Statistical Analysis: Microsoft Excel 2010
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Wake up, Nkrumah, by Dr. Tunde Oseni
The Gladiator of no distant past
Who fought for liberation with a distinction pass
Wake up now, and resurrect in our land
Before things degenerate beyond our hand
Nkrumah, the father of independence
Now is the time for your kind of intelligence
Wake up now and resurrect in our land
Before we bite more than we can chew
The shining star and the golden voice
Your type is what we crave as an urgent choice
Wake up now and resurrect in our land
Our continent needs an urgent fix
Mandela, the Madiba, by Dr. Tunde Oseni
If you want success out of struggle
Mandela, the Madiba represents a model
If you think it’s over when the chips are down
Study Mandela, the Madiba for a change of mind
If you think a people can forever be in chains
Mandela, the Madiba will let you think and change
If the world has no Mandelas in our midst
What for all will that be a great miss
Revenge is not for the strong in mind
Reconciliation is an article of faith for the large in heart
Mandela, the Madiba
Man with a thousand lives
It is to your memory and love
That South Africa and the world know more about peace
My Father and the Whiteman, by Dr.Tunde Oseni
It was a sunny day
My father, then a boy, joined his mates
On a stony pitch
Chasing around a ball
Just beside the hall
Then a call from the Reverend Father
A missionary man from afar
‘You follow me’
My father cleaned up the sweat on his face
And behind the white man he gently walked
The boys behind the White Man were now two
For an errand boy normally escorted the holy one
They got to the storey building
Opposite the Catholic Church
The first in our town,
That owned the school my father went
And the mission to the place was yet unclear
As my father held his breath till the end
The Holy One entered a room that was dark
Asked the Little One to climb upon a desk
And waved a cloth to him to hold
To be pinned to a little window made of wood
The Little One obeyed the Boss
Until the show came to a close
Just by chance
As the white man made to move
A little ray of light snaked into room
And my father got the tip;
It was the call of nature
That the White Man had come to heed
That was 1956 as I was told
In 1959 the boy finished at the school
Then in 1989, the son of the boy
Entered the college arm of the school
Where his father once held the cloth
*This is based on a true life story told me by my father.
Dedicated to Pope Francis I for his love for the oppressed and
tolerance for all faiths.
Democratic Republic of Congo Gets Boost for HealthCare
NAIROBI, 31 March 2013 (IRIN) – The British government has announced a major new programme aimed at providing essential healthcare to six million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The five-year, US$270.7 million project will focus on rebuilding health facilities, training health workers, and supplying drugs and equipment.
Civil war has destroyed much of the country’s health infrastructure, as well as the road networks and vital services such as electricity, meaning patients often have to travel long distances to health centres that may not be equipped to handle their complications.
IRIN has put together a list of five health issues in DRC that require urgent attention:
Maternal and Child Health – DRC’s maternal mortality ratio is 670 deaths per 100,000 live births, with an estimated 19,000 maternal deaths annually. The country has a severe shortage of health workers – less than one health professional is available per 1,000 people.
With 170 out of every 1,000 children dying before they reach the age of five and 10 percent of infants underweight, DRC has one of the worst child health indicators in the world. It is one of five countries in the world in which about half of under-five deaths occur. Some of the biggest killers of children are diarrhoea, malaria, malnutrition and pneumonia.
Sexual violence – Several studies report high levels of sexual violence perpetrated against women, children and men in DRC, both by armed groups and within the home; one study, conducted in the North and South Kivu and Ituri in 2010, found that 40 percent of women and 24 percent of men had experienced sexual violence. Continue reading “Democratic Republic of Congo Gets Boost for HealthCare”
The Story of My Pet
Youth Focus Initiative is my pet project which I started when I was 24, an age by which most students have already completed their first degree and for some their PhDs. After completing secondary school, financial meltdown at the family level put a temporary cap on my thirst for a higher education. As fate would have it, it was in between the struggling eight years of self-help, selling petrol as a pump attendant, teaching pupils in private schools, and working
as a community newspaper reporter that I started Youth Focus Media (later renamed Youth Focus Initiative) in Lagos.
The idea was (and still is) to motivate and engage the youths, wherever they are. I believe that some of the ideas that were packaged into those modest editions of the Youth Focus magazine had the same impact as the regular talks I gave along with the marketing of the publication. I made the magazine so simple that even the busiest person in the world would still find it ‘unputdownable!’ My sister and I were the company and we ‘hired’ some ad hoc distributors. It was not easy in the beginning, but we later found it very exciting.
In August 2001, we went to a massive programme called the Youth Empowerment Scheme at the National Stadium, Surulere in Lagos. The whole stadium was full and we had armed ourselves with 100 copies of Youth Focus magazine to test run the sales. In ten minutes all of our copies had been mopped up and we had to restock with an extra 200 copies, which also sold out within a few hours. It was then that it dawned on us that our Ghanaian cotenant
(Mr. Adoo) was right when he had told us to take ‘everything’ to the programme. We were surprised by the number of sales that we made in four consecutive days. Continue reading “The Story of My Pet”
Dreams Come True
By Tunde Oseni, PhD
‘The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams’. So goes an anonymous saying. We all need dreams. Not just because dreams come true but also because a life without dreams is an empty life. Dreams in this context are not what we see when we are fast asleep but rather what we passionately think about and enthusiastically imagine becoming realities in the nearest possible future. Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, former President of India, said: ‘The dream is not what you see in sleep; dream is which does not let you sleep’. That’s a food for thought indeed. Dreams are therefore the stuff of which success is made of. The good news is that dreams that we hold dear can come true if we tap into the power of big dreams. Dreams come true.
I know that dreams come true because I once dreamt that I would get education at the premier university in Nigeria: the University of Ibadan, and I did; dreams come true. I once dreamt that I would like to make a first class honours degree, and I did; dreams come true. I once dreamt that I would do my postgraduate studies at the first university in the United Kingdom and one of the oldest and the best in the world: the University of Oxford, and I did; dreams come true. While at Oxford, I did dream that I would do my doctorate in a top-rated university in the UK: the University of Exeter, and I did; dreams come true. I not only researched at Exeter, but also taught students from all parts of the world. Wow! Dreams indeed come true. It may interest you to know that I was not born with the proverbial silver spoon, but I was, metaphorically speaking, born with a spoon, the spoon of pursuit of excellence, the spoon of courage, the spoon of hope. Continue reading “Dreams Come True”
Showing Up is the First Step to Success
I heard someone say that 80 percent of life is merely showing up. I thought about it for a while and I couldn’t agree less with him.
You have an awesome idea that can change the outcome; you have a question to ask that no one has thought of, but the first step is being there.
There is no substitute for being on the ground; there is no alternative to being physically present; there’s nothing of the same scale as responding YES to the invitation and showing up.
And if you show up and change the outcome, you pay for the remaining 20%.