Be a Strategist

" Nearly 60,000 packed into the national stadium on the night of the fight.  After a bright, aggressive start, Ali realised that he could not keep up his fierce pace in the African humidity, and he began to back away from Foreman, defending himself against an onslaught of clubbing blows.

Ali later said he had planned the tactic of laying far back against the ring ropes, covering up and allowing Foreman to punch himself into exhaustion, all along.  He called the strategy ‘rope-a-dope’, and it worked, the champion tiring visibly and being hit often himself from the fifth round onward.

By the eighth round, Foreman was drained and his punching and defence had become ragged. Ali spotted his moment and landed several right hooks, followed by a five-punch combination ending in a straight right that felled the younger man like a tree-trunk.

Though Foreman rose on the count of nine, the referee Zack Clayton saw that he could not continue and stopped the fight.  Against all the odds, Muhammad Ali was world heavyweight champion again at the age of 32."

 B.T.com
****************************************************************
My interpretation: Be a strategist. Do a clear-eyed self-appraisal i.e Know your strength and weakness; Keep a sense of proportion and never lose your sense of limit. Because, a false sense of reality could spell doom. Ali would have lost the bout if he had continued to match George Foreman punch for punch and reflex for reflex.

 Learn to look at things the way they are (in clear light) and not the way your emotions colour them. Sometimes, you have to repress your aggressive impulses and (deliberately) have a retreat in order to have an easy and sweet victory.

Just be flexible. Be fluid. Be a strategist !!

Quote: "In life, you must be a warrior, and war requires realism. Whiles others may find beauty in endless dreams, warriors find it in realty, in awareness of limits, in making the most of what they have" -- THE 33 STRATEGIES OF WAR

THE DEATH MERCHANT'S IN OUR MIDST.

I used Prof Dora Akunyili's photo as my dp, sometimes in 2014. For days her righteous face adorned my Facebook page. A pretty Igbo lady came to my Inbox to ask if Dora Akunyili is my aunt. I said NO. And, I went further to say I just admired her. Of course, I knew why she asked that question.

In the face of intimidation and danger to her life and family, Mama Dora of NAFDAC, stood her ground to rid our land of fake pharmaceutical products. Then, it became a norm to have NAFDAC number on any pharmaceutical productsl or processed food. Nobody would buy your wares if they didn't have NAFDAC number. I really don't know what is happening in that sector now. I don't know what has become of Prof Dora Akunyili's legacy right now.

When Yaradua made her information minister, I was one of her admirers who complained, bickered and took exception to such "ludicrous" appointment. "How can you take our Dora, who's doing so wonderfully well in flushing out trashy and killer drugs from our society, away and replace her with one suboptimal person who might compromise his integrity in the face of unrelenting intimidation from the fake medications merchants" , I seemed to be saying.

However, madam Dora, like a million stars, shone, yet again, in her new assignment. I have NEVER in my chequered life seen a public official who is as honest and clean as that woman. As I type, right now, I feel the pain of her demise the more. That was one woman I would have campaigned for, free of charge, as Nigerian first female president. But, death is a bastard !!! Death is a dunce. There are many lowgrade and worthless humanoids just occupying this geographical space with us yet, the cold hands of death refuse to locate them. But, he snatched our dotting and venerable Mama Dora Akunyili away, forever. Oh!

Well, this write-up is really not about adorable Dora. It is about avoidable death in our midst. I am pained to learnt that malaria ....common malaria, being transmitted by some wee beasts, still kill in my country. And, I am more pained that fake drugs are still being peddled in the streets of Nigeria. I am really angry. I am sad. I am pained that we allow avoidable death to snatch our finest and brightest away.

Eric Aribayi's death came to me as a shock. I was disturbed and more pained to hear that a fake/expired malaria drug was the cause of his untimely death. His death has yet again brought to our consciousness the menace of fake and counterfeit drugs and their merchants in our society.

In 2008, I had a medical procedure: appendectomy. After the procedure, I still went to the hospital daily, for dressing. Normally, according to the doctor, the "stitches" were to be digested into my sister. So that, by say 2 weeks, the surgical wound would have closed. Alas, after 2 weeks, the wound was still there, festering. Haah ! There was a guy in my neighbourhood with whom I was comparing note. ( The guy, too, just survived appendicitis. He had the experience, so to speak). I told him about my ordeal. He alerted me that something untoward must be happening because his wound closed by 2 weeks. I went back to the doctor.

Long story short, the doctor confirmed they might have used fake "stitches" on me !!! Whaaaat? The young man had to reopen the "wound" again. And, restitched. This time without anasthesia !! And, I was yelling like a baby! I should have sued the hospital. But, I noh get moni nau.

I will share another fake drug story. This happened as recently as just last year. Because of lack of forex for pharmaceutical companies to purchase drugs , a government owned hospital dispensed expired drugs to my mum. Yes, you heard me right: a government owned hospital !!! It was God that saved my mum.

I know many of us have stories and unsavoury tales to tell about the menace of fake and adulterated drugs in Nigeria. The question really is what are the government agencies saddled with the responsibilities of making sure we have quality drugs doing ??  The most adulterated drugs are malaria and typhoid drugs. How do these fake drugs beat our borders ?? How many arrests were made last year? And how many convictions ??

Dora Akunyili advocated death penalty for the peddlers of fake drugs, and rightly so. These merchants of death are not fit to live. The big time operators, importers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers and vendors of fake drugs are not fit to live. They should be arrested, tried, and sent to hell !!! They have killed thousands of people and rendered many fatherless and motherless. They killed our Eric Aribayi. They almost killed me.

ADEDAYO

PRESIDENTIAL GAFFE

Sometimes in 1987 or thereabout, a middle-aged lady, who happened to be our neighbor, came to our Flat, with her daughter (or granddaughter) in tow. Her daughter (or granddaughter) should be around 3 year-old at the time. They came in the evening – the time they knew my Dad would have been back from work.

Hmmm. Ask me what were their mission?? The woman came to report me to my Dad that, her daughter said I cut her hair !! *smh

My dad, of blessed memory, didn’t allow me to even say anything. Like a fiery Human Right attorney, he sprang into action and defended me as if I have briefed him about what happened, prior to mother and daughter visit. There was hot exchange of words. Trust my dad; he was up to the task. He matched the woman toe to toe and went eyeball to eyeball with her. The woman (and her daughter) left with their heads bowed, talking figuratively!

But, you know what?? Till my old man departed this world, in 2013, he never asked me if the allegation was true or not. *smiles*

Of course, I didn’t do what the woman accused me of. I have always been a good boy. *Smiles*

My Interpretation:
What my father did is called LEADERSHIP !! He did that, because I have GOOD REPUTATION!!

Now, let’s come down to President Buhari’s Telegraph interview.

I have read the interview, especially the part that touched on Nigerians collective integrity.
Did Baba call Nigerians criminals? Not exactly. But he implied it!
Was Baba referring to all Nigerians ?? No.
Was Baba saying the truth about “SOME” of those unscrupulous Nigerians? Emphatic YES !!!!!
Was that the right place to say all those “truths” : Emphatic NO !!!!!

This is my opinion:
At the international scenes, nobody is interested in you spewing “the truths” about your native country. Your spewing “the truths” would not earn you or your country more respect. In fact, it is a grotesque exercise in self ridicule.

The only thing that works at such places is TACT & DIPLOMACY! It is patently absurd for the Chief Image Maker of a country to go to foreign nations and be spewing some negatives, in the name of the truths, about his country. Whatever the stereotype and the narrative the foreign media and their imperious owners have about such country gain traction when it is being reinforced by the country’s C.E.O. It is what you call your dog that neighbours and passersby would call it. Yoruba people say: You, first of all, chase the fox away, before you come back to rebuke the hen. Nobody tell home-truth in a foreign land. You come home, to tell the home-truth !

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Netherlands, India are among the top Ten heroin trafficking countries in the world, but you don’t see their Presidents and Prime Ministers hopping from one foreign nation to another telling some stories of how useless, senseless and indiscipline, their nationals are. (*Apology to Fela Kuti aka Abami Eda). Of course, that would reduce their international engagements to farcical display of intellectual emptiness.

Well, we know President Buhari doesn’t possess the eloquence of diction or the poetry of imagination of the likes of Obama or Uhuru Kenyatta of this world. We don’t even give a flying toss about that!! But then, he should (with due respect) try and read up books and learn few things about Tact and Diplomacy. Or better still; let him go for a crash course (within Aso Rock) on International Law and Diplomacy. Let him do this for the sake of millions of Nigerians eking out honest living in foreign land and who are on the receiving end of his many “diplomatic” gaffes.

Adedayo FATOKI

#Pray4Nigeria

I once ccused GEJ of being so deaf to the sullen silence, sulky resentment and deafening tuneless funeral dirges all over the places (especially North-East, Nigeria), as a result of Boko Haram’s mindless butcheries. I once accused him of being so blind to the bland looks and eyes shaded by dark sunglasses. I called him names for doing striptease at the grave-site of the mowed innocent Nigerians. I even asked (rhetorically) if he was too thick and too daft, to comprehend the melancholia and sweaty frustration that have enveloped the land while he was celebrating Nigeria’s centenary existence? In short, I criticized his mediocre leadership and his spectator stance to Nigeria’s multitudinous issues, especially the BH challenge. 

But, what I am seeing in this present administration is even worse. It beggars belief. I can’t believe that a band of President Buhari’s fawning sycophants and internet trolls could stand on crooked crutches of rehearsed falsehood and take “PR” to a ridiculous extreme and to the height of impiety, at this time of our shared grief !! Denying that there was carnage in the North-Eastern part of Nigeria, so as to make your idealized symbol of change look good in the eyes of the world and to reinforce the sham that BH has been “technically” defeated is the worst evil that could ever happen to mankind. Such barefaced lies desecrate the sanctity of life and offend all humans with the most sense of decency. 

Can someone remind these sweat-drenched, battle-obsessed, so called “change agents” that, we are no more in campaign mood and, that they should stop elevating make-believe over reality and, that they should stop asserting the primacy of propaganda (and primitive crudeness)over facts and better judgment ?? Haa!!

Well, to the bereaved, we share your grief in this time of bereavement with deepest sympathy, even as we pray for the swiftest recovery of the injured.

May God be with our gallant soldiers who are not flinching from putting their lives in danger, daily, because of us and we pray for the quiet repose of the souls of the martyrs. 

And, may Baba Buhari find courage to utterly (and not technically) wipe out these enemies of our nation at record time. Amen.

Long live Nigeria.

#PrayforNigeria

adedayo g. fatoki

Dear Buharist !!!

 Dear Buharist,

Oh sorry o! I never knew you’ve become a self-appointed, squint-eyed Facebook monitor, looking for inappropriate posts that are not in favour of your idealized “sai baba” !

I never knew I must consult you first, bow and scrape and, seek your permission about what to post on my wall, so that I won’t ruffle your vainglorious feathers and offend your earthy, touchy pride!!

I never knew that telling your “sai baba” to sit up (and stop giving excuses) – before the already comatose economy finally goes into a tailspin; before a dollar exchange for 300 Naira; before we begin to have the Zimbabwe experience – is an heightened derogatory remark punishable under decree 4 of 1984!!!

Phew! Decree 4 !!!! I never knew decree 4 of 1984 has been exhumed and now in effect. Where was I ?? Pardon my manners. Pardon my ‘unrestrained disobedience’, Buharist. E fori jimi o !!! Please, don’t tell Baba Buhari Ooo !!! Please don’t tell him that, there are still some of us who desire to live outside the tight radius of bondage dictated by some of you who have appointed yourselves our judge and Jury. Please, don’t tell him that, there are still few of us who detest living like frightened deer in a restrictive thicket of negative regulations.

Finally, please don’t tell baba that, there are few of us who won’t submit to the do’s and don’ts of a maximum ruler nor pander to his insular opinions nor nod agreement to some vacuous “articulation” on the state of the economy.

Please sir…. I promise to give out 3 litres of PMS in return for this favour, Sir!!!!!

Adedayo

Smart Guy !

I gbadun this Desmond Elliot guy. To break into Nollywood, he downplayed his 'Yorubaness', not letting the Idumota movie bureaucrats know he has any affinity with the Yorubas. However, when the fine boy, no pimples, threw his hat into the ring and declared his intention to contest for Surulere 1 House of Rep, suddenly he's Desmond OLUSHOLA Elliot. Like seriously!
Well, that's politics. To play it well, you've got to learn how to use subtle strategy and outright treachery instead of coercion. You've got to learn how to seduce on a mass level and curry favours of known and established power brokers. The clumsy and the tactless have no place in politics, just the same way the wimpish cannot be enlisted in a nation's military. In short, to get a head-start and gain a foothold (in Politics), just be formless ! Yes... as formless as water !! By the way, that is the 48th law in the famous 48 Laws of Power: ASSUME FORMLESSNESS.
".....A military force has no constant formation water has no constant shape: The ability to gain victory by changing and adapting according to the opponent is called genius" ( Sun-tzu, fourth century B.C)
Oh, before i forget sef. Congratulations, Mr OLUSHOLA ELLIOT, on your victory at the primaries. Eko o ni baje !


Adedayo

BOKO HARAM

The truth of the matter is, all of them politicized BH. When I say all of them I mean the PDP, the ACN/APC, northern politicians and the northern elites

The north (elites) was lukewarm about the butchery and the barbarous killings at their own backyard because they thought they could use it as a tool to get more federal allocations. They argued that the youth restiveness was as a result of lopsidedness or imbalance in the share of the federal cake. They hinged their arguments on the fact that there was poverty in the north, while there were wanton waste in the south especially south-south.

The Northern politicians on the other hand were not concerned about the equitable distribution of developmental projects. They didnt care a "cow" about equitable dispensation of available scarce resources. They just wanted POWER. POWER !!! They thought they were overdue to have the power. Of course, they have been out of the power loop for a long tortuous time. Many of them were silent about the killings...and many were closet allies and financiers of the deadly sect. They wanted the power, at all cost and BH came handy. The former president (GEJ) even alluded to the fact that BH has infiltrated his government. It didn't matter to them how many of their "leaders of tomorrow" were killed. Let there be more killings to discredit the government of the day, they seemed to be saying.

For the PDP/GEJ, I want to believe that, somebody or a group of politicians who were turbocharged by insatiable greed prevailed on him (GEJ) to go soft on BH. They must have told him that "ol boy, if you want your second term to sail through, you had better go soft on boko haram o. If you want the North to vote for you, dont be too harsh on boko haram ooOO". He must have heeded their ill-advise because he diddnt do nothing (initially) against these murderous vermin when they were just ragtag directionless army. At a time, he (GEJ) was even calling them "brothers" !!!

Coming to APC. Of course...the APC needs all the propaganda that there is insecurity in the land yada...yada...yada.. to curry favour from people and boost their electoral fortunes at the poll. And, all the empty rhetoric, gaseous oratory and the highfalutin shibboleths really worked. GEJ was dressed up as a dull-witted and clueless president who could not manage a nation as complex as Nigeria and provide adequate security for her masses. All measures taken by the ruling party to stem insecurity were either criticized or frustrated. For instance: when GEJ declared state of emergency in some states in the north, they criticized it. When GEJ finally grew some balls to proscribe Boko Haram, there were barrage of acid comments and acrid criticism... when he began to go after BH, they said he's killing their children. Guess what, it all worked...and we are here !!!!!

(THIS IS IN RESPONSE TO A COMMENT ON MY FB WALL)