An education bond for Nigerian universities
Could we create a long-term education investment bond where investors pool their money to finance university education and research in Nigeria? The quickest benefit to the participants, government and companies, would be access to better-prepared graduates in as short as one year.
I could go on to unearth more reasons. Ultimately, the talent pool would increase dramatically, and both the private and public sectors would benefit substantially. These incessant strikes would be gone forever!
Who would manage the fund? University representatives and investors.
Devotion in sports and religion
I was thinking about the English Premier League the other day. Why do the fans of losing teams, or worse relegated teams, remain so? Why don’t they just switch their allegiance to the winning clubs?
Again, I was thinking about the story of the Ark of the Covenant in Dagon’s temple. After the nightly incidents and the onset of disease among them, the Philistines opted to appease Israel’s God. I found it interesting that they didn’t consider switching their allegiance to the angry God instead.
I raised this with my colleague EI and we arrived at this: People stick with the status quo per the force of habit, culture, sentiment, and the systems that permit the lifestyles they choose.
Fantastic things people believe and say
I once met a young man who told me, as confident as if he were telling me the time of the day, that he was going to be the biggest football star from out of Nigeria. He didn’t look like a football star to me: he was short, shorter than I am, and almost of a frail stature. I saw him play once or so and he didn’t do anything special. But you know, sometimes I look at Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka and wonder if he isn’t that guy.
I also know someone who believes that Nigeria is set to become the next world power. He grounds this belief on a mix of history, interpretation of prophecies, and some peculiar permutations: it is Africa’s turn to produce the next world power and since Nigeria was/is the Giant of Africa, Nigeria had to be it. Okay.
I have also met guys who talked about dreams of world domination through God’s blessing, or some boasts about psychic abilities. Do people really believe these things as they say them, or is it just a game to them?