The Necessity of Enforcing Tramadol Ban in Nigeria

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July 28, 2019

The volume of illegal drug trafficking in Nigerian borders is becoming alarming, especially the illicit tramadol, 225 milligrams dosage and above, which has been legally banned by both the international community and the federal government on the premise of its adverse effect on people who take it.

Regardless of this situation, some Indian drug manufacturing companies in dirty business deals with some importers of these drugs in Nigeria have defiled the international order on the dosage production by illegally producing 225mg of tramadol specifically for Nigerians and other African countries like Ghana and Egypt, against the permissible 50 and 100 milligrams respectively.

This obnoxious trafficking is predominantly feasible because of the local business associates who indulge in the act of sneaking it in through the Nigerian borders by concealing it under the guise of legal products, which takes the eagle eyes of Custom officers and other security agencies to unravel the hidden mystery.

Howbeit, the recent destruction of 58 containers of 225mg of tramadol worth N14.7 billion in Shagamu dumpsite, Ogun State, and the subsequent planned destruction of over 9 containers in Port Harcourt by Nigerian Customs Service, NCS, in collaboration with the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, report of November 10, 2017, revealed that NCS intercepted 12 containers out of which 6 of the containers were found to contain 160 million tablets of tramadol of 220 and 250 milligrams dosage. Furthermore, on Wednesday November 14, 2018 the NCS also positioned 23 containers from which a total of 581 million tablets of tramadol were seized, has proven the dire wicked efforts of selfish business moguls who are hell bent in destroying the future of the country.

Speaking against this, the Assistant Comptroller General of Customs, ACG, in charge of Enforcement, Investigation and Inspection, Dahiru Aminu, said that it is a very sad situation that the Indians are going against the international law set for a country by producing a higher milligram dosage which has significantly contributed to the criminal activities going on in the country.

Aminu equally hinted that the funny part of the issue is that Indians who manufacture this 225mg of tramadol drugs don’t make use of it as it is exclusively meant for exports to other countries such as Nigeria with aid of people beyond borders.

…The dire effect

The influence of this high dosage of tramadol can be pointed out on the criminal activities prevalent in the Northern part of the country as well as in other areas where violence is becoming the order of the day. The kidnapping, terrorist attack, robbery and raping are all in one way or another being influenced by the opium effect of this drug.

A pharmacist in Ogun State in a painful tone, pointed out that the Ogun State government spent N2.5 million for the rehabilitation of a citizen who was a victim of drug abuse. Most of these awful activities were caused by peer pressures and lack of adequate sensitization on harmful effects of these drugs.

…Way forward

In the course to eliminate all forms of stealing and hurdling of the illegal drugs by some Customs officers, the ACG pointed out that the destruction exercise which is the first of its kind under the administration of Comptroller General of Customs, CGC, Hameed Ali, will be a continuous one to prevent leakages and maintain high level of transparency in the service.

He further charged the banks to be vigilant and always record the kind of people who indulge in some importation transactions with detailed information to enable the appropriate agencies track down the trucks conveying illegal drugs.

…Hardened criminals

For some criminals, they are no longer interested in any other business except dealing in illegal drugs probably because of the excess financial gain. This has made the unlucky ones whose trailers were seized by the customs to start trailing and threatening some officers with death.

Aminu also confirmed the life threatening calls received by some Customs officers from dealers of the banned drugs, as most of the culprits arrested have refused to divulge their crime partners but however, willing to die with the truth instead.

Joshua Agboola Child Prodigy Steals The Show at LCCI ICTEL EXPO 2019 [Video]

By

Nnamdi Odumody

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July 28, 2019

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The 5th edition of the Lagos Chamber Of Commerce and Industry ICTEL Expo 2019 themed Fourth Industrial Revolution: The Nigerian Story which began on Tuesday July 16th will be one that will leave participants with wonderful memories.

It began with the President of the Chamber, Mr Babatunde Ruwase(FCA), who gave the welcome address and Uwem Uwemakpan, Project Manager of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, who was the keynote speaker highlighting the evolution of the previous industrial revolution to the present one, and how the foundation has been at the forefront of empowering Africans to succeed in this current digital economy.

Oluwakoyejo Oluwatosin the founder of Chronicle Software which developed a special tablet ‘’SuccessTab’’ to help promote digital literacy and learning for millions of young Nigerians in primary and secondary schools did a presentation of his product which he said will help to bridge the gap in the lack of quality education at the basic level.

Then the moment of genius was unleashed when eight year old Joshua Agboola, a young geek with skills in programming and web development did a presentation on Technology Trends shaping our world, and the future to come, which wowed the audience. According to the kid, he is preparing himself to become the next Elon Musk or Iddriss Sandu which Africa will present to the world. With a book on his life and technology dreams authored by him, which is already available as an E-Book, with the hard copy to be released in two weeks time, he has a great future ahead.

With support from well wishers, Joshua Agboola could develop to become a world class technology solutions architect who will rewrite the African narrative in this knowledge era for economic growth and development of the Motherland.

Ways to Conquer Your Fear

By

Sikiru Salami

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July 28, 2019

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In this piece, I’m going to be sharing few tips with you on how to face your fears and surmount same.

Typical of my approach when making such piece as this, much as I find it quite discomforting, often try to leverage on my personal realities and experiences to give effect to my message.

I’m a very shy fellow. But that’s not the problem. I dread phone calls; easily get freaked out and uncomfortable with phone calls, especially when the conversations are taking longer than normal. Maybe until lately, were I to be subjected to serious job interviews via phone calls, would possibly fail to secure the job, on this account. Interestingly, I used to think it was a problem peculiar to me but I have come across few other people who suffer from the same ‘disorder’. I’m not alone after all (smiles).

So back to my issue. There was this awkward event that happened sometime back. My mother in-law being so nice and amazing, always wanted to talk to me for long, but perhaps she observed that each time she called, I’ve always sounded agitated and kind of wanting her off the phone too soon on each occasion. She read me right! She would later jokingly raise it with someone close asking, “Is it that this dude is afraid of me, or just a phone-call shy fellow?” It was that bad for me.

Now here is how I’m facing my fear in this regard and surmounting same. I call people close to me more often than I used to. Even in the face of discomfort, I intentionally drag my conversations longer in order to train my mind to take the pain. Like it’s often said, you either take the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. There are no two ways about it. And trust me, I’m getting better at this. I think, no longer get as much freaked out with calls as before. Though, I still prefer text or whatsapp messages to phone calls.

Petty and small as this personal story might be sound, I should believe you now have an idea of the direction of my today’s piece.

Putting things in clearer, what is fear? In my view, fear is any feeling of emotional discomfort or agitation in response to a threat of pain, danger, failure or harm. We all know how painful and agonizing it is to fail at something dear to our hearts. The pain that comes with disappointment. The pain that comes with ridicule and public ignominy associated with failure. The pain that comes with not living up to public expectations, misplaced and unnecessary notwithstanding. The pain of business failure. The pain of electoral loss. Fear does arises not out of an activity nor our incapacity to do same, but largely, out of consequential pain. We dread the pain that comes with taking a line of action.

We are not afraid of marriage per se, but the loss of absolute freedom and privacy that ‘singlehood’ avails us; the fear of the several unknowns associated with that union of two distinct personalities. We do not really fear going for an exam, but for the pain of negative outcome of such exercise. We do not really fear pulling the job plug and starting our own business, but for the pain of business failure. We do not really fear taking up that new job, but for the pain of getting to the new work environment, only realize that it’s a terrible place to work. We get agitated not out of fear in itself, but the pain, danger and the harm we could suffer if we take a wrong course of action. Beyond the aforementioned, we all have fear for petty something too. It could be fear of death, flying, driving, public speaking, or phone calls like myself (smiles).

Frankly speaking, fear is nothing but that beautiful prison we carefully put together right in our heads. If we can master the pain of failure, frontally face the danger and harm associated with a course of action, fear becomes meaningless. We all often get to certain stages in our lives when we need to take decisions. Critical decisions. But then, we hold back for fear of the unknown. Fear of dealing with pain of public judgements. Fear of failure. As a risk management professional, I think am at vantage point to say that comfortable inaction or indecision, on many accounts, is riskier than doing what needs to be done per unit of time, even if the outcome turns out negative.

Now let’s be clear. I’m not saying, we should blindly delve into risky adventure without having a full clarity about the rewards and consequences of failure thereof. No, the point is, your fear is nothing but your self-built prison. Or what do you say of someone who for every misfortune, s/he believes some village people or step-mother somewhere is after him/her? I’m by no means saying there are evil eyes, though.

Now how do we overcome our fears? I will suggest few points here:

One. Get a Grip of Your Life Purpose

Many of us are existing, and not living. Life isn’t about those basic life functions that animals themselves are privileged to enjoy anyway. Every living being eats, sleeps, works, and have fun, somehow. We all do all that. A life not driven by purpose will always be in fear of nothingness. Since you have no clarity around your life purpose, there’s tendency that you have difficulties trusting anyone. You will likely build your life around societal hearsays and superstitions. Go to remote villages and see amazingly brilliant minds, but held down by societal limitations, lack of education and superstitions.

Two. Stop Letting Your Past Control You

Most things we dread so much are products of our past experiences, and justifiably so. But past failures, disappointments and let-downs are meant to serve as lessons and a watershed for future actions that produce better outcomes. We just need to let go of the pain of the past in order to forge ahead for a better future. Many years ago, I almost got drowned while swimming. That experience still hunts me till today. I dread taking ferries. I dread swimming. I need to let go of my past hurt too. Not letting go of past experiences have ways of negatively shaping one’s risk appetite.

Three. Always Look at the Bigger Picture

When you have tendencies of shortermism (i.e. always looking for immediate benefits), fear will often and most likely hold you back in many critical decisions. When we are self-seeking, we tend to be short-sighted. Short term benefits might look tempting, but they often come with long-term benefit loss. Same applies to fear of temporary failures. Temporary failures might sometimes just be the launching pad we need unto greater things, but fear of going through the pain again, selfish as it might be, often time derail our thought process from seeing the bigger picture. Ever heard of Deferred Gratification? Do not allow failure at early stage of your academics, career or business hold you back. Bad decision (earlier informed by facts) is far less costly than comfortable inaction. Look at the bigger picture.

Four. Get a Grip of the Situation

When you’re caught between two terrible choices or you’re caught in crisis (be it career, academic, business or even marital), that’s the exact time to never lose yourself to fear. At that point, you are perhaps vulnerable and most unlikely to think straight, and yet you might have limited time to take certain decisions. On many occasions, uninformed fear contributes largely to the pain and discomfort we feel when in trouble. When in crisis, many of us get drenched in fear and endless lamentations and hopelessness. Take an instance of someone diagnosed with a terminal, but manageable ailment. Having hopeless thought driven by fear could easily worsen his/her case. However, with positive spirit and right frame of mind not driven by fear and lamentations, s/he is likely to live a longer and healthier life. When in fear-some fix, get a grip of your situation and take the plunge. Face your fears, frontally. Learn to live with your troubles. Face them like a boss!

Five. Take the Plunge

We all have those petty fears we possibly laugh over. I earlier gave you an example of my deep-seated fear for swimming or any form of water transportation. I’m personally encouraged by this piece, to go out there, take the plunge and eliminate this fear forever. You see, we become bolder and more determined at dealing with more critical life issues when we make deliberate effort to tackle little fears, we often take for granted. And now that’s my challenge to you. Take on that little fear you joke about; take the plunge and get over it with.

Rapidly Changing Form of Learning and How Africa is Being Left Behind

By

Ajayi Joel

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July 28, 2019

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book — Never stop learning, business owners

Few years ago…

ME: Excuse me sir, why are we still trying to memorize conversions in this course. We have Google to help us do that anytime any day.

If I travel to China today and I needed to buy a kilogram of meat there and I have Naira, all I have to do is check Google to know the conversion rate to Yen.

So why is the major part of this course about how to convert from one unit to another and another?

{the whole class laughs}

PROFESSOR: He asked a good question everyone. However, young man, it is essential you know all these in your head as a physicist, should in case someone asks you in an important interview in the future.

Well, this happened in my final year in school, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around the answer I was given to see if it was tenable enough to have a course in order to memorize conversion units.

While I might understand that it is important to know the conversion units by heart, it is however a better approach if we had a lot of practicals which lead to calculations where these conversions will be done. That is a more effective approach.

But you see, this is Africa where we are just so used to the status quo and also conventional way of things that we do not see a need to change and evolve. If you ever suggest this in Africa, you are termed a rebel.

Now, let’s talk about the internet and see its bright side because we have gotten accustomed to the negative use, and it has been the language on the lips of our African parents that they discourage people from using the internet.

They are not happy when their kids or children say he or she works online, spend all day with a laptop.

Like I said, that is Africa for you. A quick hint about myself and how I was able to totally build myself to a reasonable level in self business strategy, content marketing, social media strategy, content writing. I built myself professionally thanks to the blessing of the internet.

While I might not want to talk about the fact that I didn’t learn anything in my undergraduate days despite the fact that my grades were speaking of being a second class upper, I feel I could have learnt something better if I sat at home to learn physics (a specialized part) in the space of five years online.

Now, before you jump on the comment section to educate me on how you learn better in school, I will say it doesn’t apply to everyone; so my case is just one in 3 real life scenarios anyways.

Now, that a lot of you are done with school and probable working, are you aware that the internet is the fastest place to get very relevant information and even very quality education?

If you are not, I really don’t know how you check for country time zones if you have an online meeting with someone in another country with different time zones of which I have countless times.

This is Nigeria and Nigeria is in Africa, a lot of us spend so much on internet monthly despite it’s expensive rate.

I spend at least N5,000 (five thousand Naira on internet subscription monthly) and I spend it on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium and Whats-app.

I learn a lot and network on all these platforms. A lot of you also do the same. It keeps you up to date with the knowledge of the real world and makes you stay relevant with the world of work and mind you, you can only be relevant in the world of work if you have updated knowledge.

The question I have been asking myself for 1 year and 5 months now is that; why hasn’t the African educational system incorporated it yet? Why?

There are some things that are better learned online, seen online than sitting in a classroom for hours to learn.

Conversion rates are better googled than made a course, the 20 elements are better made assignments to be googled than made a course to write an exam for.

We are spending so many years in school in Africa and the result is poor. Thanks to a lot of information that can be easily learnt online or even irrelevant ones that are still made courses.

Universities in other parts of the world now have online platform for distant learners and also as a medium for students to update themselves with the knowledge, and remind themselves what they were taught.

I think that is a pretty good idea.

If Africa wants to develop, it needs to implement technology in the educational system, and we can see the continent has not chosen that development path. Quite sad anyways. Do we wait on the government to build it for us?

Well, yes! However, with the type of government we have, that will take decades; so someone else has to build it.

China Takes The Baton, Overtakes U.S. in Fortune Global 500

By

Ndubuisi Ekekwe

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July 27, 2019

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This is how Fortune magazine introduced its latest Fortune Global 500, the largest companies in the world by revenue:

“As the Chinese Century nears its third decade, Fortune’s Global 500 shows how profoundly the world’s balance of power is shifting. American companies account for 121 of the world’s largest corporations by revenue. Chinese companies account for 129 (including 10 Taiwanese companies). For the first time since the debut of the Global 500 in 1990, and arguably for the first time since World War II, a nation other than the U.S. is at the top of the ranks of global big business….It’s true that Chinese companies’ revenues account for only 25.6% of the Global 500 total, well behind America’s 28.8%. But that’s to be expected. China is the rising power, economically smaller but growing much faster.”

Yes, there are more Chinese companies than U.S. firms in the 2019 Fortune Global 500. Also notice that Fortune has called it the “Chinese Century”. As I always write, it is all China from here:”China now accounts for a whooping 42% of global commerce – more than France, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. combined.”