I delivered my keynote speech today in the ongoing Africa Fintech Festival in Kampala, Uganda. It went very well. This slide (below) is largely the final challenge to the community: the Fintech Destination. And you can follow some quotes on Twitter here.
It is estimated that as at 2017, there are about 9,220 nuclear weapons in the world.
That led me to wonder what happens to the human race in case someone gets crazy enough to press the first nuclear weapon button.
Call me crazy, tell me I’m a pessimist …whatever, but you really can’t deny the irrefutable validity of that thought.
So what is a nuclear weapon? A nuclear weapon is an explosive that has such an intense power behind it such that the form of weaponry can cause massive amounts of damage in faraway places. A single nuclear device can devastate an entire city by blast, fire and radiation.
There are nine countries that currently possess nuclear weapons in varying quantities:
There is this treaty that gives 5 countries the legitimate right to have nuclear weapons. The treaty is known as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT). The five countries with this legitimate right are the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom.
So the remaining countries on the list (Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea) can be said to be illegitimately in possession of nuclear weapons. But hey! Who dares punish them for having something that a treaty doesn’t allow them to have. They’ve got something scary enough that the world doesn’t want to mess with.
In the events leading to the 2nd World War which lasted from 1939 to 1945, one man got crazy enough to think he can dominate the world and wipe out a whole race of humans.
With weapons like pistols, rifles, sub-machine guns, hand grenades, artillery, tanks, mines, etc used in the 2nd World War, an estimated 45 to 60 million people were killed within the space of 6 years. If Adolf Hitler had access to nuclear weapons back then, most part of planet earth would be lifeless by now.
Even in the 1st world war (august 1914 to November 1918) where the weapons used were of lesser sophistication compared to the 2nd World War, an estimated 9.5 million people were killed equivalent to 6000 deaths per day.
The first nuclear bomb was detonated by the US in war against Japan on the city of Hiroshima on the 6th of August 1945. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more died later from radiation exposure.
3 days later, a plutonium bomb was detonated over the city of Nagasaki in Japan leading to the loss of 200,000 lives along with increased rate of cancer and chronic disease among the survivors.
90 percent of physicians and nurses who entered the cities to provide assistance died from radiation. The incidence of leukemia among survivors increased noticeably five to six years after the bombing. A decade later, survivors began suffering from thyroid, breast, lung and other cancers at an abnormal rate. Even unborn children exposed to radiation in their mother’s womb were medically proven to more likely have intellectual disabilities and impaired growths, as well as increased rate of developing cancer.
Think about what 9,220 nuclear weapons can do to planet earth if activated. The possible destruction cannot be accurately comprehended even in the wildest imaginations.
It is more than 7 decades since the 2nd world war ended and nuclear weapons production has grown in sophistication and destructive force. Those weapons are lying in secret warehouses in different parts of the world waiting for a Hitler-like a mad man to get hold of power in any of the nukes-capable countries and unleash them on the world.
God forbid, if any of those nukes gets livened from their current inert state, the world will be nothing like we presently know it to be.
The recent nukes threat spat between Donald Trump of the United States and Kim Jong Un of North Korea is a reminder of the sleeping destruction that could be awakened by uncouth leadership. Both leaders sits at the helm of power of two nuke capable nations and threatened to wipe each other out of existence.
On the 14th of September 2019, drones were used to attack the state-owned Saudi Aramco oil processing facilities. This attack was alleged to have been orchestrated by Iran, thereby creating global tension.
Russia with the highest reserve of nuclear weapons in the world is under a dictatorial government headed by Vladimir Putin. Same goes for China and North Korea. These countries have a governmental system that could make allowance for a single man at the helms of power to unilaterally initiate a war. That is a big red flag!
Israel, a nukes-capable nation, exists within a geographical location surrounded by hostile Arab neighbors. One of those neighbors is Pakistan, which is also a nukes-capable nation. Another big red flag for a potential global war!
The United Nations created after the 2nd world war to ensure that conflicts among nations does not degenerate to a 3rd World War has been doing a great job at that. However, its capability to ensure nations does not actually go to war is very limited as a lot of global tensions has shown.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was created to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to discourage its use for military purpose. Still, IAEA was unable to stop North Korea from producing nuclear weapons just as it is unable to stop Iran from making progress in its quest to create nuclear weapons.
The only way the world can be truly safe for most of us, if not everyone (especially if a global war occurred again), is if all forms of nuclear weapons were completely wiped out. But that’s never going to happen!
The endless desire of countries to dominate each other, the fear of being vulnerable to attacks from known and perceived enemies and the strong bargaining chips for economic and political gains that being a nukes-capable nation provides will always ensure that nuclear weapons only increase in number and sophistication rather than decrease.
So the only valid question is – when will it happen?
Who is that person with the recklessly inhumane mentality of Adolf Hitler, who would find his way into power in one of the nukes capable nations? Kim Jong Un came close but not close enough.
May I not be alive when that time comes. May every peace-loving human not be alive when that time comes.
It will be nothing like the wars and holocaust that has ever been recorded in the history of mankind. Nobody, no country, no continent would be safe.
A lot of fuss and fury followed the announcement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that “Lion Heart”, a film of Nigerian origin, submitted for the Oscar Award, has been disqualified for having too much dialogue in English.
Lion Heart is the first Nigerian film ever to be submitted for the Oscars, and there’s high hope it will make up for the years that Nigeria was not represented.
Directed by Genevieve Nnaji, who also starred in the movie alongside Pete Edochie, Nkem Owoh, among others, Lion Heart which was co-produced by Chinny Onwugbenu, earned strong reviews when it was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and was acquired by Netflix, where it is currently streaming.
What went wrong?
Earlier this year, the Oscar Academy changed the name of the category that Lion Heart was submitted in, from best foreign language film to best international feature film. And the rule is that films submitted in this category must have a predominantly non-English dialogue track. Lion Heart was a 95-minute-film, and only about 11 minutes contains Igbo language, which runs afoul of the rule because it is English dominated.
But Lion Heart isn’t the first film to be disqualified for the same reason. In 2015, Afghan film, Utopia was disqualified for having too much English, and so was the 2007 Israeli movie, The Band’s Visit.
Why so much fuss about the disqualification?
Lion Heart was one of the 10 African films officially submitted for the Oscar Awards this year, and it’s a record for the African continent. With this disqualification, the total number of nominees for the award has been dropped from 93 to 92, reducing the African numbers to nine.
Moreover, the disqualification was based on foreign language. The official language of Nigeria is English and it is predominantly spoken to bridge the barrier created by the multilingual ethnicities in the country. There are over 256 languages spoken in Nigeria, making it impossible to choose just one to represent the country. Not even from the predominant three – Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. So English became the language you can speak in any part of Nigeria and be understood apart from the invented pidgin. Apart from the fact that it was introduced by the colonial masters as a way of uniting their colony and communicating with the people.
When compared to Utopia and The Band’s Visit, the Afghan official languages are Pashto and Dari while the Israeli official language is Hebrew. A clear contrast in the case of Lion Heart, and a reason many have been angered by the Academy’s decision to disqualify the film.
The decision has for this reason, drawn a lot of backlash from people around the world. Hollywood producer, Ava DuVernay took to her Twitter handle to swipe at the Academy for the decision. She tweeted: “To the Academy, you disqualified Nigeria’s first-ever submission for Best International Feature because it’s in English. But English is the official language of Nigeria. Are you barring this country from ever competing for an Oscar in its official language”?
In response to this tweet, Genevieve tweeted: “Thank you so much Ava. I am the director of Lion Heart. This movie represents the way we speak as Nigerians. This includes English which acts as a bridge between the 500+ languages spoken in our country, thereby making us one Nigeria.
“It’s no different to how French connects communities in former French colonies. We did not choose who colonized us. As ever, this film and many like it, is proudly Nigerian.”
Others too weighed into the controversy. Franklin Leonard, founder of the popular series, Black List, tweeted: “Colonialism really is a bitch.”
Another actor, Aida Rodriguez, sent a tweet in solidarity to Lion Heart saying: “Oh, the penalties of colonization.”
Ivie Ani, a journalist and music editor couldn’t hide her disappointment either, she tweeted:
“More than 500 indigenous languages are spoken in Nigeria, yet Nigeria’s official language is English. A Nigerian film in English can’t win the Oscars’ foreign category because it’s not foreign enough. Colonizers love to punish the colonized for being colonized.”
However, the decision of the Academy to disqualify Lion Heart shows one thing; they know little or nothing about Nigeria or how we live. As Genevieve said, “Lion Heart represents how we speak in Nigeria,” 70 to 80 percent of English and about 20 percent of our indigenous language.
The ongoing push by the Academy to accommodate more members from overseas may have eligibility hindrances, stemming from the International category rules that seem arbitrary and perplexing due to lack of understanding of the culture of people and places where the film is coming from.
The United States doesn’t have an official language, and that would have made it difficult for those who make the rules to understand the role English plays in multilingual societies where it is the official language.
Meanwhile, Lion Heart has not been disqualified in other categories, and the film still has a chance of winning an Oscar.
It is a happy moment after getting the news that my sister in-labor has delivered. I and my mum drove down to Ibadan to visit her. Her ward is at the top of one of the 6-floor buildings. At the base, we smiled down to the lift. As we wait with others for the lift to come around and drop it occupant for us to step in, a man came up hurriedly … “you can’t go in there. The Lift cant takes you, we are still looking for a way to let out people inside as the elevator has jammed, no power to carry you unless you will wait for the elevator to rest”.
I was fascinated by his words. What I know is that when people get tucked in the elevator, it is an emergency. The only reason I wasn’t freaking out by the news was that the man was more concerned about us not getting in than the people there getting out. I looked at my mum, I wondered why she is still staying around as I know the problem should not be our problem since there is another way of getting to the top; the stairs. I saw the disappointment in her face as we turned for the stairs. She stayed at the base and inhaled heavily…The Hospital is about to tell me her story.
For months now I have been wanting to write about my experience at the UCH (University College Hospital, Ibadan) two months ago, but couldn’t find a way to start. Is it from my sister that just delivered that we went to visit? Will it be from my mum that we went together? Will it be from me or the hospital itself? If then how I get to start turned out to be not good enough, I only hope you get the message.
If you have not been to the UCH then you might not get the imagery I am hoping to paint with this write-up but yet this is not about the hospital, this is the story of the part of this country we do miss when we are distracted by entertainment on TV or the shenanigans of politics or sport. I am sure the same story can be told from different experiences of people walking this nation.
I wasn’t born in the UCH but that is where I opened my eyes into. The stairs, the smell, the smiling and hard faces of nurses who are to me ladies or women, the periodic appearance of doctors that I know to be men, the tall buildings and the large environment occupied by the hospital. My mum is a nurse, which should explain my relationship with the soul of the hospital. As a woman that schooled in Ibadan, and worked at UCH before We moved to Osun State after its creation, she also had many friends in the hospital. Her friends automatically are mini-mums to me, so I do jump around a lot. The Period at the moment will be between 1990-1993 where I just started schooling.
Visiting UCH 30 years after, nothing much has changed. And 30 years before then, UCH was being created, making the Hospital around 60 years old, let us remember according to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2005 life expectancy in Nigeria was put at 48 years for males and 50 years for females. Meaning, if UCH were woman, she is already dead…funny.
In a few minutes I am already on the 2nd floor. I looked back and couldn’t find my mum. I traced my steps back to find her half the first-floor stairs waiting, smiling at me as I showed up again. I remember the old days where my mum drags me up the stairs as I try hard to catch up, I became sorry for her but much more sorry for myself how I thought a mother that has aged 30 years from the time in UCH will climb the stairs the same way, so I waited for her as she picked up again. It was at this moment that I got to look around to appreciate again the great hospital which as served the people of Nigeria, cured many and watched many passes away to great beyond (aka death). I paid attention to the staircase.
It is old. I see wear and tear on the stone marble floor of the cases. I wondered what rocks would have gone through from the human feet that have made it depressed like the sole of a shoe overused. The depression went down so much that the iron rod used as a skeleton for the stone also has experienced the same wear-out; bent out. My mind got off and took me back to the elevators, asking my brain to determine how tired the mechanisms must have been considering what time and use have done to the stones on the floor.
It took time, but we got to the maternity ward where my sister and the new baby were. She looks tired. Yes, she just delivered but I also know the mosquitoes that welcome us as we entered had a good part played. I asked her how she copes with the mosquitoes, she said: “stay awake and sleep later in the day”. In my mind, I am already getting mad about the situation in the hospital, but it seems she is not that bothered about the mosquito, even though she only has spent a few days there, I know she has seen more monsters that have put mosquitoes to what they literally are; ‘ants’. As touchy that I was, I wanted to know.
‘Sister, since you got here, have you gone down the floors?’, I asked her.
“No,” she replied. How can I go down, the lifts are not good and it’s painful moving down the stairs. Yesterday was a mother that came with her daughter to deliver her grandchild. She is an old woman. From time to time she has been sent to get drugs or other things for her daughter in-labor. At her first journey, she’s already tired, when it was up to six times she was sent all the way down, she refused to go again”.
“Why?”, I jumped in, “of course, she is exhausted and couldn’t go anymore. The nurses told her if she does not go, her daughter will die, she just sat down on the floor and started crying saying ‘I can’t go again’”
If I have not seen much in life, I have seen the hen that one of her numerous kids is about to die, and I can remember the pity. For a human mother, I can imagine, when you come in to get a grandchild but they told you you will lose even the daughter…
“wow, this is insane, cant the nurses help to get stuff for her…”
“NO, THEY WON’T! THEY ARE WICKED PEOPLE…”
“Nurses are not wicked people” mum interrupted, “they are just understaffed, too much on their hands and the life of others is equally important to them”.
It is not in many situations I feel connected to people, but here is my lil-sis that I used to wake to school, holding her hands tight and protecting her, now she is a lady grown into a big responsibility with natural protective and caring instinct of her own for her baby. Running from pillar to pole to get things done. I wonder if a mother that just delivered should go through all these. In a maternity ward where having male inside is frowned at, so her husband couldn’t help much. I want to do something but I can’t just as a stand transfixed; breathing pains in the air. Where does care start and stop for mothers in Nigeria health system? Pardon me if am just getting into the party but your long stay in it will not make a bad situation good. The experience makes human regeneration seem more like danger than a norm to me.
Mother left practicing nursing long ago, and since then raised in the ranks of academicians. As a lecturer with years of experience, her students are already bosses in hospitals, that explains how I stayed that long in the maternity ward. As a doctor nurse (Ph.D. holder), things get even tighter for her, the height in educational achievement has not lessened the stress.
We are on our way out after the visitation. I engaged her, trying to process my experience at UCH
“Mum, with all you complain of much workload, where are those students that you guys kept graduating in the Universities across the country?
‘It is the same happening in the universities’ she replied ‘low hands as the government can’t pay them. So many are still looking for jobs, or already in Canada living their essence’.
I couldn’t ask more so I won’t visibly be crying for my country in front of the hospital.
There is the story of a nation.
Drone-as-a-service (Daas), as the name implies, involves the provision of drone and other software capabilities or added offerings, as a service to a client. The software capabilities or added offerings could include maintenance, repair, analysis of video recordings, personnel, communication and connectivity offerings.
Daas has often been touted as a potential use case for 5G in emergency or disaster regions. Here, daas would involve the attachment of a small cell or 5G antenna or Access Point to a drone to provide communication and connectivity offerings to regions with poor coverage that may have experienced humanitarian disaster. In some instances, infra-red cameras are also attached to the drone to detect human presence via heat radiation.
This is very similar to the High Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS), popularized by Facebook, now being spearheaded by Airbus as well. It involves the use of an air-craft to beam internet access to remote areas in developing countries. The success of this project has led to huge interest from regulators and policy makers in developing countries and as such, it is one of the many applications whose allocation of spectrum would be heavily contested at ITU World Radio Congress (WRC) happening in Egypt.
This concept of daas, similar to HAPS, can further be modified for use in developing countries. This service could be provided by any of the mobile operators. Imagine a small HAPS (a small drone attached to a small cell antenna or access point) providing connectivity and communication services to your guests or VIPs at an event. Such service, if offered, would ensure that in a crowded environment, your guests or VIPs enjoy excellent coverage. Guests or VIPS could be offered a password to access such connectivity service. This service could then be charged for based on the number of hours the drone provides communication and connectivity offerings to your guests. Other services such as personalized photography, video analyses, etc, could be included in the offering.
Furthermore, the daas could alternately serve as a cheaper option to the HAPS and could be deployed by Governmental agencies to under-served areas with poor connectivity and communication offerings and hopefully help to bridge the digital divide using allocated funds such as Universal Service Provision Fund.
The above concept can further be expanded for use in regions where real time situational awareness is essential. This would no doubt involve the use of a drone, camera, communication and connectivity offerings, real time analyses of gathered/captured data etc. The low latency requirements of 5G (<1ms) would greatly benefit real time monitoring as it would aid the transfer of video files as well as help decision makers actively make decisions from the gathered and analysed data.
Caveat: Even though these concepts and ideas sound good, they need to be tested before implementation.