mckenzie

think. probe. reframe.

[Sir Dickson @Wizarab10]

INTERNATIONAL TWITTER MEN'S DAY

Inaugural Address - 9th April, 2021.

My fellow patriarchs:
I tweet here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the cosmic trust on our masculinity.

[Uncle Ruckus @Emarged]

Poverty is expensive. You pay more for credit, have fewer choices, struggle to access quality services, and often cannot afford the things that would make your life easier.

Being broke is not merely having less money. It often means paying a premium for being poor.

[Elnathan John @elnathan_john]

One of the reasons I stopped seriously writing satire is that I came to my own Peter Cook moment. Cook, the brightest of the British satire boom, watched the movement he helped build curdle into something he no longer recognized as resistance. He had once joked that his comedy club was modelled on the Berlin cabarets that did so much to stop the rise of Hitler — a joke that contained, even then, at least some admission of satire’s limits. By the mid-1960s, the joke had stopped being funny even to him. He said Britain was sinking, giggling into the sea. It was drowning in its own laughter, amused to the very end, entertained all the way to death.

There’s a sketch he wrote, less quoted than the line itself, where a group of young journalists who have sold their souls to a newspaper proprietor console themselves by sniggering at him behind their hands at his cocktail parties. A snigger here, a snigger there, one of them says, as if it adds up to something. It doesn’t.

It is important that he implies that a snigger isn’t a form of protest. It is what one turns to when one lacks the courage, or the institutional standing, or the political opening, to do anything else. It replaces the fight rather than starting one.

I had a very successful column, as well as multiple series in different satirical styles, from the How To series (which became a book), to my love letters to General Buhari. I enjoyed the task, and saw myself aspiring to be an heir to satirists like Peter Enahoro (Peter Pan) who wrote How To Be a Nigerian in the 1960s. But like Cook, I also saw that Nigerians were sinking giggling into the sea. I felt and still feel complicit in the facetious distractions and the trivialisation of crimes and dysfunction so bad Nigeria could be a ravaged war zone without any order or functional institutions. I always say that the effectiveness of satire is directly proportional to the ability of a society to feel shame. Nigeria is a post shame society. As we say, you cannot shame the shameless. What good is mockery of power when power is impervious to mockery? Where the mirror that you hold up to power is shattered beyond repair?

And so if you ask, when you criticise Nigerians making jokes at a time when the country is sinking, when people die daily at rates worthy of a war torn country, did you not do the same thing by writing a book of satire, the above is part of my response. I could of course try to distinguish my work from the banal humor in the skits that respond to the criminal actions and inaction of politicians, but that would be the easy answer.

Nigeria is at such a dangerous point that there is nothing to laugh about, even if the laughter directly mocks power.

[Osaretin Victor Asemota @asemota]

How do you get out of financial and economic doldrums?

I was reading this week about Uber CEO Dara's daily routine, and something hit me. He got Uber out of a slump by optimizing his lifestyle to do as much as possible to make this happen.

A lot of us would be in a financial slump, but instead of optimizing everything we have to get out of it, we either give excuses and distract ourselves or pray for miracles and helpers.

The first thing to ask yourself when you are in financial doldrums is whether you are healthy and functional. If you are healthy and functional, getting out becomes exponentially easier than you think. The worst place to be is broke and in poor health.

Once you have your health, check your relationships and friendships. Be brutally honest with those close to you about your situation and ask for advice on how to get out, rather than loans or handouts. The advice may also come with financial help to dig you out of the hole if you are lucky.

If you are unlucky, you will have a friend who stays at your house where you are broke and have no food, but goes out to buy a Pizza to eat, then comes back to you with one slice. This really happened to me. Avoid friends who arent useful.

The most important assets you have are your health, your sanity, and your skills. Don't start forcing yourself to learn new skills when you are desperate. Leverage your existing advantages first to achieve a basic level of stability before acquiring new ones.

I once was so broke that I started writing articles to make money to survive. A lot of clients owed me, and there were bills to pay from the little I had already made. I was left with nothing after the bills were settled. I decided to use what I had to get more, and nothing was too little. A hundred dollars a week when you are broke does wonders. The trick is not to get stuck in survival mode.

The biggest problem when coming out of financial doldrums is the comfort zone. People adapt too easily to survival mode, and they no longer lack the will to push further and beyond. You need motivation and reminders, something to look forward to.

I keep picturing my kids in expensive schools I paid for, and doing very well in life afterwards. It is not about my comfort but theirs; my early comfort today will deny them of theirs tomorrow.

Community is the most underrated wealth hack. A lot of people believe this trope of locking in and locking everyone out when the real thing you should do is to "Lock on" to your community. To get out of the doldrums, you need to lock on to a community that will get you out of it and even provide volunteer services to those who need it when necessary.

I have seen young people come to me with sob stories of how they are in despair, and I ask them what they can do for me, and they are lost. I have even given a few of them opportunities where they could not perform up to par. You also have to be honest with yourself about your capabilities and skills.

I was so annoyed by that young lady who was telling people to fake customers yesterday, because there are so many people available to help that you wouldn't need to fake anything. People pay me for consultation via @Calendly to help them today because I have volunteered and still volunteer to help a lot of people for free.

Doing that has helped me develop the skill of discernment and build a community I can leverage to help others. Most of the help I give people who book to speak with me is direction and connections with those who can help them further.

In summary, if you are well and alive, then get moving. Don't succumb to self-pity, and nothing is too small for you to make. Someone once paid me $50 at the right time, and it changed a lot of things for me. Optimize and grow from what you have and stop fantasizing about what you don't have yet, while still keeping a goal on the horizon.

Prayers work, but you also have to realize that good health and a sound mind is the answer to many prayers already.

[Sai Ishaya @Sai_Ishaya_]

I have learned over time that it is more important to thank and appreciate the people who show up for you than to worry or complain about those who don't. It is a better use of your energy and time, and it rewards and nurtures those relationships.

[Maxvayshia™ @maxvayshia]

Dear Ladies, there are some men who face the world with a ln overly competitive and insecure mindset. These men will do everything possible and impossible to make sure their woman does not “overtake” them in material success and popularity.

They would rather destroy that marriage or relationship and make life miserable for her.

So in your talking stage, ladies, not everything is billing and superficial talks about Netflix and chill or whatnot. Find out what he thinks about very successful partners, particularly ladies more successful than their spouses.

Listen very carefully to what he thinks about them. If he is not totally one to help his spouse touch the skies but gives very fantastic reasons why that couldn’t be a good idea, my sister, one advice from me (which you really don’t have to take) is….

R.U.N!!

Sip your wine/drink. Eat your Thai Rice and meat and let that be that last meeting between the two of you, if you love yourself and want a happy life. Cos if you allow emotions and superficiality rule you, YOU WILL SMELL PEPPER! 🌶️

[mckenzie @olalekangc]

@tobyasky Choose a better angle and place the ball. Baba wan tear net

[⭒˚ ☀︎.⋆ @khalifaslimxx]

You don’t solve poverty by teaching everyone to become millionaires. You solve poverty by building an economy where ordinary work can produce a decent life.

[Sam Otigba @SamuelOtigba]

Don’t die on your knees praying, get up and put your gifts and talents to work.

[Alex Onyia @winexviv]

One of the greatest tragedies of Nigerian society is how we have managed to turn honest labour into a source of shame.

In London, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada and other developed societies I have visited recently, a cleaner is not automatically considered inferior. A carpenter is a professional. A plumber is a skilled worker. A construction labourer is a productive member of society.

People earning minimum wage are not automatically stripped of their dignity.

You can meet a cleaner driving a beautiful car, living in a decent home and raising children with confidence. Not because every cleaner abroad is wealthy, but because society has built systems that give ordinary workers a better chance at a decent life.

Now come to Nigeria.

A cleaner is often treated as someone who has failed in life. A security guard can be insulted by someone whose only achievement is having more money. A carpenter is looked down upon until his services are urgently needed. Domestic workers are sometimes treated as though poverty has cancelled their humanity.

We have created a society where the dignity of a human being is increasingly measured by the size of their bank account, the car they drive, their job title and the people they know.

And this is destroying us.

The same Nigerian who respectfully greets a cleaner in London may return to Lagos or Abuja and humiliate someone doing exactly the same job.

What changed? The occupation or our mentality?

There is something fundamentally troubling about a society where the people who clean our hospitals, construct our homes, maintain our roads, protect our buildings and repair our infrastructure can work tirelessly and still struggle to afford the most basic necessities of life.

Meanwhile, we celebrate unexplained wealth and sometimes give more social recognition to people who produce absolutely nothing of value.

This is one of the contradictions we must confront if we genuinely want to build a civilized nation.

Civilization is not measured by the number of billionaires a country produces. It is also measured by how ordinary people are treated, how fairly productive work is rewarded and whether someone can earn an honest living without surrendering their dignity.

A country cannot develop sustainably when young people would rather appear wealthy than become productive because society respects the appearance of success more than the value of work.

The cleaner is not inferior to the banker. The carpenter is not inferior to the engineer. The labourer is not less human than the politician.

Their responsibilities, skills and earnings may differ, but their human dignity must never differ.

Nigeria must become a country where honest work pays enough to sustain a decent life, where vocational skills command respect and where no child grows up believing that becoming a cleaner, mechanic, farmer or artisan makes them a lesser human being.

The real disgrace is not earning a living by cleaning toilets. The real disgrace is building a society where someone who cleans toilets honestly cannot live with dignity, while someone who steals public money is celebrated.

Until we correct this mentality, we will continue producing a generation that worships wealth instead of productivity.

Is our biggest problem poverty, or have we also developed a culture that disrespects the very people whose labour keeps society functioning?

[mckenzie @olalekangc]

@sledge_baba Sledge baba, na you dey warn us, na you still dey fall victim 🤣

[nduka omeife @ndukaomeife]

Your attention is an asset.

Don't spend it carelessly.

[nduka omeife @ndukaomeife]

Gratitude for yesterday.

Faith for tomorrow.

Work for today.

[Oṣóyínká 🪔 @sledge_baba]

Let us get high and fall from the sky
Maybe we'll grow wings, maybe we won't...

[mckenzie @olalekangc]

@9ja_Ballers Greatest writer ever? I don't know. But I sure like Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Camus, Kant, and Thomas Paine

[nduka omeife @ndukaomeife]

You can be content and ambitious at the same time.

Content with your worth.

Ambitious about your potential.

[Ozedikus Nwanne @Ozedikus]

To check man phone na normal thing but to check pikin DNA na breach of trust

[Bayomi @SemudaraAbayomi]

Low quality problems everyday. If it’s not light, it’s network

[Name cannot be blank @hackSultan]

There’s a 90% chance you’ve not achieved even 10% of your potential yet. Better days are coming.

[mckenzie @olalekangc]

@tobyasky Nice list there, chief. What do you enjoy about Skelly's game?