, or
- subsidize supply
Subsidizing demand is "give people money to pay for the expensive thing."
Subsidizing supply is "give producers money to build out capacity to make more of the expensive thing."
These routes represent a difference between (to use coarse-grained terms) current Western liberal thinking and Chinese socialist thinking.
Subsidizing demand causes inflation if the expensive thing is expensive due to insufficient supply. The number of people who will have access to this thing will not go up, because the actual amount of supply stays the same. Prices eventually rise to reflect the inflation (speed depends on implementation of the subsidy).
Subsidizing supply increases the amount of the expensive thing being produced, reducing its price and increasing availability. More people are likely to have access to it because now there's more of it and it costs less to buy.
There are probably broader considerations involved that professional economists take into account but these dynamics seem relevant for our current economic situation.
A few weird things seem to be involved in this situation in our present cultural moment:
1) Western liberal elites don't like subsidizing supply because subsidies for producers often feels like giving money to owners, or capitalists, or rich people. Why would you give money to the capitalist owner of the factory instead of to the common man?
2) American elite thinking tends to focus on "virtualized" things (like prices) while Chinese elites think more about "real atoms" (actual goods). Hence, viewing the prices of things as being too high leads to favoring virtualized solutions like helping with the price (give more virtualized money to bring down the virtualized price). Thinking about the amount of physical goods leads to thinking about how to make more of the physical good (build more factories).
3) There is this idea that you don't want to "crash prices" through "overproduction." In the West, classical micro-economic incentives lead producers to make a profit-maximizing amount and that it's bad to disturb that; only occasionally disruptive exogenous events result in large changes to supply and deflationary drops in pricing.
There isn't much thought given to the idea that "price collapse" also lowers the cost of the good as an input into other things, as well as (in the case of widely-consumed goods) effectively lowering a tax burden on the population. China seems to think this way, and so subsidizes massive "overcapacity" which results in both everything that uses that good as an input becoming more economically viable, and people who consume it having more money for other things.
The above idea is not obvious so I will give three examples:
1) The idea of asteroid mining and bringing back billions of tons of some valuable metal (nickel or gold or platinum), worth "trillions of dollars." Someone always points out that it'll "crash the price" (it will); this statement shows an inability to separate the virtualized idea of a price from how it represents the cost [to produce/acquire] - in fact it would be bringing trillions of dollars of value to the entire economy, as now there's a lot more of the metal to use, and everyone who uses it to produce something useful has lower cost of production and more downstream products (value) can be made.
2) In my own industry (global reforestation) I hear a similar objection to the idea of enabling much larger scales of sustainable timber: wouldn't it collapse the price of timber? Yes, and that's a good thing: now there's more timber for everyone to use and it's cheaper so more products become economical to make.
3) Finally, the "peace dividend" over the past 30 years where the proliferation of mobile phones made cameras, gyroscopes, and batteries far smaller and cheaper due to forcing producers to scale up production: this is what enabled the drone industry to develop as an economically viable product.
The difference is that the West (to the extent that it remains laissez-faire) only allows these exogenous shocks or market trends to periodically drive down prices by expanding supply - the cause is unpredictable, whether it's discovery of a new source, business model, production methods, etc.
Even the phrase "price collapse" sounds horribly negative and conversation-ending. But if you want to "lower taxes" on your citizenry you can either
a) lower taxes revenues, or
b) find a way to make something that everyone buys cost a lot less
Examples of things that would essentially be a massive tax break for the citizenry if they went through a "price collapse":
- housing
- health care
- education
- fuel
- ... you get the idea
Current Chinese socialism is focused on increasing material wealth for its citizens, and so uses industrial policy to greatly increase production capacity - not just through subsidies, but also via competition: producers are given money to build more factories, but also forced to compete so that they innovate on efficiency and cost. If you give every producer money but tell them only a couple will win, you get a lot more stuff made and it gets better-cheaper-faster.... sooner.
They are essentially accelerating the long-term deflationary effects of capitalism through socialist planning.
But this is not a post about socialism!
That's just the name for it, because the big idea that everyone has missed is that "Chinese socialism" is nothing like what it took from the West - the common moniker is "socialism with Chinese characteristics - but I prefer to think that the degree of distortion from having to translate between such alien cultures and language resulted in so much leeway for re-interpretation that what China ended up with was nothing like what Western socialists had in mind, it's like a Panda Express version of socialism: unrecognizable to people familiar with the authentic original, but optimized for its local conditions.
After all, western conservatives - although apt to implement subsidies for producers ("giveaways to the rich") - still stop short at telling the producers to produce more than the profit-maximizing amount - they assume that the profit-maximizing amount is the "right amount" to be produced for the market. There is not as much thought given to "what are the downstream effects if 10x as much is produced and the price trends towards zero?" Bringing up "it would collapse the price for X" is enough to end most discussions.
(Of course, you do see some modern tech barons thinking this way, and it's part of the galaxy-brain/megolomanical thinking where one company might intend to dominate or reshape an entire ecosystem, but we are mostly talking about non-technocratic Western policymakers right now)
So instead the West contents itself with incremental reduction of prices (cost) through piecemeal innovation and competition, rather than targeted identification of areas where driving down a cost deliberately as close to zero as possible might have some kind of macro effect on society, and then implementation of industrial policy intended to achieve this effect.
This is not socialism, because if it were really socialism (as the West understands it), at least some branch of the extreme Left in the US or EU would be advocating for it. And the Right won't brook quite that much market intervention: it prefers to just deregulate to accelerate the incremental price reductions - you know, regular ol' capitalism.
Here is the point: the argument about whether China is socialist (communist) or capitalist is wrong. It is not either of those things - they are both Western ideas. It is a secret third thing.
Now I am not sure exactly what it is - because I am steeped in American culture while having cultural access via my Chinese ethnicity - I can only tell you that it's not one of those things.
It has something to do with a practical materialism, where "materialism" is not the word with the connotations of "shallow and liking money" (though Chinese people do love money), but rather a concern with real atoms, real things, the real physical world.
It is not as though China has no art or culture or life of the mind, but that there is a profound recognition (perhaps even an overcorrection from being humiliated by "culturally inferior" barbarians) that if you haven't mastered the physical world, nothing else matters. And so it's not about the price, and thus virtualized measures like "GDP" - it's about how much real physical stuff you're making.
For the tech people, it's a bit like counting productivity by Lines of Code (LOC). Writing more code means more productivity, right? Whereupon great programmers turn out to improve functionality by deleting Lines of Code, and so have "negative productivity."
The same glitch exists in GDP, because with Mississippi having a GDP per Capita of $53k and Chongqing having a GDP per Capita of $14k...
Well, you can increase GDP by making incrementally more stuff
And you can increase GDP by giving out subsidies so everyone pays more for the same stuff
But if you figure out a way to make the same stuff for way way cheaper super fast, you'll crater nominal GDP even while real economic welfare rises.
Statistical agencies typically try to correct for quality/price changes like this and can account for it incrementally, but if you simply don't care about GDP as a measurement at all and are using some secret third thing to guide your policymaking towards the idea of "make as much stuff for as many people as possible" I guess you might even end up driving GDP towards zero along with your prices while your people mysteriously get rich.
Anyhow, you might think this is a critique of American policy or something but really it's just a message for the new socialist government of New York City: if you want to drive down cost of living for New Yorkers, don't spend precious public dollars subsidizing goods. Figure out a way to spend it on increasing production capacity so that you can "collapse prices" because then everyone can afford it and have more.
Remember: secret third thing.
1.Your life will get sweet. When it does, understand this: sweetness is a signal. Signals attract threats.
2.Silence isn’t humility. It’s protection. Noise invites observers. Observers invite damage.
3.Some people who know you aren’t neutral. They study your steps, not to learn… but to wait. Envy is patient.
4.Others who don’t know you at all scroll with one instinct: find something bright and spoil it.
https://t.co/wDFWCmlnpY provokes hostility. Progress provokes envy. Exposure provokes attack. That’s the pattern. Protect your wins. Wrap them in silence until they are too solid to be tampered with.
6.Protect what’s growing. Don’t display it. People don’t sabotage what they cannot access.
Learn to enjoy blessings without fishing for applause. Validation is cheap. Peace is priceless.
7.The world does not break quietly. It breaks publicly. Visibility increases the impact.
The world doesn’t need to know every chapter. The safest stories are the ones you don’t post.
8.Keep your elevation private until it becomes irreversible. Fragile things shouldn’t be seen.
9.Let them remain unsure. Uncertainty is more useful than trust.
10.Move without echo. Reveal nothing. Guard everything. Not every blessing was made for the crowd.
11. People will leave you, You will leave people… be careful what you keep with people all in the name of trust. Secrets don’t disappear when relationships do. What you shared in comfort can be used in conflict. Some wait for distance to turn those moments into ammunition.
12. When life starts feeling like your winning is around the corner, don’t relax.
Tension means the ground is shifting.
Use that energy to confront the things you’ve postponed, avoided, or feared.
Your spirit speaks to you long before the world does. Before life changes on the outside, the message has already passed through you on the inside.