Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾

I Think Therefore I Am Becoming (puto ergo factus sum)

Kwotam | Printfiam | GDA

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

This was me minutes before a strategic Zoom session with Big Chief @asemota, @perfexcellent and @yoowai, to discuss the printing industry in Nigeria and my Bloomberg-style solution, Kwotam. That session birthed clarity I may not have gotten otherwise. Thank you, Big Chief! 🎁

[Instablog9ja @instablog9ja]

Beautiful Moment as some Family Members decided to travel from different countries to surprise their Auntie on her birthday

[Alex Onyia @winexviv]

Sometimes I feel very down and discouraged, but then I remember that for some people, I may be their only shot at a better future.

That responsibility keeps me going.

Complaints change nothing. Small, consistent, progressive efforts change everything.

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

@asemota @Calendly Being on a 1-hour zoom session with Big Chief @asemota has been on my bucket list for a very long time, and now, with a deep sense of appreciation and fulfillment, I've ticked it off my list. Thank you, Big Chief!

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

@asemota Ain't no way the money used to set up this business is clean money gotten from hard work. 🙂‍↔️🤐

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

You're available and affordable that way, just like some men like to stifle their wives to keep them submissive and available. 😄

[Tomilola Oluwafemi | Software Engineer @tomilola_ng]

I was going to build two websites for a multimillionaire. I am sure his business was making around 50 million a month.

I sent an invoice of 1.8 million, but his assistant reduced it to 800k, saying Oga wouldn’t pay.

When the invoice reached him, he called me personally and asked me to lower it to 600k, saying it was too high. I stood my ground, and we agreed on 400k for just one of the sites.

On the day we launched the site, I joined their team celebration dinner. It lasted less than two hours, and the restaurant bill was 420k.

He literally paid for a one-night dinner that cost more than what he paid me for three weeks of work

When we wanted to buy a domain, the one he liked was $80, he paid for two years upfront, that's over 200k

I realized he wasn’t concerned about the money; His goal was to keep me small.

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

Absolutely!

[Alex Onyia @winexviv]

Nigerian universities must stop being certificate factories.

Every university should be judged by:

Research that solves national problems
Graduate employability
Industry partnerships
Student innovation
Integrity of exams
Quality of teaching
Startup creation
Patents and practical outputs.

A university that cannot solve one serious local problem in its host community should be ashamed.

Every Nigerian child must leave school with the ability to think, build, communicate, earn, and serve.

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

E go red... 😂😂😂

[YabaLeftOnline @yabaleftonline]

A lot of content creators are broke right now, Facebook doesn’t pay anymore like before — Mariam Oyakhilome

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

This dream has eaten deeper than we think, with more under 30s losing interest in active 9-5 jobs and entrepreneurship and instead pursuing careers in content creation, politics, and clergy.

[Osaretin Victor Asemota @asemota]

Without trying to be funny, the Nigerian dream is to game the system to achieve a life free from want, worry, and the pressures of responsibility.

It is about making money without effort and getting things for free without working for them. This is why you see people who travel to places with plenty of opportunity to achieve things with hard work still being caught up in crime and fraud.

One could argue that it is the same for all humans, but in Nigeria, it is cultural. We praise and worship those whom we think achieved this by being "smart" and not those who did it through hard work and sheer effort.

Even when we discover that people are rich, we never think it is from effort; it is likely because they gamed the system. The Nigerian dream is to game the system and do nothing. That is why corruption and fraud are commonplace.

It never used to be like this, and not all Nigerians currently think this way, but a majority now do, thanks to the madness Nollywood has infected the society with, in the name of entertainment. Now, we are too far gone.

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

This is the root of Nigeria's woes, and all parties play a role in enabling it, especially parents, and school owners/heads. I'm aware of a young lady who cannot pass FSLC today, but got As & Bs in WAEC at a special centre where the Principal is her Pastor in her local assembly.

[Alex Onyia @winexviv]

There’s a silent disaster happening in Nigeria that nobody wants to confront honestly.

We keep shouting about unemployment, bad leadership, low productivity, corruption, poor healthcare, failed institutions and why our country is not working. But many people are avoiding the root cause.

Our education system has been deeply compromised.

A student enters secondary school or university full of dreams, intelligence and potential. Then the system teaches them something dangerous:

“You do not need competence to succeed.”

WAEC malpractice. NECO malpractice. GCE runs. Sorting. Sex for grades. Extortion. Intimidation. Victimization. Handout rackets. “See me after class.” “Talk to your lecturer.” “Settle this course.”

And after 4 or 5 years of surviving that environment, we expect excellence to magically appear.

It won’t.

A country cannot repeatedly reward dishonesty in classrooms and expect integrity in government offices, hospitals, engineering sites, courtrooms and businesses.

This is where many of our unemployable graduates are coming from.

Not because Nigerians are not intelligent.
Not because our youths are lazy.
But because too many people were trained inside a system where merit was murdered.

The painful part is this:

UNN, UNILAG, FUTO, ABU, UI, IMSU, ABSU and many others are using largely the same NUC-regulated curriculum.

The difference is standards.

The universities that still command respect are usually the ones with stronger resistance against sorting, extortion and academic fraud.

The ones collapsing in reputation are often the ones where corruption became normalized.

Once a student realizes they can buy an “A” with ₦20,000, or sleep their way through a course, or manipulate results through connections, the motivation to truly learn starts dying slowly.

And when millions of such graduates enter the labor market, the entire country pays the price.

That weak engineer may eventually supervise a bridge.

That poorly trained nurse may handle a patient.

That compromised accountant may manage public funds.

That fake first-class graduate may become a lecturer and reproduce the same cycle again.

This is no longer just an education problem.

It is a national security problem.

Countries become great because they protect competence fiercely.

Singapore did it.
China did it.
Germany did it.
South Korea did it.

You cannot build a first-world country with a third-world attitude towards education integrity.

Nigeria does not have a shortage of talent.
Nigeria has a shortage of systems that protect excellence.

And until we become ruthless about fighting academic corruption, exam malpractice, sorting, sex-for-grades and institutional intimidation, we will continue producing certificates instead of competence.

This fight is bigger than schools.

It is about the future survival of Nigeria itself.

[Osaretin Victor Asemota @asemota]

This is the economic complexity that produces transactions at scale. The Igbo Man is operating an asset-light model and not tying down capital. The only problem I have is that the Chinese are going to make trading obsolete if traders don't also go into manufacturing and more.

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

@youngchaponese @asemota The era of middlemen is passing...

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

@asemota My condolences to you and yours... 🙏🏿

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

@asemota and yet the same in more ways than we'll ever get to understand...

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

@asemota I just did. Thank you Big Chief.

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

@asemota True, but I wouldn't say that about my spouse to anyone outside or make a joke about it.

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

@asemota Hahaha "Money na water", in my opinion, is slang for dirty money, used by people who will do anything to get crazy money.

[Pakis D. Briggs 👌🏾👍🏾✌🏾 @pakisbriggs]

@asemota It's actually a form of escapism for our leaders.

And as long as the majority are not demanding anything more, more trucks of rice will flow...