Here are some of my favourites quotes mostly collected from Twitter and Facebook. Do Enjoy!
If you are not hard on yourself today, you will live under pressure tomorrow.

What you are created for is what you are rated for. Its an offence to loose your originality.

The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, learn about them, or even seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.

If you have love you don’t need to have anything else, but if you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter what else you have.

Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.

Hold to forgiveness, command what is right; but turn away from the ignorant.

Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all you energies on a limited set of targets.

Everyone is gifted – but some people never open their package.

A well-directed imagination is the source of great deeds.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; We grow old because we stop playing.” –George Bernard Shaw

Start even if it’s unpopular. Make noise. Get better. Build ‘Trust Capital.’ Be consistent! – Gbenga Sesan

A child will never learn to walk by sitting still and waiting to “be able to walk”. Stand up, walk and learn on the go.

The poor shouldn’t be seen as means to enrich ourselves, rather we should think about how we can use creative solutions to help them. -Yunus

Key is to add value, not mere interest in doing good.

As you live your days, so you craft your life. – Robin Sharma

Good fortune and bad are equally necessary to man, to fit him to meet the contingencies of this life – French proverb

“Life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them.” Bud Fox American stockbroker from the film “Wall Street” (1987)

Do not just sit there waiting for the world to present opportunities to you ~L. Daskal

“Dig the well before you are thirsty.” — Chinese Proverb

I was sitting down early in the morning having breakfast and getting ready for work. I decide to put on the Television to listen to the latest news. After that I changed the channel to MITV where a prophet, was been interviewed.

Then, he announced that he was going to have a ‘special’ service the coming Sunday, and that everyone should come along with a bar of ‘Joy’ beauty soap. I thought I didn’t hear that well, but he said it again and quoted scriptures saying ‘he who believes a prophet shall recieve the reward of a prophet…’. ‘Joy beauty soap’! Well, the rationale was that he would pray on the soap and you would have Joy in your life presumably after bathing with it…Oh and he had those titles, Prophet,Dr…JP…lol.

A wealthy man who was about to die called three of his friends, a pastor, a doctor and a lawyer.

He told them “I’ve heard that no one can take their money when they leave this earth. I have $3 million dollars in 3 seperate envelopes under my bed at home. I want you to split it into three, and each of you should throw your $1 million dollars into my grave just before it is covered up with sand”.

On the day of the burial, as the grave was been covered up, the three men threw their envelopes into the grave.

“I am sorry, I needed $250,000 for a church building, so i took $250,000 and threw the remaining into the grave”; the Pastor told the others, unable to hold back.

“I took $500,000 to buy some medical equipments for the hospital and threw the remaining into the grave”, the doctor confessed.

“Gentlemen, I am shocked you could hold unto such large amount of money. I wrote a personal signed check of the full amount and dropped it in the grave…”, the lawyer remarked.

Lol…Ha Ha Ha

I and Justin Hartmann

The BarCamp Nigeria 2009 experience (25/04/2009) was a “one in a million” one for me. It would probably be the best “technology networking” conference i have ever attended. It however had its own hiccups.

First, there was no early facebook event created to remind me of the program on time. I got wind of it through someone’s facebook status a day to the program! I had been looking forward to it and even though it fell on the “Eyo Festival”, there was no way i was going to miss it.

Yours truly

The personalities at BarCamp Nigeria were fantastic; right from Justin Hartmann of Afrigator, to Evan Wheeler of RapidSMS from UNICEF, Tim Akinbo, the wonderful Microsoft Representative, Oluniyi David Ajao all the way from Ghana, Stephen who took the session on “Setting up an internet radio station” also Loy Okezie of www.startupsnigeria.com and a host of others.

However, as difficult as it would be to pick out who inspired me most, I decided to try and guess who I came up with!

from: http://www.huhuonline.com

“When any of my customers wants to have sex with me without using condoms, I usually protest. Then we will strike a bargain and we will do it. He won’t know that he is buying his death with his own money. However, there are many who will never have sex without using condoms. But I have a way of dealing with them. When I am having sex with such men, I usually shake my buttocks vigorously so as to burst the condom, and if the condom bursts and the man is carried away, he won’t bother about fixing another condom”.

These lines are taken from a pathetic story in The Sun newspaper of Saturday, April 18. They belong to a young Nigerian lady called Sandra, who has been served the wrong end of the stick by a crazy society where the future is uncertain even for young girls, and who has chosen to become an assassin in protest. There are probably many others like her whose stories move us to tears and frustration and for whom we feel neither disgust nor pity but sympathy. Sandra’s story holds in one explosive capsule, many of the disturbing issues in the Nigerian society: the insecurity of lives and property, the lack of trauma care for victims of circumstances, the abortion of hopes, rape, prostitution, abortion, poverty, the failure of governance, and the likely effect of psychological and social violence on the society at large. Increasingly, everyday, Nigerians are disappointed by society, and in all ways, they turn upon and against each other; such spectacle of man’s inhumanity to man, such display of social violence. And yet it is common to hear them proclaim “the grace of God” in their lives.

Sandra’s story is shocking says Henry Umahi, the reporter of her story. Indeed it is. Four years ago, the future lay at her feet. She was 17, a virgin, and she had just been offered admission into the Delta State University, Abraka, to study Banking and Finance. Many young Nigerians love to study Banking and Finance. It is certainly not one of those courses of study that former President Olusegun Obasanjo considered useless. She must have dreamt of getting a job in a bank, with a good salary to go with it, nicely cut skirts and the self-confidence that comes with having made something out of one’s life. But Nigerian roads are full of dangers.

Culled from http://www.234next.com
Written by Zahra Mohammed

The other day, there was one of those ‘u don hit my car’ moments on Ikorodu Road. As we sat in traffic waiting for the people involved to sort themselves out, I spotted a man waiting to cross the road.

He was holding onto a fairly large goat by a rope tied round its neck and was watching the oncoming traffic keenly, waiting for the right moment to dash across.

Unfortunately for the man, his goat was not enthusiastic about crossing Ikorodu Road and made it quite clear by the way it positioned itself.

It planted its feet firmly on the ground – braced to resist if the man tried to pull it onto the road – and kept turning away from the expressway. Every so often the man would have to pause from his traffic watch and struggle to get the goat into the correct road-crossing position.

The incredible thing was that this man was standing right under a pedestrian bridge, one that was in full use. There was a steady stream of people walking across the pedestrian bridge and even a number of safety-conscious okada riders had used it.

I watched the guy to see how he was going to dash across a busy highway with a large, hairy, uncooperative animal by his side.

I didn’t know that Benjamin had noticed them as well, until he commented on the spectacle. “See as that goat set im leg,” Benj said, “Dat goat no go cross dat road today, lai lai.”

We watched in silence for a few minutes as the man and his goat struggled again. “E be like say de goat wan use de pedestrian bridge” Benjamin observed. “E no wan die for Ikorodu Road.”

“Maybe the goat knows that the man is taking it to a place where it will be killed, that’s why it doesn’t want to go,” I replied, refusing to believe that a goat would have more sense about road safety than a grown man with hair on his chest.

I thought it was incredible that a goat, with nothing much to look forward to by way of a future, would value its life more than a man valued his.

The poor thing took one look at the way the cars, trucks and petrol tankers whizzed past, sensed danger and said to itself: “I may end up in a pot by the end of today but this ain’t the way to go.”

The man and his goat struggled again. The goat was too large and probably too heavy to carry otherwise the man looked like he was ready to tuck it under his arm and make a dash for it.

The man tugged at the rope unsuccessfully then bent over, put his arms around the goat’s mid section and jerked it into position so that it faced the expressway. He had barely straightened up when the goat turned away again and faced the pedestrian bridge.

Benjamin and I had a good laugh. “So this is why they say ‘as stubborn as a goat,'” I said to myself.
Other daredevil highway crossers like the man – people who refused to use the pedestrian bridge provided for their safety – gave him odd looks as they walked past him and his stubborn goat.

They all leaned into the road, did the quick calculation (2 speeding cars plus 1 Formula One okada rider divided by 1 truck piled high with yams equals NOW!) then they sprinted across the highway, tucking in their buttocks as they leaped to safety on the other side, so that the truck whizzing past with a load of yams wouldn’t shave an inch off their backsides.

As crazy as they all were to make that crossing, from the looks they gave the man with the goat, they obviously thought that he was even crazier.

“All dis time wey dis man don waste here, if to say in use de pedestrian bridge e for don cross longest time,” Benjamin said. At this point our lane began to move as the drivers in front of us inched their way past the point where one car had hit another.

I turned to look at the man, still waiting to cross the road after nearly ten minutes, and wondered: Between a goat that wouldn’t obey its owner and a man who refused to use a pedestrian bridge, who really was the stubborn goat?

It was 8 am on a monday morning, JohnBull was headed for a job interview at a bank around Obalende CMS. It was a very
lucrative job; a bank driver! He was armed with his CV (Driving License and Primary School Certificate). Smelling thickly of
some cheap label-less perfume he had bought by the roadside, and wearing a suit that had seen better days, JohnBull looked
at himself again; as far as he was concerned, he looked good. For some seconds, he imagined his new lifestyle after getting the
bank job…it would be as Abdul said; he’d get an air conditioned car, and a salary of N100,000 as well as other allowances.
He smiled; after his first salary, he would make his friends go green with envy, and that Nneka girl, she would have no choice
but to fall at his feet…he would move to Ikoyi (staying in his boss’ Boy’s Quarters) and Yes! He would become a Big Boy!!!
He was brought back to the present when someone stepped on his leg. Just as he was about to curse, another hit him by the side.
Ten he realised what was happening, People were rushing for a bus that had just arrived, and it would be quite some time before
another would come.

In a split second, he was in the midst of the crowd (there was no way he would be late for his interview, even if he had to hang),
struggling and shoving, throwing punches and getting back same, everyone wanted to get into this bus. With the shout of a gladiator,
JohnBull pushed as hard as he could, and got into the bus (He was happy, but unknown to him, his wallet and handset had been stolen!).
Making his way inside the bus, JohnBull cursed when he heard the fare; it had been increased by 100%, Mcheew! He should have taken a Molue.
Anyway he felt he could still afford it. “JohnBull!JohnBull!JohnBull!”, it was Nneka calling his name. He swiftly went to sit with her.
(This girl who he had long toasted was smiling at him, and calling his name! He didn’t know however that Nneka couldn’t afford the fare,
and just wanted to use him…well he’d show her he was a big boy and pay her fare, and when he buys his car…the fool kept dreaming).

Two individuals were cursing each other in the bus (obviously, they had traded blows in the rush to enter the bus); “Oloshi! Were! Ko ni
da fun gbogbo yin ni village yin! Agbaya! Wo oju e bi oju eja! Ashewo! Your Father! You’ll die before this week ends! Na ur whole family go die!”.
“Sorry o”; people were consoling a man who had his shirt torn while struggling to get into the bus. Most were mocking him, including his
sympathisers. “Oloshi, u no fit wait for another bus! pele, u better go back home! Yeye!”.
The conductor was struggling with Agberos (touts) at the B/Stop.1
“Owo Security, Owo loading (Security money, loading money)”. “Mu Ten Fibre wa! (Bring N100)”. “Rara o! Gba shandy (No, take N20)”.
“Ori e o pe abi, o fe kin disfigure oju e ni, o ni fe we lori transformer! (I’ll disfigure your face if you don’t pay, you won’t want to
take your bath on top of a transformer!)”.

//The bus conductor will be referred to as Condi from now on, and the driver as Pilot from hereon.

“Oya! Make we dey go now”. Condi abruptly paid the agbero (tout), and Pilot stepped on the pedal, jolting everyone in the bus, he was out of the
bus stop in a jiffy, not without curses from the passengers. “Useless People, if LASTMA or RRS catches me, they’ll all get down and collect their
money…yeye people! Mcheeeeew!!!”, Pilot thought to himself.

JohnBull was looking for a way to engage Nneka in a conversation. “Baby, i like the way u walk, i like the way you carry your bag”, JohnBull told
Nneka. Nneka blushed…the stupid condi should collect the fare quickly, this JohnBull was fast becoming a nuisance…if not that she had no money
…what business does a poor man have with sheraton…Mcheeeeewww! (But she had no choice, the mugu would pay after all…).
“Thank you”, she replied.
“So where are you going to?”. “Work”. “Where?”. “GRA”. “Wow!”. JohnBull was impressed, if only he knew she was just a cleaner…

Condi was now asking for money…Nneka felt relieved, she would soon put this guy in his place. “Bring out your money, i no get change o!”

When Condi got to them, Johnbull waved him on, and told Nneka he would pay for her. She smiled, thanked him, and stroke his arm. JohnBull
was on fire! Chei…this girl that had showed him pepper… Girls, they can die for money.
He reached into his pocket for his wallet. It wasn’t there! No way, this can’t be happening! He looked at the person at his back, it was an old
woman; she definitely could not have stolen his wallet. He was mad, if not for Nneka he would have caused trouble in this bus…
He searched his pockets again…Nneka looked at him…he smiled at her. “Chei!!! i don die!”, JohnBull thought to himself.
“GRA wa o”, Nneka shouted to let Condi know she was getting off at the next B/Stop.
JohnBull had an option, he had a small change in his folder, but it could only pay for one person’s fare. Nneka’s announcement meant it would be her fare
he would pay…he would sort himself out with Condi. She had stroked his arm, he couldn’t fail now, not now…he imagined what would happen in the evening.
Reluctantly, he paid for Nneka’s fare with his last change and told Condi to chill as he would still pay him.
The bus had gotten to GRA and Nnkeka got down without even saying Goodbye to JohnBull…
“She must be in a rush to work”, JohnBull thought.
“Mugu! Mumu! Good riddance to bad rubbish! Mcheeew!!!”, Nneka said to herself. (She had gist for her fellow cleaners at work today, they would so laugh!)

JohnBull looked at Nneka’s beautiful figure fade out as the bus moved on, Damn…she was beautiful.
Condi was coming towards him now, it was him and Condi now…
What would he do???

———————————
Watch out for Part 2 coming out soon…lol

After basically facebooking throughout working hours and forgetting to eat, (taking only cereal in the morning) and missing
the staff bus, with my boss asking me to leave for home, I left the office, headed to the bus-stop and proceeded to enter
a bus.
“Agbado Ijaiye 120”; the conductor shouted when i asked him of the fare.
I promptly stepped back; there was no rush, so why pay extra?
“Oya, Enter for N100”, the conductor said (I’ll refer to him as condi). I gleefully entered.
I was the second to enter the bus, One olopa (policeman) was sitting in front (these police too like awuf and na them go
dey catch these buses).
I looked around, people were standing lazily at the bus stop like they had no place to go. (Guys, its N100, abi u expect him to say 80?
Una go wait for molue o).
The driver may i refer to him as “pilot”, getting impatient after spending time at the bus stop shouted “N100 Agbado”.
People started trickling in, seeing this ‘condi’ shouted ‘5 for seat o’, to which we all reacted “No way o!”.
Condi tried to argue but Pilot had already said “4 on seat”, and we wouldn’t budge.
Condi wasted our time trying to get the last passenger into what you could call “pako on the engine”,
who would pay N100 for that!
As we started to move, the bus jerked and coughed for some seconds and trust Lagos’ merciless passengers;
“Oga, make we come down o !”.
“Come down, for where? Nna, make i come lose this money, no way!”, I am sure pilot was thinking as he paid us no heed and
stepped on the accelerator making the car trot forward on speed. The bus was moving fine and the bus was silent.
“Lagos people? We know say this bus no good, but we still siddon like say nothing dey! We fit risk our lives o!” I said to myself.
Pilot suddenly steps on the brakes, and passengers start shouting “Softly o!”.
(I am sure someone must have silently screamed ‘Jesus!’, prayed or skipped a heartbeat. Naija can fear o)

We haven’t gotten to the next bus-stop and Condi starts bugging me for the fare.
“Is something wrong with this bus? I hope not cos I go collect my money back sam sam. I get ‘were’ o and small ‘craze’ o”;
I am thinking to myself.
Pilot steps hard on the brakes again and passengers scream warnings “Rora o! Na only me my mama born o! I no ay goobye for
house o! I get family for house o!”.
Condi starts bugging me again for the fare. I pay am so dem no go talk sey ‘wetin this one dey feel like’?
The woman wey dey ma side don dey look me somehow. and lagos women, dem no dey tey run their mouth.

Pilot marsh the brake hard again!!! This pilot don take ‘paraga’ ni, abi e don ‘shayo’ or na ‘pami’ he take.
E be like say im think say im dey NASCAR, or im think say e dey drive bullion van.
“Bobo yi rora o!”, “Guy, wetin now?”, “Oga, fun ra re ni brain o!”; Passengers warn Pilot.
He continues driving ”Danfo Style’ and Im praying I Don’t Puke.
The bus starts coughing again, This bus needs Baba Blue o. ‘Mo ti si bus wo leni’.
“Wan wun, Wan wun, Wan wun, Wan wun”; a siren blares behind me.
Shey Fashola don ban Siren for Lagos na?
Who be the important personality sef? I turn and see one guy driving a Lagos state environmental vehicle,
im really pissed off!

I love Lagos ‘Hold up’, Plenty choppies, “You can have whatever you like…”

I need yogurt, I see the yogurt guy coming and reach into my pocket to get my wallet… its not there! I search all my pocket,
For where! Chei! My wallet don waka! I no go gree o! I go search evrybody for this moto!
I use style look the person wey dey mt back whether e fit be am, and i see my wallet for floor. Omigosh! My mind don settle.
I for waka go house today or find story tell conductor or do ‘fine bara’.
You gotta love God and Lagos hold up, if not for that yogurt…

I will soon get down, make dis pilot allow me get down before im crash him bus with the useless way im dey drive.
(But why do we risk our lives? Can’t we all get down? Instead we silently pray “God, take us home, safely! Amen!”)

NO be me go come down from moving bus, u better park wella o, i no fit fall down make Lagosians dey tell me sorry
and use me laugh o.

Thank God I survived that crazy ride! Nes time, I beta look Pilot face before I enter Bus…

——————————-

Last sunday was really a very active one for me.

After the rigorous task of cleaning the jeep for a hardworking fellow like me, my dad manged to leave me at home and head for church.
I played around with my mum, setting her phone’s radio et al, and then decided it was time to get going.

Just then I remembered that i was to be on the programme! OMG! I started running. Got a bike which was paid for by someone luckily, entered a bus and another bike en route to church. Yep! Its that far.

Getting to my teens church, i saw that it had been tiled, i was very happy and checking the roaster discovered that I was not on the program for the day! Sheesh!

Well, instead of a message we had a group discussion on the “place of the holy spirit in our ministry”.

The girls were ready, and I had the hard task of getting the scared boys to get their 3 representatives. I got two of them and added myself.

The boys and girls had their say and I was quite touched by peace’s talk (an almost 13 yr old girl speaking where her seniors where scared).

After the teens pastors contribution, we had other activities and rounded up the service. I called for a general meeting (and a special meeting with the boys) to discuss on our planned dinner. Lazy boys, they disappeared so quickly.

Next thing, the dinner committee chairman tells me the pastor wants to combine the dinner with a concert and he wants none of that. Im furious (by the way im the teens VP) and am gonna have none of that. Alas, the boy got it wrong and made me look like a fool in front of the pastor; that’s what happens when kids organize events. By the way im gonna override most of his decisions from now.

Away from church issues, Toyin gained admission into UNILAG and we talked a while. Couldn’t complete my assignments and Dad almost left me in church again!!! This my dad sha!

On my way to school, we argued on the issue of first class (se mo fe para mi ni). Only God can help me gat that.

The most interesting event of the day was when i boarded a bike to school. On our way, I saw a snake. it was beautiful. Apparently the bike man saw it and decided it would end up in his pot of soup that night. he headed back and ran the snake over. The snake coiled making it difficult to kill. The desperate guy removed his shirt and used it to carry the snake! I couldn’t believe it.

What a sunday!