Gemstots

  Of everything I thought the ILFA cohorts of 2015 would share, sad news was definitely not on that list. I imagined getting calls of Timbo becoming President of Sierra Leone, of Yomi becoming a Professor at Law and Senator in Nigeria. I fantasized about vacations around Africa, finally having people to say hello to, as I tour the continent. Botswana may not have been on my list but Ghana was, and with Ghana I’d have seen you and Naa. A local airline had a BOGOF promo to Ghana just on Sunday. A colleague asked if I had ever been to Ghana and I said no, thinking it’s about time I visited this neighboring country now that I have two ILFA colleagues there. Of everything we share with each other on the group, I’m sure I speak for all if I say no one anticipated such news as this. Mrs. Edwin Coe - how you made the best of that Firm. “My boss is looking forward to some Nigerian headgear” you had said. For your boss I had my head wrapped for the Gala. I watched you dance

With Multichoice, MTN, and Standard Bank owning significant shares of the Nigerian market in various sectors of the economy, the acquisition of a 63.5% stake in Dangote Flour Mills by Tiger Brands in 2012 appeared to be the ownership of a major Nigerian entity by yet another South African Company or was it? Fast forward to 2015, Tiger Brands appears to be saying ‘here, you can have your company back for nothing’, giving up its entire 65.7% stake in the company for a nominal consideration of $1 back to Dangote. There has to be a catch somewhere or this is just a massive loss. What do the shareholders of Tiger brands in South Africa have to say about the wasted investment? Who bears this loss? Tiger Brands is not only giving up its entire stake for a nominal consideration, the company is also writing off shareholder loans and assuming specific debts of the company. It’s  taking a while for me to wrap my head around this. The announcement on the JSE implies that all of this is i

(Image sourced from http://www.nigerianeye.com/2013/12/beautiful-pictures-of-christmas.html) Growing up, there was a buildup of excitement for Christmas. Once the 12 th month of the year arrived in all its glory, the countdown to Christmas would begin. Decorations would go up, the Christmas tree would finally come out of a place it had been relegated to for 11 months, Christmas lights would get strung, some with music some with burnt bulbs. Street Carnivals and Christmas parties would be held everywhere you turn, some fireworks and then of course the evergreen carols - same songs every year but never old. December always arrived with pomp and pageantry bringing with it an unexplainable sort of excitement which climaxed with the entry into the New Year. And if the new year consisted of unique numbers like 01/01/01, then people would probably try to get married on that day to immortalize the date. December always had lots of parties, I think I said that before, but Decembe

Not exactly an accurate depiction, but a lunch time conversation went something like this; " Me : So have you been to Nigeria? Partner : Interestingly, I have. Been quite a long time now, over twenty years ago, (pause) for a sport. Other Partner : What sport? Partner : Fives! Me and other Partner : What's that...? " [Katsina: Image sourced from Reuters] I'm not sure how many of you are like me and have never heard of the game of Fives until today. But I'm glad the other British partner was as oblivious as I was. What was intended to be a question for small talk ended up being my education about a game largely unknown even in the U.K. To be honest, I was intrigued; because he went on to say a game of Fives attracted more fans in Nigeria than it did in the UK at the time, which was quite interesting for a game invented in the UK. So the game of Fives is very much like the game of Squash, it involves hitting a ball against a wall, bu

(Image sourced from www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk ) It’s my wedding anniversary soon, and as usual, a girl has been reflecting; no scratch that; analyzing. A girl has been analyzing the teeny weeny years of marriage. I won’t pretend. ‘Why did I get Married?’ is not just a movie it’s a valid question that has popped up in my head hundreds of times. There are nuggets here and there on what to do, what to say, how to behave, on submission, on love, on kids, on this on that. But recently, I began to ask myself what I could have done to prepare myself for marriage. While waiting to get married, especially if you’re single, you may have been advised to plan your wedding in faith. Dear friend of mine, I do not come to you by chance J don’t plan your wedding in faith biko . Plan your marriage in faith! At some point I had told myself, I just don’t have the commitment it takes to make a marriage work. I look at my single friends who want to be married so badly and I’ve been itchin

(Image courtesy: www.creditcards.com) A very interesting discussion took place in my office yesterday and I tried to write about it immediately, but there’s just always one form of distraction or the other these days. I have a couple of half written posts and I had to make a mental resolve not to let this one suffer the same fate as my other half baked posts. To be honest I’m not sure how that Monday morning office conversation went from sitting with your wife in church even when it means being confined to the nursing mothers section of the church, to using your spouse to wade off advances from the opposite sex, to  Joint Accounts . Joint Accounts are usually a sensitive topic for discussion. Couples try to agree on whether to have Joint Accounts prior to getting married or once the dotted lines are signed. I just assumed it was common place to discuss whether or not to have Joint Accounts. And I might as well add that even when people agree to have a Joint Account, somet

Why haven’t you posted anything in a while? Someone asked me. 'I guess I’ve been distracted' I said then on second thought I added that nothing had gotten me worked up in a while. Well today I got worked up. The Customer Service Officers (CSOs) at GTB got me really worked up. Now that I think about it, every time I have to make a trip to a particular branch of GTB in the FCT, I leave frustrated.  The card attached to my account expired in April this year. Prior to its expiration (about two weeks or thereabout) I went to the branch to request another card, after being unable to request same through any on-line platform. I was informed that I had to wait for a debit alert before coming to the bank to request the card, it sounded like a dumb directive but I assumed the CSO knew what she was talking about. After about a month of waiting for a debit alert which I never got, I decided to call GTCONNECT and was informed no card had been requested and I was to go to a b