It was great joining Njideka Akunyili Crosby — a gifted Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist — to unveil our first portrait together. This piece reflects so many chapters of Michelle and my story, and we’re thrilled that it will be on display in the Hope and Change lobby at the Obama Presidential Center starting this Juneteenth.
Barack and I were so honored to have @AkunyiliCrosby create our portrait for the Obama Presidential Center. Her artistic brilliance shines through — and the way she infused such life and joy into the piece is truly extraordinary. We love it, and we think everyone who visits the Center will too!
I am retired now, and last year I thought, I would go home and just chill for a couple of months. It was rough. I do go home every now and then, but I'd never stayed this long.
I should have planned the trip better. I have been away for almost 44 years, and my system has been used to a certain planet. Everything about and in me was stressed. Nigeria is a different planet.
I did not attempt to replicate my comfort and lifestyle that I enjoy in the US. I stayed in rough and tumble places. It's hard if you do that. It's tough to think, to function, you are swamped with trying to make it through the day, seeing as you are deprived of what are basic services back in the US.
Light, water, good roads, security, they are luxuries there. I have said this before, in Nigeria, no matter how wealthy you are, you are basically poor. Things need to change in Nigeria, the place needs a hard reset and a Marshall plan to replace the inchoate and decaying infrastructure and services. I stayed the entire two months, I was too lazy to try to change my flight, I would have done so.
Would I go back? Absolutely. This time, I'll simply pay for comfort, I am too old to immerse myself in the drama of incompetence. I'll go back for the spirit and the camaraderie. My friends and relatives were incredibly generous and I did not lack, but I could tell they were struggling to keep up with my spiritual, emotional and physical needs. America had defanged me and I could no longer thrive in Nigeria's jungle. Our leaders and their enabler-intellectuals should be lined up and taught a lesson, if you know what I mean. Disgraceful lot.
Sadly, there is no sugarcoating it, Nigeria is in very bad shape. And I speak from professional experience having worked with municipal government in the US for decades. Any attempt to gloss over the mess that is Nigeria is not merely dishonest, it is cruel.
Nigeria needs a cultural and structural reset, one that this version of "democracy" cannot offer. Nigerians have no idea how badly they are being governed. And you don't have to go to the West to see that. Just go next door, to an African country. It's so sad. The two months I spent there, I lost total respect for our politicians and their enabler-intellectuals. They are all grifters.
It has been reported that Governor Alex Oti of Abia State has named the Umuahia Bus Terminal in Abia State after Prof Mrs Nnenna Oti, the returning officer of the Governorship election of Abia State in the 2023, through which Gov Alex Otti became Governor of Abia State. Be it noted that Prof Oti and Dr Alex Otti are not related from my understanding. So the decision of Prof Oti not to allow herself to be compromised was not based on any percuniary interests.
Now electoral integrity is the cornerstone of democratic growth and development. Going by Dr Alex Otti wonderfull performance as Governor of Abia State, Abians must be grateful to Prof Nnenna Oti's uncompromising principle not to compromise electoral processes that brought Dr Alex Otti to power in Abia State.
I am not from Abia and I am not spokes person of Abia State. That said I am a Nigerian who believes in uncompromising integrity and honesty of purpose for the greatest good of the vast majority of Nigerians. I equally belives that good govenance is the governance that produces results that are visible for all to see. It is a notorious fact that Dr Alex Otti has done marvelously well so far that he does not need to campaign for his return to power in 2027.
I have always said that any government that struggles to advertise its achievements on the pages of newspapers and electronic media with pictorial evidence is a failed govenment. Governamental successes are visible, permanent and enduring for ordinary people to see. The successes of Dr Alex Otti as governor of Abia State are visible even to the blind. The deaf can hear it and feel it.
The production of Dr Alex Otti as Governor of Abia State in 2023 was made possible by the uncompromising refusal of Prof Nnenna Oti, not to compromise the integrity of that election. She did not give in to threats and intimidations to announce fake results as many would have done. She did not compromise integrity and truth for temporary gains. She was firm and stood her grounds.
There are many Dr Alex Ottis that were not allowed to assume power in government houses in may states in Nigeria because of crooked and corrupt infested professors who for a pot of porridge subverted the will of the people and impossed on Nigerians many unproductive governors whose only stock in trade in governance is to steal and destroy the future of Nigerians for their selfish reasons.
When Prof Attahiru Jega introduced the concept of professors as returniting officers in our electoral processes, it was reasoned rightly in my view that these professors will add colour to electoral integrity and will not announced concocted results. But the realitities on ground suggest otherwise. Many of these professors turned blind eyes to electoral malfeasances and announced results that we not based on real outcome of the decisions of the people.
As one writer on social media platform rightly put it: "Mrs Oti is a shining example of what an academic should be in character. The Nigerian university system has produced in great number,men and women who bear the title of professor but are not better than motor park urchins in character: all they need to change election results or accept doctored results is money. Indeed,some of them are in prison for this while some are in prison for raping girls. What a shame.Imagine the difference wrought in Abia for the singular reason that Mrs Oti resisted election riggers! It shows Nigeria's potential may have been imprisoned by Nigerian professors who take peanuts and rig elections for crooked politicians. people".
What else can I add than to thank and congratulate Prof Mrs Nnenna Oti for standing tall where other professors fell flat at the sight of Naira and Dollars. Dr Alex Otti thank you too for recognising integrity. Nigeria will only be better if integrity, honesty and truth become the guiding principle of those entrusted with public duties as done by Prof Nnenna Oti. God bless Prof Oti. Dr Alex Otti thank you.
A note before I start. I am Catholic, and the Papal encyclical I reference shapes how I read this moment. I am not asking anyone to share my opinions or my beliefs. I am explaining how I see things.
The Pope just preserved many jobs and created many new job openings through the conversation around the encyclical - Magnifica Humanitas, his first encyclical. It is long, and I am still reading it.
The line that stays with me is his predecessor Leo XIII's response to objections that the Church should focus on eternal life rather than worldly matters. He said the proclamation of the Gospel cannot overlook the concrete lives of people. Leo XIV is making the same argument now, about AI.
I once had to give a presentation on behalf of the Nigerian Society for Corporate Governance to an audience of Nigerian directors and senior management in 2024. They were not fully sold on the impact of AI. A lot has changed in two years.
The transformative effect of AI will be felt not just in this era but for generations. The Church is worried for good reason. AI could alter the nature of society itself.
AI Ethics and Governance have moved from "nice to have" afterthoughts to imperatives if societies and organizations are going to survive and thrive. AI is shifting from a productivity tool to an adversarial and manipulative product.
Someone wrote this on Twitter: "Gunpowder used to be for entertainment, then it was used to kill. Drones used to be for entertainment, then they were used to kill. AI is used for entertainment."
Even in corporations, when AI is positioned as an augmentation tool rather than a means of labor replacement, organizations fail when they measure adoption rather than outcomes. Several large enterprise coding tool rollouts this year have shown exactly this pattern.
As the encyclical insists, the priority is to build a more human society rather than allow a few powerful people to use AI to destroy the social fabric we once knew.
The global policy contrast is now sharp. Chinese courts have begun ruling that companies cannot terminate employees solely to replace them with AI, though the mechanism is driven more by state direction than by worker dignity. The United States has no coherent worker doctrine, and its major AI labs are priced as if labor displacement is the business model. Europe has a doctrine but no platforms at scale. Africa has neither.
Africa has the largest number of young people entering the job market globally. Yet conversations and policies on the impact of AI on Africa and African jobs are still not taken seriously at the highest levels.
The African Union's continental AI strategy has existed on paper since 2024, but most member states have not operationalized it. Meanwhile, the slavery already inside the AI supply chain is African. Kenyan data workers sued OpenAI in 2023 over content moderation conditions that left some with diagnosed PTSD. Documented data labeling rates across the continent have been reported well below local minimum wages. The harms are not theoretical or future; they are here.
The goal should be to improve our societies by creating greater abundance for everyone. That means both increased capacity and full employment. They are not mutually exclusive. Africa needs both.
Three things make the math in Africa different from that in the West. Demand is not saturated; it is suppressed. The continent has doctor-to-patient ratios at fractions of WHO minimums, class sizes that swallow up learning, agricultural extension reach in single digits, and legal services most adults will never access. We have major problems with scale and access.
Many of the processes and workstreams needed in Africa to create more employment have yet to be developed. There is no scaled health insurance infrastructure to disrupt in most countries, no mass legal services market to compress, no formalized tutoring industry to replace.
The demographic math runs the opposite way from the West. Africa is adding roughly fifteen to twenty million people to the workforce every year through 2050. Aging Europe needs AI to cover work that fewer workers can do. Young Africa needs AI to create the work that more workers want to do. This will also help rebalance the migration equation.
The thesis, however, holds only if the value capture is local. If foreign AI platforms serve African demand without local workforce participation, capacity expands, but employment does not. You get extraction, not absorption.
Closing that gap requires policy. Local data sovereignty. Local language coverage as a structural moat. Regulatory requirements that AI deployment include local workforce participation. This is why the doctrine gap matters more than the platform gap, and why the policy work has to start now rather than later.
The narrow goal of profitability, which treats humans as expendable tools, is not the model we should import. This should be our priority in Africa, and we should be actively working towards how these new technologies can help us achieve it. The encyclical gives that work cover. The Catholic church is a major global institution lending its voice to this debate. The question is whether the continent's boardrooms, capitals, and policy desks will pick it up.
You slept last night and woke up on your comfy bed this morning.
But some little children in Esinele Oyo state slept in a bush with mosquitoes and sandflies feasting on them all night
Those children are suffering today because some non living things are supporting Tinubu.
During the Buhari administration, Tinubu was tongue-tied about attacks on Yoruba communities in Oyo and neighbouring SW states, believed to have been carried out by Fulani militias.
In one instance, he cast doubt on the abduction and murder of the child of a prominent Yoruba personality saying: "Where are the cows".
He did this, and in fact, excused the attacks in some instances, because he feared that if he spoke about the growing abductions and killings of own people it would be construed as antagonistic to the touchy cabal in-charge of the Buhari administration and thus may jeopardise his chances of succeeding Buhari.
So, I am not surprised that his supporters (many of them Yorubas) are also quiet about the terrifying Orire school abductions and murder.
I've been reading about Hannibal and Scipio. Hannibal was arguably the greatest battlefield tactician who ever lived — and he lost to a man who studied him obsessively, mapped his constraints, and refused to bluff. Scipio did the unglamorous work. He war-gamed every scenario. Then he executed.
I went through a humiliating episode recently.
I walked into a high-stakes situation overconfident about where the challenge would come from. I was wrong. They came from angles I hadn't prepared for, and I knew it in the room.
No amount of composure covers that gap when it opens up. It stung. But it taught me something I thought I already knew. Confidence is not a strategy. Making the unknown well known is.
Most people rely on bluff and bluster because deep preparation is harder than it looks. I've been guilty of that too.
The reminder I'm carrying forward: study the full terrain, not just the parts you're comfortable in. Scenario-plan rigorously. And whatever you learn — put it into practice. Knowledge you don't use is just decoration.
Grand strategy isn't only for war. It's for every room you walk into.
1. Governor Abdulrazaq wants to go to Senate.
2. Governor Uzodinma wants to return to Senate.
3. Governor Buni wants to go to Senate.
4. Governor Abiodun wants to go to Senate.
5. Governor Sule wants to go to Senate.
6. Governor Fintiri wants to go to Senate.
7. Former governor Wamakko wants to return to Senate.
8. Former governor Goje wants to return to Senate.
9. Governor Mohammed wants to return to Senate.
10. Former governor Amosun wants to return to Senate.
11. Former governor Yahaya Bello wants to go to Senate.
12. Former governor Okowa wants to return to Senate.
13. Former governor Daniel wants to return to Senate.
14. Former governor Abu Lolo wants to return to Senate.
15. Former governor Dankwambo wants to return to Senate.
16. Former governor Kalu wants to return to Senate.
17. Former governor Tambuwal wants to return to Senate.
18. Former governor Ortom wants to go to Senate.
19. Former governor Aliero wants to return to Senate.
20. Former governor Yari wants to return to Senate.
21. Former governor Lalong wants to return to Senate.
22. Former governor Nyame wants to go to Senate and others...
Where is the place for the 'Youths' the so called Leaders of tomorrow?
Elected under Labour Party for Enugu South-Urban State Assembly.
Sent to Prison immediately he was sworn in as a representative.
His Crime is where he comes from. They tagged him “osu” and the fact that an “osu” will never win an election in a local government where former Governor Jim Nwobodo and Former Senate President Ken Nnamani hails from.
Every Judge that stood in his case has washed hands off one’s it’s time for judgement.
It’s a case of political witch-hunt and everyone in Enugunis scared of the case because the Governor is directly involved.
The Chief Judge of the state is equally compromised and has failed woefully in administering judgement.
Barrister Bright Ngene has been at Enugu Prisons for 3 years now for a bailable offence. NBA tried to intervene but they developed cold feet. I guess @ChidiOdinkalu once tried but nothing because it’s political.
Tyranny is the new norm in Enugu State and we must collectively end it.
Meet Barr Sunday Umeha, currently representing Ezeagu/Udi Federal Constituency.
He won his seat riding the Peter Obi and Obidients'wave in 2023 under LP.
Thereafter baba defected to APC.
APC has refused him the return ticket.
Now he's seeking the NDC ticket.
Enugu Obidients it's over to you.
Make una put film for am
This is Dr. KC Izuogo from Dept of Mass Communication at Abia State University.
He is very corrupt and wicked to students.
He teachers “Introduction to Advertising “.
Students must buy his handout for N5,000 and also sort the course with N20,000. If you don’t do it, you must fail the course.
Government should investigate him thoroughly now.
All evil lectures destroying our education system will be exposed and jailed.
They are the major causes of low quality graduates in our society today.
Abia State University corruption is so deep.
Here is the strategy lecturers use in extorting their students.
They hire course reps as agents. The course reps communicates to students via WhatsApp to pay for their "prayer point" or "work with".
These are code names used for handout and sorting.
Students are forced to pay for handouts and also pay for sorting in most courses otherwise they will not pass exams even if they get everything correct.
The monies are paid in cash only through the course reps that gets their own commissions.
Some lectures there also do sex for grades.
These practises are the reasons we have low quality graduates in our universities.
If you can pay to get good grades, why then should you study?
These same set of lecturers will be hired by INEC to be your returning offices in 2027 election. Then you wonder why Nigeria is not moving forward.
We need to dismantle that criminality in our universities now and save Nigeria's future.
PUBLIC APPEAL.
EVERY MOMENT MATTERS, HELP FIND EUNICE AMEH.
I deeply express my concern over the unfortunate disappearance of Miss Eunice Ameh, who was reportedly last seen on the 6th of May, 2026, at about 5:40 PM, shortly after the close of work around Lake Chad Crescent, Maitama, Abuja, while heading towards Life Camp.
This development is both painful and deeply troubling, not only to her family and loved ones, but to all members of society who value human life, safety, and dignity. Incidents such as this remind us of the urgent need for vigilance, compassion, and collective responsibility within our communities.
I hereby appeal to residents of Abuja and the general public to assist with any useful information that may aid efforts to locate Miss Eunice Ameh. No information is insignificant. Anyone who may have seen her, interacted with her, or observed anything unusual around the stated location and time is kindly urged to promptly contact the nearest security agency or reach out to her family.
I also respectfully call on the relevant security authorities to intensify efforts towards ensuring her safe and immediate return. In situations like this, every passing moment matters.
May we all stand together in humanity, empathy, and solidarity until Eunice Ameh is found safe and reunited with her family.
Aare Olumuyiwa Akinboro, SAN, FCIArb (UK), Life Bencher
Past General Secretary, Nigerian Bar Association.
A lady on TikTok is crying as she talks about her brother who was arrested during a raid in 2023. He was just 14 years old when he was picked up around Ikeja Area F Command.
She said others were released on bail, but because her family couldn’t afford it, her brother was detained and taken to court.
Since then, his case has been facing constant adjournments. From 2023 till 2026, he is now 17 years old and still in Kirikiri correctional prison.
During this period, both his mother and father passed away, and now his sister is the one crying out for help on his behalf.
Statistically, the second tenure of an incompetent president is always worse than the first.
If you think this Tinubu’s tenure is bad, wait till the next one.
Winston Churchill fought his depression with bricks. He'd lay them for hours at his country home in Kent. He joined the bricklayers' union. And in 1921 he wrote about why it worked. It took psychology another 75 years to catch up.
He called his depression the "Black Dog." It followed him for decades. His method for fighting it back was as basic as it sounds: laying brick after brick, hour after hour.
Churchill spelled out his theory in a long essay for The Strand Magazine. People who think for a living, he wrote, can't fix a tired brain just by resting it. They have to use a different part of themselves. The part that moves the eyes and the hands. Woodworking, chemistry, bookbinding, bricklaying, painting. Anything that drags the body into a problem the mind can't solve by itself.
Modern psychology now calls this behavioral activation. It's one of the most-studied depression treatments out there. Depression sets a behavior trap. You feel bad, so you stop doing things, and doing less means less to feel good about. Feeling worse makes you do even less. The loop tightens until you can't breathe inside it.
Behavioral activation breaks the loop from the action side. You schedule the activity first, even when every part of you doesn't want to. Doing it produces small rewards: a wall gets straighter, a painting fills in, a messy room gets clean. Those small rewards slowly rewire the brain. Action comes first, and the feeling follows.
Researchers at the University of Washington put this to the test in 2006. They studied 241 adults with major depression and compared three treatments: behavioral activation, regular talk therapy, and antidepressants. For the people who were most severely depressed, behavioral activation matched the drugs. It beat the talk therapy. A 2014 review of more than 1,500 patients across 26 trials backed up the result.
Physical work like bricklaying does something extra on top of this. It crowds out rumination, the looping bad thoughts that grind people down during the worst stretches of depression. Bricklaying needs both hands and gives feedback brick by brick: each one is straight or crooked. After an hour you can see exactly how much wall you built. No room left for the mental chewing.
The line George Mack used in his post, "depression hates a moving target," is good poetry. The science behind it is sharper. Depression hates a brain that has somewhere else to be.
My car was stolen and recovered by the CP crack squad IKEJA, and after I was asked to pay #400000 to the tracker agent the claimed to use, they sold my RS 350 Jeep! I have written petition to your office and till now nothing has been done,I have video prove and conversation prove as well and the police officers involved.
Please share and tag until Justice ⚖️ is done.
Nigeria police and extorting it's citizens.
Please help and re-post 🙏
@PoliceNG