Adedeji Olowe - Page 51 of 82 - A safe place to rant

Prevent message read status on Blackberry Messenger

That Blackberry share market is having a free fall faster than a rollercoaster is not news. That Blackberry is eating Nokia’s lunch in some markets, such as in Nigeria, is no news either.
It is also no secret that the number one feature that makes the Blackberry sticky is the Blackberry Messenger; quite a lot of good and as many evils can be done on it. One feature that I love most is that I could see when my message has been delivered and read. The one feature I hate most on BBM is that others could see when I have read their messages.
Isn’t that a contradiction? Well, I’m human and it is contradictions that make us Homo Sapiens.
You see, once in a while, I need to read messages while I decide if a response is required or not. But when a message you have seen shows as read at the other end, it could have unforeseen consequences. Proving that you are not ignoring the sender (which in this case, is what I want to do) could be a tight spot to wriggle out of.
I searched online for a way to defeat this feature but couldn’t find one until out of sheer serendipity, I discovered a solution.
You can keep those short-tempered and pesky folks out of your hair if you do the following:

Make sure your BBM is configured to Save Chat History. To configure, open BBM, select options and scroll down to the Save Chat History; select Media Card
When you get a chat from someone who you want to hide from, delete the chat without opening to read it.
Now select the sender’s profile and using the Blackberry menu button, select View Chat History.

You will be able to read all the messages without the sender’s status changing to Read at the other end.
Now, configuring your BBM to Save Chat History is really dangerous and could land you in serious trouble. But since I’m exposed to the same risk, I would probably never talk about it.

Nigerian news on my mobile, anyone?

Last Sunday I was on the road and like I do every Lord ‘s Day, I wanted to catch-up with Simon Kolawole Live! on Thisday but I couldn’t because Thisdaylive.com isn’t formatted to be displayed suitably on a mobile device. If I zoom up to what my ageing eyes could read properly, the pages extend beyond the browser and would require too many horizontal scrolling. Anyway, I gave up and that was it.

All news organizations in Nigeria have websites though the quality and design of these websites is an argument best left for another day. Save for Vanguard and maybe Thisday, the rest are online junk; crappy slow-loading messes that hardly receive proper updates. Even Thisday just earned a bit of my respect after a belated redesign. Business Day Online used to be a joy to read but then only heaven knows what happened to their webmaster. At first, it was an irritating music (yes, music on a business news website!) and now the whole site is just something else.

Anyway, back to my ranting.

The internet is alive and kicking in Nigeria, but on mobile phones. And considering that we spend most of our productive time stuck in some traffic, the mobile web becomes even more important. So, it is amazing that none of the top news organizations have their websites formatted to be displayed properly on mobile devices. You can’t even load Guardian on your Blackberry because the file size is too large.

Any news agency that is quick to recognize the potentials of the mobile web stands a chance to win a large followership (large followership translates to premium advertising) as long as it has good stories to offer for the quality of the news in Nigeria is something else. Maybe the same stuck-in-the-box thinking affecting the quality of the news is also affecting the quality of the web and the absence of a mobile site. Maybe not.

If you want to know the difference between a proper news website and its mobile version visit Guardian.co.uk on your desktop and mobile device.

Major news websites in Nigeria:

Business Day: businessdayonline.com
Champion News: champnews.com
Daily Trust: dailytrust.com
Guardian: ngrguargiannews.com
Next: 234next.com
Punch: punchontheweb.com
The Nation: thenationonlineng.net
The Sun: sunnewsonline.com
Thisday: thisdaylive.com
Tribune: tribune.com.ng
Vanguard: vanguardngr.com

The Nigerian Constitution (1960, 1979, 1989 and 1999)

There have been a lot of searches on the web for the Nigerian Constitution these days. Maybe it is the season of politics or maybe people just want to know. I used to have just the 1999 Constitution available for download, but I have now added the files for 1960, 1979 and 1989. The amended 1999 Constitution would be added later when I get hold of it.

The voodoo of informed predictions

This morning I got a mail from a well-regarded source about the likely outcome of the bi-monthly Monetary Policy Committee (The MPC is a committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria) meeting coming up later in the day. The source argued that the MPR, LR and CRR would probably be left at 7.5%, 30% and 2% respectively. With a caveat that the prediction should be taken with a pinch of salt and she’s not liable for any calamity that hits anyone who uses the prediction to make decisions. Come on! Even Jim Jones was better than this.

By the way, if you don’t know what these acronyms stand for, don’t bother; they mean absolute nothing, especially to the man on the street. They are some of the jargons we bankers put up to feel very self-important.

It would have been a story if the ratios weren’t changed: I can’t remember if any of the predictions ever made by my source came true. But I’m sure if Harold Camping’s rapture hasn’t taken place before the next MPC, my impeccable source would make another prediction and guess what, my own prediction is that she’s going to be wrong, as usual.

The business world is replete with loads of analysts and self-styled experts but empirical evidence has shown we (too bad, seems I’m one of them) are not better than an army of random monkeys hitting away at the keyboards and a chance Shakespeare classic coming out. The publishing editors are thrilled and the monkeys have been given an advance for 4 more classics. You see, if you deal with a very large solution space (another jargon, another narcissistic comment) like I’m working on for my current project, anyone can get lucky.

The real disaster, of course, is confusing luck with expertise.

If you think I’m joking, read about what McKinsey and Company told AT&T in 1982.

Interesting bits on Nigerian governors

If you take a look at the current lineup of governors (those staying and new ones) you would say that education in Nigeria is about to be rescued from doldrums. That’s only if you look at the lineup. Whether education would be granted a lifeline is a waiting game. And by the way, patience is a dangerous virtue.

Some dude put up an interesting data about these folks on Nairaland of recent. 31 (86%) of the governors have university degree and it’s not that the rest skipped school; of the 3 (8%) who had HND from polytechnics, 2 topped it with additional Masters. 2 (6%) are ex-military top guns and someone did a railway course. Only one governor doesn’t have a record but I can bet he must have had some school. And believe me, these guys are exposed: 8 (22%) have studied abroad, and 2 (6%) have PhDs. Of course Kayode Fayemi is the most educated, he had PhD from King’s College London. He’s my man any day.

What most did after school is entirely another kettle of fish: 9 (25%) learned politics from careers in civil service (now that sounds scary), of the 7 (19%) lawyers, 5 (14%) setup their private legal practice (fine-tuning election tribunal skills I guess). And talk is cheap in the south and lawyers do talk a lot, of the 7 lawyers; only 2 (6%) are from the north.

The two 2 (6%) ex-medicos had private hospitals. What became of their patients when they vied into politics is a question I would love to get an answer to. Apart from Peter Obi of Anambra who was chairman of Fidelity Bank Plc. all the other 3 (8%) ex-bankers are northern governors (I guess my chance of becoming a governor one day is next to nothing).

But like some people will tell you, facts are sometimes not reality. All these interesting bits could mean absolutely nothing. Notwithstanding, you can crank out your own insights using the data below or visit the Nairaland forum to vent your frustration.

State	Governor	Degree	Career height	Party
Abia	Theodore Orji	BA English (University of Ibadan)	Career civil servant	PDP
Adamawa	Murtala Nyarko	Navy Training (Britannia Royal Naval College)	Vice Admiral (Nigerian Navy)	PDP
Akwa Ibom	Godswill Akpabio	LLB Law (University of Calabar)	Director, Corporate Affairs/Legal Services (EMIS Telecoms)	PDP
Anambra	Peter Obi	BA Philosophy (University of Nigeria)	Chairman (Fidelity Bank)	APGA
Bauchi	Isa Yuguda	BSc Economics (ABU), MBA (University of Jos), Chief Executives Programme (Lagos Business School)	CEO (NAL Merchant Bank), CEO (Inland Bank)	PDP
Bayelsa	Timipre Sylva	BA English Studies/Linguistics (University of Port Harcourt)	Career politician	PDP
Benue	Gabriel Suswam	LLB Law (University of Lagos), LLM Law (University of Jos), MA Public Administration (University of Abuja)	Owner (Private legal practice)	PDP
Borno	Kashim Shettima	BSc Agric Economics (University of Maiduguri), MSc Agric Economics (University of Ibadan)	GM (Zenith Bank)	ANPP
Cross River	Liyel Imoke	BA International Relations and Economics (University of Maryland, College Park), LLB Law (University of Buckingham), LLM Law (American University, Washington, D. C)	Private business	PDP
Delta	Emmanuel Uduaghan	MBBS Medicine, Diploma Anaesthesia (University of Benin)	Owner (Private medical practice)	PDP
Ebonyi	Martin Elechi	BSc Economics (Lovanium University of Congo)	Career politician	PDP
Edo	Adams Oshiomhole	Economics and Industrial relations (Ruskin College), Candidate (National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies)	President (NLC)	ACN
Ekiti	Dr Kayode Fayemi	BA History(University of Lagos), MA International Relations (Obafemi Awolowo University), PhD War Studies (King’s College, London)	Director (Centre for Democracy & Development), Visiting Professor in African Studies (Northwestern University)	ACN
Enugu	Sullivan Chime	LLB Law (University of Nigeria)	Owner (Private legal practice)	PDP
Gombe	Ibrahim Dankwambo	BSc Accounting (Ahmadu Bello University), MSc Economics (University of Lagos), Chartered Accountancy (ICAN)	Accountant General of the Federation (Nigeria), FCA (ICAN)	PDP
Imo	Ikedi Ohakim	BSc Business Administration and MSc Management (University of Lagos)	CEO (Alucon)	PDP
Jigawa	Sule Lamido	Course in Railway Engineering (Permanent Way Training School, Zaria)	Career civil servant	PDP
Kaduna	Patrick Yakowa	BSc Social Sciences (Ahmadu Bello University)	Career civil servant	PDP
Kano	Rabiu Kwankwaso	HND Civil Engineering (Kaduna Polytechnic), PgD Water Engineering (Middlesex University), MSc Water Engineering (Lagborough University)	Career civil servant	PDP
Kastina	Ibrahim Shema	LLB Law & MBA (Ahmadu Bello University)	Owner (Private legal practice)	PDP
Kebbi	Usman Dakingari	BA Geography (Ahmadu Bello University)	Career civil servant	PDP
Kogi	Ibrahim Idris	LLB Law (University of Abuja)	Private business	PDP
Kwara	Abdulfattah Ahmed	BSc Chemistry (University of Ilorin)	Senior Manager, Banking (GTB)	PDP
Lagos	Babatunde Fashola	LLB Law (University of Benin)	Managing Partner (K.O. Tinubu & Company), SAN	CAN
Nasarawa	Umaru Al-Makura	BA Education (Ahmadu Bello University)	Assistant Producer, News and Current Affairs (NTA Kaduna)	CPC
Niger	Dr Mu’azu Aliyu	BA Education (Bayero University) PhD Public Policy and Strategic Studies (University of Pittsburgh)	Career civil servant	PDP
Ogun	Ibikunle Amosun	HND Accountancy (Ogun State Polytechnic), MA International Finance (University of Westminster), Chartered Accountancy (ICAN	Owner (Private accountancy practice), FCA (ICAN)	ACN
Ondo	Dr Olusegun Mimiko	BSc Health Sciences Degree, MB & CH.B Medicine (Obafemi Awolowo University)	Owner (Private medical practice)	Labor
Osun	Rauf Aregbesola	HND Mechanical Engineering (Ibadan Polytechnic)	Owner (Private engineering firm), Commissioner (Lagos State Ministry of Works and Infrastructure)	ACN
Oyo	Abiola Ajimobi	BSc in Business Administration and Finance (State University of New York, Buffalo), MBA Operations Research and Marketing (Governor’s State University)	CEO (National Oil and Chemical Marketing Company)	ACN
Plateau	Jonah Jang	Air Force Training (Military Training Schools, Nigeria/Abroad), B.Div Divinity (Theological College of Northern Nigeria)	Air Commodore (Nigerian Air Force)	PDP
Rivers	Rotimi Amaechi	BA & MA English (University of Port-Harcourt)	Career politician	PDP
Sokoto	Aliyu Wamakko	BSc Education (University of Pittsburgh)	Career civil servant	PDP
Taraba	Danbaba Suntai	BPharm Pharmacy (Ahmadu Bello University)	Career civil servant	PDP
Yobe	Ibrahim Gaidam	BSc Accountancy (Ahmadu Bello University)	Career civil servant	ANPP
Zamfara	Yari Abubakar		Career politician	ANPP

Disclaimer: Kindly take the validity of this data with a pinch of salt and don’t use it to decide on your political career. And don’t use it to tackle your governor either.