DeFi lending is one of the most successful use cases in crypto, generating billions in volume and real revenue.
Yet, liquidity remains fragmented and difficult to access.
Soul Protocol was built to solve this. @0xSoulProtocol
gSoul
Nigeria currently owes the World Bank $19.8 billion in sovereign debt.
Part of the mandatory conditions attached to these loans includes the total removal of fuel and energy subsidies, the systematic underfunding of public education and healthcare, aggressive interest rate hikes, predatory tax reforms, currency devaluations and public sector downsizing. . . 1/n
In 1975, Nigeria built Okomu Oil: a massive, state-funded agricultural manufacturing giant spanning over 15,000+ hectares of fertile land in Edo State. It was erected as a state-owned industrial powerhouse, fully equipped with modern power turbines, advanced palm oil processing mills, paved road networks, storage facilities, and fully built staff housing estates, meticulously designed to print money for the national treasury.
In the 1980s, the global crude oil market crashed, and the Nigerian military government under General Ibrahim Babangida panicked and ran straight to the World Bank and the IMF for emergency loans. The bailout was provided to Nigeria, but it came with devastating, non-negotiable Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) which strictly mandated Nigeria to aggressively privatize, dismantle, and sell off over 100 state-owned enterprises.
In 1990, Nigeria formally auctioned off Okomu Oil Palm to Western corporate oligarchs for pennies on the dollar. Today, Okomu Oil Palm Plc operates as a literal money-printing machine listed on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX), generating tens of billions of Naira in clear net profits every single year from Nigerian soil, Nigerian sunshine, and cheap Nigerian labor.
But the vast majority of those massive, astronomical dividend payouts are wired straight out of Nigeria into a corporate bank account in Luxembourg.
Privilege is such an interesting thing I often find myself thinking about. We do not ask for the life we have, and that is why I'm very mindful of it. You often find it a lot in my writing.
Last week, my cleaner told me on Monday(2 days ago) was her birthday. I asked her what age we are celebrating and she said 33. Epiphany hit me that my agemate is my cleaner. I wore a wry smile as I nodded my head and told her to remind me on Monday so she could get her gift.
I then went to my room to deal with the epiphany of privilege. In another universe, that could easily have been me.
The most useful political statement I have ever read was this simple quote from Chairman Mao: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun".
Everything else is just a series of fantasies and illusions that people sell themselves so they can sleep well at night. Whatever style of government you pretend to have, it is always underwritten by men with guns, and its stability always ultimately comes down to what the men with guns choose to do.
Your "democracy" is a children's fairy tale you tell yourself to make the world more palatable - it is men with guns that enforce and implement decisions, and it is men with guns that will escort you into a police car, a courtroom or a prison if you choose not to obey whatever instruction you have received.
Your "theocracy" is a lie because God has no power to make you do anything without the men with guns making you carry out his will. Mecca and Jerusalem are the 2 allegedly holiest in the world, and they're both filled with men with guns, purportedly carrying out the will of God.
Every type of human society is held together by men with guns. A good society is one where the interests of the men with guns align with those of the people without guns, and a bad society is one where the men with guns live parasitically off the people without guns.
ALL societies are dictatorships of men who control the guns. Some just include a whole lot of extra steps to obfuscate that basic fact. I personally prefer the societies where the men with the guns do not hide their control and their interests align with those who do not have guns.
Growing up is realising that "democracy" is like Santa Claus. It's a story told for 5 year-olds to feel involved in the world's decision making. You didn't put Tinubu, Trump or Macron in power with your "vote" you fucking peasant.
Africans Learn from Iran. You don’t have to like them but learn from them.
Libya gave up its nuclear dreams and America leveled it to rubbles
Ukraine’s shook hands with America and it’s in shambles
Eritrea dared to develop, they got cut off from the outside world by America
But a few things you must learn from Iran
Educate your people on everything, from history to warfare to nuclear
Teach your people to survive any form of hardship
Zero dependence on the west
Build a force so strong, only a foolish America will attempt to fight you and fail
Be armed to the teeth like Russia
Never give up you nuclear dreams.
Build your own payment systems.
Build your own network systems
Send anyone who doesn’t understand national interest back to God
Country first, everything else comes second- religion, tribe, ideologies, opinions. Country first.
İran Dışişleri Bakanı Abbas Arakçi:
“Mısır, Süveyş Kanalı'ndan her geçiş için 200.000 ile 700.000 dolar arasında ücret alıyor; büyük konteyner gemileri veya tankerler için bu rakam 1 milyon doları aşabiliyor.
Türkiye, İstanbul Boğazı için geçiş ücreti alıyor.
Kanada, St. Lawrence Deniz Yolu için ücret alıyor.
Panama, her geçişten 100.000 ile 450.000 dolar arası ücret tahsil ediyor; büyük Neopanamax gemilerinin Panama Kanalı'ndan geçiş maliyeti 500.000 doları buluyor.
Amerika Birleşik Devletleri, St. Lawrence Deniz Yolu için ücret alıyor.
İran ise onlarca yıldır Hürmüz Boğazı için ücret almayı reddetti. Geçişleri ücretsiz hale getirdi! Maruz kaldığı tüm karalamalara, yaptırımlara ve izolasyona rağmen bunu yaptı. Ve hâlâ buradaki "kötü adamın" İran olduğuna inanmamı mı bekliyorsunuz?”
Here is what I actually cannot explain:
The year is 2003.
The United States invades Iraq on the basis of "weapons of mass destruction" that do not exist.
This is not a matter of interpretation. It is documented.
The intelligence was manipulated.
The case was fabricated.
The people who fabricated it knew it was fabricated.
Some of them have said so, on record, in memoirs that were reviewed positively in the same newspapers that helped sell the war.
One million people died.
The country was destroyed. The infrastructure, the institutions, the social fabric.
ISIS emerged from the power vacuum.
The region destabilized in ways still producing casualties today.
Not one person went to prison.
The architects of the decision became senior fellows at think tanks.
They wrote books.
They appeared on television as "serious foreign policy voices."
Some of them are now presented as "voices of reason" in the anti-Trump discourse.
And the next time the same government, with many of the same institutional actors, said there was a foreign threat that required military response, a significant portion of the population believed them.
That is what I cannot explain.
Not the lie.
Governments lie.
The bottomless, renewable, apparently inexhaustible willingness to be lied to again.
Everyone else has their struggle and nobody asks them to dilute it so that other people can feel included. There are West Asian struggles, South Asian struggles, Pacific Islander struggles, East Asian struggles, Latin American struggles, Balkan struggles, Australian aboriginal struggles, Native American struggles and Central Asian struggles.
They are all allowed to exist and breathe independently. Nobody ever accused those struggles of taking anything away from a wider socialist struggle.
Only when it comes to the African struggle must we be constantly lectured about why we must accommodate this or that group of virulently anti-black people in our African struggle, or else we will split this or that movement - allowances that literally nobody in the history of the planet has ever made for us.
Look, we know that there is a global anti-imperial struggle that links all our struggles, and we know the shared history we have with the likes of Cuba, Palestine, China, Russia etc. Nobody is going to make us stop collaborating with those whose partnerships have been mutually beneficial.
But nobody is going to convince me that I should not focus on creating the same moat and ringfence that everybody else enjoys. Everyone else on earth has nationalism as an intrinsic feature of their struggle without anyone making faces at them for it - why is it Africa that must dissolve itself into some formless global "working class" kumbaya fantasy that clearly nobody else subscribes to? Why must we be the test subjects for what nobody else is willing to do?
Why are black people always held to ideological standards that nobody else is held to? Why didn't Mao or Lenin organise their revolutions around this amorphous "global proletariat"? Why did they build strong nation states instead? Who dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan? Was it the "capitalist ruling class" that developed the bomb and flew the plane to drop it over Hiroshima, or did it use the air force of the United States Military to do that? Why does it need the apparatus of a nation state to impose its will on the world?
Why is this "capitalist ruling class" never able to impose its will anywhere except where it controls the levers of the state? Why have the only successful attempts to oppose this "capitalist ruling class" taken place through a powerful, well organised nation state acting in opposition? Why has all the world's "working class solidarity" not been able to stop innocent Palestinians from being exploded into bits with their families, but it is the IRGC and the well organised, industrial nation-state of Iran that has been able to stop a similar fate from befalling Iranian people?
If nationalism is just a bourgeiosie idea to serve local elites, then why does the "capitalist ruling class" invest billions of dollars every year on secessionist movements and rebel armies aiming to break up nation-states? If African nationalism represents a less important goal than this hypothetical global socialist utopia, then why do the powerful states controlled by the "capitalist ruling class" work so hard to kill or silence every single notable person who pushes African nationalism?
Why did they kill Patrice Lumumba? Why was Kwame Nkrumah overthrown after several failed attempts on his life? Why have there been multiple French-backed attempts on Ibrahim Traore's life? Why did they ignore Gadaffi for decades but the minute he paid for Africa's first communications satellite and put down Libyan state money to fund African replacements for the IMF and World Bank, plus gold reserves to back a continental currency - the things needed to unite Africa into a sovereign, continental nation-state - they immediately rushed every asset they had into Libya and didn't stop until they had him on video being anally raped with a knife on CNN? Why did they take down African Stream?
The STATE is the biggest asset and weapon that can be wielded by any group of people. If you have a state that is organised enough, you can go from a small island in the Atlantic to an empire covering two-thirds of the world. If you have a state that is organised enough, you can resist that empire and its successor, and prevent your people from becoming imperial roadkill. The entire reason why Africa is in its current situation is precisely because it has NO STATE, and its ability to create one is being actively sabotaged on a daily and ongoing basis, including through funding ideological subversion to convince Africans that there is an alternative to developing serious state capacity, either through Frank Zanu/Magatte Wade-style capitalism-raises-the-dead nonsense, or through woolly-headed Supermarxist trash.
Anybody who tells me as an African that I should devote my energy to chasing some formless, utopian "global proletariat revolution" instead of building a pragmatic, Chinese/Russian/Iranian/North Korean-style political revolution that births an industrial African state with the power to feed and defend itself, is just as useless to me as Magatte Wade telling me that the solution to my problems is to sell part of my country to Peter Thiel and gratefully let the new sovereign Epstein Island douse me with its hot, steaming American capitalism.
I will focus on Pan-Africanism and sovereignism. Africa will always come first for me before any of your other -isms. Anyone who doesn't like it, that's too bad. I didn't write the rules and I'm simply doing the same thing everybody else on this planet does - looking out for me and my own first. I'm not interested in being percecived as morally 'better' than anybody. That 'better' shit is what got my ancestors colonised and that's why I'm a black West African who speaks English and answers to "David" today. We don't repeat our ancestors' mistakes here.
In the everlasting words of Fela Kuti, TEACHER DON'T TEACH ME NONSENSE.
I think what motivational speakers got wrong was thinking that success comes from the mind.
It is a lie; it actually comes from the nervous system.
The best way to understand this concept is being with someone that was sexually abused. They love you - but whenever you initiate intimacy they clamp up.
...or if you get in a relationship with someone that dated a cheating person who emotionally abused them; they know you are not like that other person - but they suspect your every movement.
Their MIND tells them you are safe, but their nervous system does not allow them to believe it. So they are more likely to spy on your phone and suspect your every move till the point where they get irritating and make you breakup.
This happens because the job of the nervous system is to keep you safe, and the way it does this is to put you in an enviroment that is familiar. This is why a woman who dated bad boys all her life is mostly so because her dad was abusive to the mum. It is familiar terroritory for them.
So their nervous syste, associate the calm loving man as unfamiliar, and people move away from the unfamiliar.
i knew one that even called her boyfriend weak because he doesn't push her around when she walks over him.
This is exactly what affects people when they want to get ahead in life financially; i have seen people make money and blow it so they can go back to the struggle phase.
When things are working they are worried and scared because their nervous system is familiar to survival mode and scarcity, so they begin to get ready for when things will go wrong -
Sometimes they even actively sabotage it, and may even over spend and blow their money. Their nervous system is not used to holding money.
and because they are focused on things going wrong, instead of how to expand - things eventually go wrong. Because that fear stops them from scaling things.
Your thoughts become flesh.
The best way to cure scarcity ingrained nervous system is to put yourself in abundance; be friends with people that have abundance, the moment you start making money spend to network, join clubs and masterminds, go to where rich people come to hang out.
The more familiar your nervous system views abundance, the calmer it gets.
They will Tell you that Africa, Haiti, and all these dark nations are shithole countries but they will never tell you that they killed anyone who tried to fix it.
A CAUTIONARY TALE!!!
One question I’ve been asked a lot over the past couple of weeks has been this: “So what can we do?”
I want to believe it’s not for lack of ideas on what is required that some people ask this. Mostly it’s a resignation to the inevitable. That underlying belief that “this is beyond us.” But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
And I say this because I’m a student of history who likes to believe that the past always has a way of repeating itself.
Let me take you to Romania and the Romanian Revolution of 1989, which successfully toppled the corrupt dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu.
Ceaușescu’s oppressive rule had plunged the country into severe poverty while the elite lived in luxury. The uprising was marked by a sudden, powerful unification of the Romanian people and ended the country’s communist era.
But what led to this revolution in the first place? Why did the people eventually decide to put their skin in the game and break free from their captivity?
It all began in December 1989 in the western city of Timișoara. Protests broke out after the government attempted to forcibly remove a local evangelical pastor, László Tőkés, who had criticized the regime. Citizens united to defend him, and these demonstrations quickly swelled into massive, citywide anti-government protests. When security forces opened fire and killed dozens of civilians, public anger reached a tipping point.
Despite tight government censorship and control, news of the violence in Timișoara spread across the entire country. Within days, the movement unified a diverse cross-section of Romanian society. Workers, students, intellectuals, and eventually the military joined forces. Millions of everyday citizens abandoned their jobs and took to the streets to demand the removal of the regime.
So, did it work? Well, Ceaușescu initially thought he had it under control, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.
On December 21, 1989, he organized a large public rally in Bucharest, intending to project an image of control and unity. Instead, the crowd turned on him, and the live broadcast captured the moment the dictator lost the support of the public. The following day, protesters occupied the Communist Party headquarters, forcing Ceaușescu and his wife to flee by helicopter. The military, which had defected to the side of the people, captured them shortly after.
On December 25, 1989, following a hasty trial, the Ceaușescus were convicted of crimes including genocide and corruption, and were executed by firing squad.
All this happened in less than 25 days.
While the Cold War environment shaped the geopolitical outcome, the boots on the ground belonged to everyday Romanian citizens risking their lives.
This is the story of Romania. But they were not alone.
Poland (1989). Decades of economic stagnation and strikes triggered the peaceful collapse of the regime just months before Romania’s uprising.
Czechoslovakia (1989). The movement known as the Velvet Revolution, led by Václav Havel and student groups, brought the government to its knees.
East Germany (1989). Huge weekly demonstrations (such as the Monday demonstrations in Leipzig) overwhelmed the state, leading directly to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
The Philippines (1986). Millions of citizens took to the streets, and a crucial defection by the military helped topple the corrupt, long-standing dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
All of these happened during the Cold War era, but the pattern holds.
A people pushed to the wall always fight back. Except of course for the exception in West Africa.
As a student of history, I like to think about things like this while asking the pertinent question: if freedom is not given, how do oppressed people become free?
The future is a blank canvas. Whatever you choose to write on it will depend on you.
Once you learn how to shop directly from China, E.g Temù or shien your wardrobe changes completely. Call me cheap I don't care I ain't rich, I don't do fraud.😭
It's knowing what to search for.
Here's my style after making plenty of mistakes.
1. T-shirts:
Skip 100% polyester unless you're buying gym wear.
Instead, search:
• 100% Cotton
• Combed Cotton
• Heavyweight Cotton
• 240-300 GSM Cotton
• Premium Cotton
• Mercerized Cotton
The heavier the GSM, the thicker and more premium the shirt usually feels.
2. Jeans:
Denim Jeans
Temu is surprisingly good for denim if you know what to search.
Search:
• Denim Jeans
• Cotton Denim
• Raw Denim
• Selvedge Denim (if available)
• 98% Cotton + 2% Elastane
• 99% Cotton
Avoid jeans with high polyester content. The more cotton, the better they'll age and feel.
3. Body-hug clothing:
Search:
• Ribbed Knit
• Modal
• Viscose Blend
• Cotton-Spandex Blend
They hold their shape much better than cheap polyester.
4. Hoodies
Search:
• 400 GSM
• French Terry
• Cotton Fleece
• Heavyweight Hoodie
5. Chains
Search:
• 316L Stainless Steel
• Titanium Steel
• PVD Gold Plated
• Vacuum Plated
These are far more resistant to fading than ordinary fashion jewelry.
6. Earrings
Search:
• 925 Sterling Silver
• 316L Stainless Steel
• Hypoallergenic
• Moissanite (if you're buying stones)
7. Scarves
Search:
• Mulberry Silk
• Silk Blend
• Cashmere Blend
• Wool Blend
• Viscose
Avoid the shiny, thin polyester scarves if you're after a premium look.
8. Loafers
Search:
• Genuine Leather
• Cow Leather
• Full Grain Leather (rare but worth looking for)
• Rubber Outsole
9. Sneakers
Search:
• Rubber Outsole
• EVA Midsole
• Breathable Mesh
• Leather Upper
• Stitched Sole
Pictures lie a lot
The description usually tells the truth.
Here's how I shop:
1. Read the material composition before anything else.
2. Sort by Most Orders or Best Selling, not cheapest.
3. Only buy products with lots of reviews or pictures or even better when a Nigerian has purchased it before they always tell the truth.
4. Read the 1-star reviews first. They'll tell you what the seller won't.
5. Look at customer photos, not the product photos.
6. Check the weight of the product. Better quality clothing is often heavier.
7. Read the size chart. Don't assume your Nigerian size matches.
8. If the title has words like "luxury," "premium," or "designer" but the material is 100% polyester, not everything but still move on.
Your best friend isn't the product picture.
It's the material, the reviews, and the customer photos.
That's how you separate the gems from the junk.
I hope this help.
Things are to expensive for a country this poor.
Oyinbo go whine you, but mafo.
They told you that Africans were savages. They lied; they were (and still are).
They told you our societies were ridden with diseases. They lied; theirs were (and still are).
They told you we had high infant mortality rates before they came. They lied. They did.
They told you we lived in unsanitary conditions before they came. They lied. It was them.
They told you we had no history or writing before they came. They lied.
They told you we were technologically backward before they came. They lied; our blacksmiths made high-grade steel while they were still figuring it out.
They told you we lived in stateless chaos before they came. They lied.
They told you we were isolated from the world before they came. They lied. We traded with India and China long before we saw them.
They told you we didn't know how to farm our land before they came. They lied. It was our farming knowledge that kept us and our soil alive.
They told us we are Neanderthals. They lied: they are.
The lies they told themselves to justify the evils they did and continue to do are the same lies we have learnt to internalize about ourselves.
But you, my dear friend, must unlearn the lies, and relearn the truth about yourself and your heritage.
Because, though they never left, they're coming back again.
The obsession of some leftists with textbook dogma instead of material reality is annoying.
Because if you lift your nose up from Das Kapital for one minute you'll realize that textbook communist dogma in Nigeria dissolves like piss in a pond the moment it touches reality.
You want to tell a poor Yoruba market woman in Oshodi to rise up against Otedola and Tinubu because something something "they are your enemies" something something.
You want them to ignore daddy Adeboye's latest warning that anybody preaching the things you're telling her is satanic and wants to prevent her from reaching heaven.
You want them to put aside their lifelong prejudice against "omo yibo" and "awon Fulani yen" to organize with you to Aso Rock screaming at the top of their lungs.
Mr. Man you are wasting your bloodydamn time.
NIGERIANS DO NOT HAVE THE FOUNDATIONS FOR CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS.
A destitute slippers repairer in Yobe will side with Mallam Yobe senator that used his 2026 Escalade to splash mud water on him before he joins your hammer and sickle club.
If you like don't treat Nigerians like they're retarded (we are), and impose your nationalist ideas on them like a parent force feeding a child crucial medicine, you will see shege. You will cry blood.
The only way we're making it out the 2030s is if a team of patriots seize power and whip the rest of the country in line, Stalin style.
Fuck the proletariat.
They're dumb fucks (including me), and are collectively too stupid to count to two.
The masses will find a way hang themselves if you give them half a yard of rope without supervision.
I'm from the South South and I know what I am saying.
My people will frustrate your life and can even threaten to kill you if you try to build public infrastructure in rural areas without greasing the palms of every tribal leader lucid enough to wear a cheap iron crown.
If you want to build a free water pump you must bribe like 5 egbon adugbos and two chiefs.
These bumbling idiots don't give an ounce of a shit about your class consciousness.
The people you want them to see as enemies are the people they aspire to be like.
Good luck trying to convince a random Ijaw villager to revolt against Asari Dokubo.
UNTIL YOU CHANGE the material realities of Nigerians, you have ZERO hope of getting them to organize around anything.
They will just fuck things up.
So you have to force them to be sensible.
End of my disjointed rant.
How you help yourself to "let go" of this "freedom" illusion that has been successfully sold to you by Hollywood and US-funded media and civil society is to ask yourself a few important questions:
What exactly is "freedom"? Is "freedom" the ability to thumbprint on a ballot paper that will be tippexed at the collation centre with your vote given to APC regardless of who you voted for?
Is "freedom" the ability to make social media skits insulting your president that was imposed on you by a foreign power even though nobody voted for him?
Is "freedom" the ability to rant endlessly on Twitter about your "bad leaders", knowing fully well that you are just wasting English and kilobytes to no end whatsoever?
Joseph Stalin once said “It is difficult for me to imagine what "personal liberty" is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment. Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.”
I think that's a much more constructive way of viewing "freedom." Poor, deprived, uneducated people are not, and can never be "free" in any meaningful sense. What use are my "constitutional freedoms" if my stomach is empty? If my stomach and my brain are empty, I am automatically a slave to whoever can put bread in my belly and information in my head - and that person automatically has the power to turn me into a weapon fashioned against myself and those around me. In that situation, which describes most of modern Africa, can you describe me as "free"?
"Democracy" and "freedom" are some of oyibo's most dangerous linguistic weapons when used in the context of people living on a per capita income of less than $3,000/year. Where are you likelier to live a full, happy life - Nigeria or China? Nigeria supposedly has the "democracy" that China doesn't - why are Nigerians leaving that "freedom" and migrating to China for a better life, instead of the other way around? Why do North Koreans have a life expectancy that is over 20 years longer than Nigerians? Why do the Vietnamese have much better lives than most Nigerians who have ever existed?
All of the years you have spent thumbprinting ballot papers for candidates that the US embassy will never allow to win, China has been doing 5-year plans and becoming the world's greatest country.