Humans are not some form of robots, we are social beings in all facets, and at every point in our lives, we want to touch life, feel life, chop life [like my Nigerian folks say], and interact with life as much as possible. This exactly and more were the unveilings in Taxi Chronicles.
If you have had experience boarding any of the e-hailing services like Uber or just any taxi then you will relate to the stories in his title. The author in this book tells stories of commuting conversations between a driver and passengers and interestingly that touch on our day-to-day struggles and interactions with life.
N’jio Carré in this piece returned in a series of events how each passenger onboard a ride had an engaging drive that made their day and left him a different man as well, the never-interested customer who just wants to concentrate on the ‘journey of their life’, holding the steering wheel and steering themselves to their desired destination.
The author must have taken great delight in the British landscape and its amazing topography as he seems to have made a good blend with its aesthetics in this literary unfolding. The author’s choice of words was carefully selected to reflect life’s struggle and the author’s originality – you could have had a feel of that in between the lines where he had painted;
Looking up, the street was enveloped in a serene white landscape, with snowflakes gently falling from the sky.
“Ah, the British humor and picturesque landscapes
The houses along the street are grand and stately, with sprawling lawns andmanicured gardens.
If there is one thing that still lingers after each commuting experience in this piece, then it is the sense of the author’s choice of recap for each experience which comes just in the last paragraph of this title. I think this in a way captures the whole experience in more simpler way.
When you experience writers like this, you can be sure there is a lot to know about him as he is on a literary journey that a lot of his fans don’t know yet. Many more intellectual works are yet to be unveiled.
Amidst the very last laughter in the last chapter of this book, there is still many more unspoken words and unwritten lines from this author, of course, his many and soon-to-be-published works will reveal all of these.
So here is my first published title, Mum Money and I. This book was published out of my sheer desire to teach kids and all youngsters financial literacy. Today i am glad to share the review on here from a linguist friend.
How to do a Neo Critical Analysis: Using Mum Money and I by Odunayo Àjàní.
Picking up a children’s book, one often just randomly discards it as a bedtime storybook or just simply, kids’ book that is not worthy to be read and examined.
For instance, one neglects the “how” and the “what” of how a texts is structured.
Reviewing children’s literature, as such, is seen as something mediocre and mundane to the study of contemporary literature. Why is this so? Literary critics tend to focus on analyzing literary texts based on how important they relate to everyday issues plaguing adulthood.
Thus one can ask the question, “are children literatures worthy of critical analysis or review?” One can answer yes; this answer is based on what the text is about and how important it is to scholarly study. Therefore, the text to be examined, which is a children’s literature genre, focuses on financial intelligence education for children. With its subject matter, one will find it noteworthy to explicate and examine how the writer explores the motif of financial intelligence and is able to teach the young ones what the text is meant for.
The literature Mum Money and I, to be considered will be treated as a text – The term ‘text’ refers to any instance of language, in any medium, that makes sense to someone who knows the language (cf. Halliday and Hasan, 1976: Chapter 1). Hence, one will explicate how the text is communicable and able to express its focal subject matter.
The text revolves around a child which inquisitiveness leads to the subject matter of financial intelligence or money matters. The writer writes from a third person eye and often dived into the omniscient and first person point of view.
The uncomplicated, but not simple of the text’s nature is able to present a complex subject matter that adults still study today to children expressively and concisely. In examining the text, Mum Money and I by Odunayo Ajani, the employ of the literary theory, New Criticism will be employed as a tool to investigate the text.
One can ask the question, “Why using New Criticism as the literary theory for analysis?” one can simply answer that the features of New Criticism actually plays a vital role in selecting it as our major tool.
One will question that the theory of New Criticism is used often to ground poetry due to the uniqueness and sine qua non of its form or structure, nonetheless, one needs to point to the fact that to write a masterpiece for children, which is done by Odunayo, that the form must be subtle and unique to a child’s way of seeing or identifying the world.
Although the book is in a narrative form laced with the cloak of dialogue, nonetheless, the form plays a crucial role in developing the plot and achieving its motif.
Then, what is New Criticism?
Lois Tyson maintains that “For New Criticism, a literary work is a timeless, autonomous (self-sufficient) verbal object.
Readers and readings may change, but the literary text stays the same. Its meaning is as objective as its physical existence on the page, for it is constructed of words placed in a specific relationship to one another—specific words placed in a specific order—and this one-of-a-kind relationship creates a complex of meaning that cannot be reproduced by any other combination of words.
Using New Criticism will call one to focus on such aspects of the text;
these aspects are:
the Organic unity of the text – how the parts of the text come together to make a whole, the form and the content and their role in relating to the subject matter (financial intelligence) of the text, and so on.
All these will be the focalé of this paper.
Examining the form first, one will assert that the form is simply written in simple but not mediocre English sentence structure, which suggests the Nigerian English in its pure sense.
The text, Mum Money and I presents itself in English simple sentence structure of Subject + Predicate.
Often it is laced with compound sentence that are carefully recruited but with conscious effort not to muddle up the meaning so as to have the children audience in mind.
Moving beyond the linguistic ensemble of the text, one will come across the pages with pictures that has semiotic underpinnings for the kids.
If one look beyond the domain of form, one will find some interesting features embedded in Mum Money and I. First of all, one will be reading it as a bildungsroman if it comes in the form of an adult novel, due to the fact that it talks about the coming of age of a girl, Esosa, who comes to the consciousness of what financial intelligence is and that finance can be managed.
The text, talks about some universal literary themes of self consciousness.
This latter motif can be identified in the first chapter, which reveals Esosa inquisitive nature towards what money is and how it can be handled.
Further, chapter two revolves around the conceptual frame of “work with your hands” in earning a living, while chapter three enumerates the import of saving and spending.
One can further list the other chapters into various points they dwell on. The chapters are:
Chapter Four: talks about family and their relationship to money. It also points out to the importance of “man-woman” relationship and why it is important to finance.
If the text had been written as a short play, one would have envisaged that this is a theme which often is discussed by short story writers.
The concept of Family here can be related to the Nigerian socio-cultural context, but this will be out of our jurisdiction in performing a new criticism analysis.
Chapter Five: dwells around learning and the need for scholarship and why it is necessary on financial intelligence.
Chapter six: mentions the power of dream and determination in achieving financial freedom.
Chapter Seven: posits the concept of Mother-child relationship and why it is crucial to financial knowledge.
One can maintain that, here, Odunayo, focuses on why mothers have an essential role in teaching their kids about money.
Chapter Eight: mentions the concept of investing by using the connotative title, “scattering the seed”.
This shows the importance of investments when it comes to the subject matter at hand.
Chapter Nine: this dwells on servitude and stewardship towards maintaining a discipline of achieving financial freedom.
Chapter Ten: teaches the ingenuity of the mother in teaching financial literacy.
Chapter Eleven: posits changing one’s bad habits and maintaining good ones when it comes to money matter.
Chapter Twelve wraps it all up by revealing the reward of teaching a child financial literacy.
Examining the chapters shows how the parts of the text are able to form a whole body.
This shows the organic unity of the paper.
Another concept is that of irony which is embedded in the chapter 12 title, “Esosa saves the day”.
In reality one will find out that Esosa is meant to be portrayed as dependent on her parents, but due to her financial capability was able to save her parents. In summing it all up, one can assert that the text, Mum Money and I, has been able to express the concept of financial literacy to the kids audience clearly and concisely.
Book title : Rebirth (from grass to grace) Author : Juliana Olayode Publisher: The love Factory
Publication year : 2017
Reading about the renown Juliana Olayode (Toyo baby) in this autobiography of hers will be one way upward for artists in Nollywood.
The story of Juliana’s life in this book and her fast rise in Nollywood has shown, a clear picture of an unrefined storytelling ability, told the way it happened. Ordinarily I haven’t considered an autobiography of this nature for a very long time, but I couldn’t stop reading through all the pages of her life in this book.
Opening the pages of her life with the pain she had with a dysfunctional home, citing the case of how her dad threw out her mum from home was one thing any reader will be sorry about. I didn’t find this appropriate initially, based on the fact that my expectations had rested on reading something more personal about Juliana’s life. But then I think it worked out the magic she expected. It held my attention and I think, the attention of any reader.
From my reviewer’s point of view I think Juliana might have been led into the details of her dad’s break up with her mum, but this wasn’t let out to the public. Autobiography? A clever one right? Well maybe.
…They were wearing bras but I was wearing singlets….Pg 25.
This might have been a major factor leading to Juliana’s lustful affection for her choir leader. Every young girl there is, wants to celebrate her stage of feminine maturity (This also became a notion understood by Juliana’s mum and dad who will kill a cockrel to celebrate their daughter’s first day of menstruating) and probably give some act a trial. This might have been what made Juliana swallow all of her choir master’s lies hook line and sinker. Maybe it was also what contributed to her loss of virginity.
Right in the media space, Olayode suffered quite a number of backlashing on her virginity status when asked by interviewers, but then she stood still on the same truth she knew and made it known even to her readers that she was deflowered at her teenage. She further established this truth telling about the one who deflowered her. Though she was kind enough to save face for this culprit under the covering of anonymity. What a wonderful lady she is, despite her trouble. While reading about how this inhumane choir master who denied ever having sexual affair with her I felt agonized within myself and thought about so many teenage ladies who might have strayed like prey into the hands of vulture-hungry adults like this one. Maybe one of these days men of the police force will round them up.
…It was the love I had for him that kept me going with him…Pg 38
Juliana no doubt was bittered over her father’s divorce with her mum, but her intense dislike for her father’s act cannot be compared with the love she had for him. In several occasions, Juliana had shown this and even proved it at a point in this book when she peeped at her father crying, following the financial hardship in the family.
…My step-mum was surprised to see me back home. I told her what happened, but she did not care. She took the money and went inside. I boiled water and started treating the wound myself…Pg 44
Juliana has learnt to endure, to persevere and to be a mother. She got this attribute (unplanned for) just after she was detached from her mother and two sisters who she had looked up to. Citing the case of having a stepmother in Africa was well played here by her stepmother. It almost seem like a drama to me if not for the fact that this work is an autobiography. In furtherance, the author made established in her writing, the inhumane side of her stepmother and one would have imagined how poverty mixed with being a stepmother can really be a disastrous combinations in a once happy family.
I have read autobiographies of several personalities and so far, I have not seen any of them pronounce their faith so loud like Juliana did. It became a dominant theme observed on every pages of this work of hers for her to have insistently mentioned her religious status of being a Christian, mentioning God, the bible or even saying she prayed. She wouldn’t even be private about it as she projects her faith whenever possible and truly, her faith worked for her on different occasions.
Juliana was careful enough to engraft all of those painful and touching emotions of her journey into becoming a woman, self reliant and her troubled moment into this book. While explaining when her mother came to take her and Samson, she was still able to remember that time his mother brought people in to beg her father but while her mother yielded that Samson can stay back with his father, her father wouldn’t succumb to people pleading with him then that he take back Juliana’s mother. A painful memory swhich was still fresh in Juliana’s mind while she converged people to come plead with her husband.
…I saw some red things tied all around the living room, a calabash was on the wall, a calendar full of masquerade pictures hung on the wall, a leaf that had turned brown… pg 55. The author’s sense of imagery is quite awesome as she explained the herbalist house her mother stays. She cleverly painted the picture of a herbalist house to me even while I haven’t read through to the bottom of the page. Talking about a contrast with her faith here Juliana was still able to make a difference when she got there and eventually she won. One would have wondered where she got all these confidence from.
Even though she is not a first time writer (she has written quite a number of letters), but as a newly published writer, she was able to understand something worthwhile in the process of writing this book. The author was able to carefully separate her interactions with other characters in this book, from her person the readers want to read about.
THE REBIRTH
For every life situations, there is always that one person that has been sent to offer the help needed to get out of life’s trouble. And in the event leading to the unravelling of the solution to Juliana’s, that one person never failed to show up. The Timis played a very important role in the remodelling of Juliana’s life. Arguably we can affirm that she got a new definition of life through her stay with the Timis and through their teenage ministry.
No other title would have fit in for this book order than the phrase ‘rebirth’. Juliana has indeed been through a handful (if it could be measured with a hand) of trouble in the formative years of hers, but her coming in contact with the Timis and other good people gave her life a meaning.
Rebirth by Juliana Olayode is a good start from her artistic personality. I think it is not just a good story but also got lessons other young girls out there can glean from.
Title: Martin Luther Jnr Letter from Birmingham jail
Author: Martin Luther King Jnr.
Published by: Christian Century Magazine
Publication year: 1963
Rev Martin Luther King received a letter from some group of local clergymen who urged him in a letter mailed to him in his jail there in Birmingham that he stop the street protests against racial discrimination. Rev Martin Luther King reacts in what I have likened to apostle Paul’s wholehearted lengthened epistle to the churches.
Martin Luther King Jnr has risen up to that peak in his (would I say) Apostolic calling and activism in that, he was getting lots of letter from people opposing his activism move which was in a bid to stop racial segregation in America. In accordance with an invite from a Christian NGO which has charged itself with the sole responsibility of standing up for the human right of black Americans. King argues that he wouldn’t protest all by his intention alone but by the support of big names and notable American clergymen who sees the reason why the human right of minority Black Americans should be fought for and without violence. In Malcolm X’s autobiography, Malcolm measures King’s anti-segregation campaign as not fit to tackle the persisting oppressive rules simply because Martin Luther King Jnr was seemingly becoming too lenient with those he (Malcolm) tags the devil. On an account in his autobiography, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm did states the reasons why black Christians shouldn’t be believed. He feels they have adopted the white man’s religion and therefore had been brain- washed into being at the mercy of their rules which wasn’t so after examining crucially the role Martin Luther King played in the peaceful agitation for the right of Negroes in America.
Martin Luther King Jnr didn’t just want to take part in what has been registered in the heart of protesters globally as the best peaceful protest ever, but comes to tie with Apostle Paul’s call for aid, such that was given to the churches (Paragraph 2). Just like the activist plight of Anne Moody in Coming of age in Mississippi and Richard Wright’s in black boy, Martin Luther King Jnr also feels the urgency to respond to the emotional brutality of his ‘brothers’ in America and especially in Birmingham where obnoxious rules on blacks were hot should be immediate.boy, Martin Luther King Jnr also feels the urgency to respond to the emotional brutality of his ‘brothers’ in America and especially in Birmingham where obnoxious rules on blacks were hot should be immediate.
Rev Martin Luther King Jnr clearly expresses the objective of their peaceful agitation establishing what is globally accepted as elements of a peaceful agitation. We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved… Page 4, first line. Rev king Jnr and his several affiliates wouldn’t just dash into a peaceful protest without proper orientation and disorientation of some long standing ideologies of protest. A non-violent tension was the tool Rev King makes do with after his several preaching against violent tension. King’s protest was tagged untimely, but my question following after the order of King’s is; Should hands be folded while lives deteriorate without repair. But even at that, King later have what I think is the best response of all time after he tells the Clergymen in his letter: We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor: it must be demanded by the oppressed. This fact has been proven severally by notable activist and most especially authors of some predemocracy books. Richard Wright in his autobiography states how he had to protest with cold shrills when he was little and with this, mama just lets go of him while others pay dearly for their misdeed. What if he (Martin Luther King Jnr) kept shut?
Rev Martin Luther King writes with the pain of segregation seriously hurting him. He speaks here on [page 6] with an emotional feel to drive his point home. The other black clergymen or clergymen who wrote him might probably not be affected by the obnoxious law definitely, had they been affected they wouldn’t have tarried the day of their freedom. There is actually no better time to correct any ill situation. That time you noticed that unpleasant situation is just about the best. Regarding 1Pet 5:10 The actions of the Clergymen is quite notable, an act of disappointment to Martin Luther King Jnr and even to the body of Christ with whom King was peacefully agitating for.
Luther King Jnr agitation and Elijah Muhammed or Malcolm X’s movement are two opposite thing. Theirs was never in any way supporting peaceful protest as Malcolm X notes in his autobiography of how the nation of Islam trains Muslim brothers karate for defence. Malcolm X opposes the white segregation laws and even referring to the white man as the devil who defied the black man of his human right. Fighting the course of the black man’s human right now becomes the struggle of two entity where one seems to be unfair with its approach to the trending issue of prejudice.
From Martin Luther King Jnr’s approach, we have seen a perfect example of Christians being the light and the salt of the world as the scriptures quoted in the gospel of Mathew 5:12-16. How best will he be the light if he fails to shine it from his residence in Atlanta all to the south of Birmingham and beyond the states in America where racial prejudice was at its peak.
Martin Luther King Jnr’s letter here reads the mind of a patriot who won’t want his countrymen to fall apart even while his struggle was to ensure equality of right with more emphasis on the minority blacks who were the subject of prejudice. The story of great men is enshrined in the book they write. This is just a letter from one of America’s finest activist and clergyman who fought till he became lifeless with his famous ‘I have a dream’ captivating speech.
It is a rare pleasure to review a book that will appeal not only to the specialist in the field, but also to the general reader. A Merciless Place is such a book, a work of original scholarship that clearly indicates years of hard labour in the archives, and also a beautifully crafted literary endeavour, one that should attract anyone who appreciates excellent writing.
For more than a century, England used its North American colonies as a dumping ground for its unwanted criminals. Societies without prisons generally rely on physical punishment and exile as punishment for all levels of crime. England had used branding, beating, mutilation, and the death penalty for centuries. On paper, British law relied heavily on the latter penalty for all sorts of crimes, from petty theft to the most heinous acts of violence. By the latter half of the eighteenth century, England had some 225 capital offenses on the books. However, as many historians have pointed out, juries hesitated to convict if they believed that a minor crime against property would result in the death penalty.
The legal system relieved that stress through the ingenious mechanism of the king’s pardon commuting the death penalty into transportation to the colonies. Few people objected to shipping common criminals off to North America, with more than fifty thousand having been transported to the American colonies by 1775. Transportation not only relieved the English of thousands of criminals, but it also allowed them to treat their American cousins with contempt, as when Samuel Johnson declared the Americans “a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.”
The Americans were not consulted on this creative legal structure, but they gave their opinion on many occasions, and it was decidedly negative. In 1759 Benjamin Franklin publicly complained that the policy was “an insult and contempt, the cruellest perhaps that ever one people offered another”. He suggested that it would only be fair for the colonies to ship rattlesnakes to Britain in exchange. The American Revolution created a crisis for the British legal system, which had a serious backlog of criminals sentenced to transportation with nowhere to send them. Emma Christopher of the University of Sydney gets to the obvious but previously unstudied question: what did Britain do with its criminals when the United States came into existence? It is well known that eventually, the British government decided to use Australia as a home for its undesirables, but I hate to admit that it never occurred to me to wonder what happened to its criminals between 1776 and 1788. Christopher provides the answer in fascinating detail.
After the American Revolution, London’s jails were bulging with men and women sentenced to death.
Lacking America as an alternative punishment, the courts proceeded with executions in “an orgy of public slaughter,” the number of hangings in Middlesex doubling between 1780 and 1785. Hundreds of sleight-of-hand artists and petty criminals became caught up in a wild scheme of the government to dispose of its convicts in the unlikeliest of places. Trying anything to avoid the overuse of the death penalty yet faced with overcrowded prisons, the government decided to try transporting their prisoners to some other remote location, though in a rather nonchalant fashion. It decided to ship the lot of them off somewhere–an attitude that would probably find many adherents in modern America.
Captains Kenneth Mackenzie and George Katenkamp sought to attain glory and position fighting His Majesty’s war against the American rebels. They gained permission from the War Office to raise two Independent Companies, reluctantly accepting the enlistment of more than one hundred convicted criminals. There were a few true scoundrels in the mix, most notoriously William Murray, a professional con artist and thief who had escaped the gallows on several occasions. But most of these “recruits” had been incarcerated and often sentenced to death for minor offenses. For instance, John Plunkett, who had stolen three mirrors, thought serving in the army could not be worse than His Majesty’s prison ships, especially if he would be doing that service in North America. But on the day they set sail, the members of the Independent Companies discovered that they had been tricked by their government and were bound for Africa.
With the collapse of Britain’s North American empire, Africa had become the new focus of British greed and imperial schemes. But the British “died in droves,” and the War Office quickly found it difficult to man their African outposts–thus the logic of sending convicts rather than regulars who would be better employed in safer climes.
Slaves remained the major source of British wealth in Africa, the slave trade under the control of the Royal African Company but they absolutely did not want the convict soldiers. Racial attitudes complicated the effort to place criminals in positions of both authority and servility in major slave-trading centers; the Royal African Company warned that they would undermine the proclaimed racial superiority of Englishmen. Governor Richard Miles wrote from his headquarters at Cape Coast Castle that these convicts were a “Disgrace to the very Colour”. He knew full well that the African merchants and monarchs were not the powerless figures portrayed in imperial propaganda, but capable of crushing the English slave trade if they ceased fearing British troops. Reinforcing Miles’s concern, the convicts arrived at Cape Coast Castle on the Brookes, the slave ship made notorious by William Elford’s much-reproduced diagram of the ship’s hold crammed with slaves.
It was not an auspicious beginning to this latest experiment in criminal justice. Much of Christopher’s book is devoted to telling the bizarre story of the fate of these convicts–men and women–who travelled unwillingly to the coast of Africa. The reader shares the researcher’s sense of wonder as she explores yet another outrageous aspect of Britain’s transportation policy.
It is worth noting Christopher’s larger point, that the British government acted to solve a domestic problem by sending convicts overseas without any planning, lacking even a “specific destination”. No step of this operation seems to have been thought through, as the convicts were dropped off without food or supplies at remote imperial outposts.
The result, as many contemporaries predicted, was a catastrophe for those involved, making Africa synonymous with death. The Lord Mayor of Plymouth, John Nicol, challenged the Home Office over its use of “so severe a Sentence as that of Transportation [to] the Coast of Africa,” which was tantamount to a death sentence.
Christopher takes a number of informative detours into other dark corners of the Empire, such as the corrupt rule of Governor Joseph Wall on the island of Gorée–another convict dumping ground on the coast of Africa that ended in a “reign of terror”. After the failure of the Africa plan, the government tried America again, which led to two mutinies, an inability to find buyers of the criminals’ indentures, and outrage from the new U.S. government. Returning to Africa in 1785, the transportation of criminals there again proved a debacle, as did the disastrous settlement of black Loyalists in Sierra Leone. A proposal to develop South Africa with convicts in order to make up for the loss of the American colonies also went pear shape.
Christopher writes beautifully and with wit, personalizing this tragic history with outstanding character sketches. There are also a number of evocative set pieces, such as her description of public executions, the hell of British prison ships, and the environment of West Africa. She concludes her book with Australia, the settlement of which takes on new meaning in the context of these previous efforts to deal with a deeply flawed legal system. After all, Australia was first suggested as an appropriate dumping ground before the Lemane Commission, which was looking into a harebrained scheme for convicts to grow wheat on an island in the Gambia River.
Christopher moves beyond traditional legal studies to give us a vision of the law’s impact on the individual lives of the powerless and marginalized. She asks us to imagine the consequences for a young man or woman who steals a handkerchief or loaf of bread and is sentenced to transportation to the coast of Africa. Thoroughly researched, brilliantly written, deeply humane, A Merciless Place is a model of modern legal scholarship.
Book Title: Florence Jadesola Aboderin Unsung Greatness
Author: Four Points Communication Ltd
Publisher: New Africa Book Publishers
Publication year: 2016
Unsung greatness reads into Florence Jadesola Aboderin’s fifty-six years sojourning on earth. Her story leads through her business proficiency, career management and motherly responsibility which all build up into the making of an eventual leader she became after the demise of her husband (Chief Olubunmi Aboderin), the founder and publisher of The Punch Newspaper (Nigeria’s most widely read Newspaper).
Florence Jadesola Aboderin (nee Babajide) takes her leadership capacity in the family so strong, manifesting more as the disciplinarian mother. Her temperament and that of her hubby seems to balance well, complementing each other. One (husband- Olubunmi) is extremely soft-handed where disciplining the children is concerned and Florence Jadesola seems to be the opposite version of her partner, a hard-core disciplinarian. Shalewa (Jadesola’s first daughter) recounts on her mother’s disciplinary act, bringing to light an occasion when she left home alongside her siblings to the Murtala Muhammed Airport which was very close to one of their Lagos residence. Well I think on a personal note, if mum applies her disciplinary act here then, it should be commendable (Pg. 46-47). Telling it from the manly angle, Wale (Jadesola’s first born and eldest son) was also warned not to ride in the busy street of the family’s Ilupeju residence. Of course this wouldn’t go too cool with a youngster about his age who wouldn’t be able to get the real feel of owning a brand new chopper bicycle (Pg.47). Going by the European standard, and citing the status quo where disciplining a child in London is concerned, Jadesola wouldn’t have attempted driving sense into her children with the rod. But the change of geographical location to Africa where correcting a child with the rod is prevalent, Florence Jadesola had to leverage on the tolerance nature of the African society to bring up the kind of children she would be proud she raised.
She sent out word to prayer warriors everywhere to intercede… (Pg 55). Jadesola came to good knowledge of the required parenting trait and value. She thus cleverly dispensed it to her initially naïve children. On account of this biography, the author exemplifies more, giving particular attention on her spirituality and most especially her untamed prayer life. She wasn’t just nominal but had come to understand the efficacy of prayer and even deem it fit to instill it in her children. Her children once pondered on the reason why she’d to lay hands on them whenever she prays. Maybe I know how her kids feel like, then (as I have come to once feel like that too) (Pg. 55).
The unsung Greatness of Florence Jadesola Aboderin
One of Jadesola’s unsung greatness came to being after she counseled that two children on admission then at the University College Hospital in Ibadan (where she served as a nurse) be de-wormed. But since medical practice in Nigeria esteems the medical doctors as the ‘Judge’ (as in, one with the final say) over every other professionals in the medical line, then her advise was turned down and later report had it that, those children died of worm-related causes. This singular incident leads to her pulling out from the nursing profession.
Jadesola resorted to doing odd jobs to maintain her family… (Pg 84).The unsung greatness of every mother is the ability to complement her hubby even while he is away or better still when he is insufficient in financial provision. This also becomes evident in Florence Jadesola who stood in the gap for her career and ambitious husband (while Olubunmi studies Accountancy in London) after she took up three menial jobs to assist with the family’s welfare (Pg 83-84).
Jadesola’s experience in London where she was joggling two or more jobs makes up for her, an accompanying element, giving rise to her becoming the first female mortgage banker in Africa (Pg. 89). This achievement raised her above the prejudice which sees the women folk as second class or third class citizens.
One greatness yet unsung is the involvement of Jadesola in the setting up of Lagos Building corporation. The fact that she introduced creative measures that enabled Lagosians own a home was quite commendable alongside testimonies of her humanitarian sacrifice to the will of prospect applying for mortgage loans. Despite her readiness to help those in need she still stand up to basic work ethics and high sense of discipline which is today highly commendable (Pg. 96-100). Worthy to be sung also is Jadesola’s revival of the Epe Plywood industries (Pg. 105-106).
For almost a year, the UBS MD ran the office from home… (Pg 110) Florence Jadesola pioneered as the Managing Director of Universal Building society which sacrificially cost her running the office from home. That she never had an office space wasn’t enough reason not to start or stop her from making her mark in life.
Florence involvement in partisan politics didn’t go well with her children (Pg 94). The usual discourse which eventually results into pandemonium seems to be the order of the day at every political meetings. Some ill operations of UPN leadership (the case of thuggery. With reference to Bayo Success who was hired to terrorize rival political factions) which Jadesola belongs led to her fear of the unknown, leading to her protectively cautioning her family members against the strolling trouble which might be encountered on the streets (Pg. 95-96).
Reading Florence Jadesola Aboderin’s Unsung greatness, I see a Florence who was studious, committed and stood up to what she believes is morally upright all through her fifty-six years of sojourn on earth, and up to a point when her husband died. While it is important for people to make-up their physical look, it is also important to ‘make-up’ the innermost part of one’s personality (see last paragraph Pg 110) into that individual of one’s dream.
Written in Kikuyu and translated into English by the author, Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong’o will not disappoint anyone familiar with the author’s prolific body of work. This work of fiction sears with truth and lays bare the international foibles of postcolonial African politics. Pregnant with humour and irony, this allegory leaves nothing sacred as when one of the characters is cured of the disease of white-ache. It is a most human story examining both the character of leadership and the desires of the common citizen. Farcical characters become believable, while women, especially, are portrayed with complexity. The story challenges many stereotypes. For example, the main character, the Wizard of the Crow, is a witchdoctor or traditional healer or (~frochiatrist)(p. 622), and proves to be the voice of reason and sanity. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves storytelling or is interested in international relations and African culture and society.
The story tells of a megalomaniacal African ruler with a grandiose development scheme surrounded by conniving sycophants obsessed with greed who try to control the masses and outmanoeuvre each other. The trials of these politicos are interwoven with a love story involving the Wizard of the Crow and an underground activist posing as a secretary. The roles of thinly disguised entities such as the Global Bank also figure into this brazen expose of the (politics of poverty) (p. 87), while many other novel characters populate the landscape such as the (professors of parrotology) (p. 572).
The work is cynical, critical, insightful, and inspiring. Describing the fictional place, Ngugi writes, (If there were no beggars in the streets, tourists might start doubting whether Aburiria was an authentic African country) (p. 35). Contrast this with the line, (The world has no soul) (p. 62). The calcu180 Journal for Global Initiatives (Many a government in the world has been brought to ruin because it has been lax and allowed students, youth, and women to say and do whatever without proper guidance and supervision” (p. 557). And Ngugi observes, (Disorder reigned supreme, for any attempt on the part of the people to organise themselves was deemed by the Ruler’s government as a challenge to its authority” (p. 576). Describing the actions of one of the rich and successful political appointees, he writes, (How does one find humor in humiliating the already humiliated?” (p. 383). He also asks, (Why does needy Africa continue to let its wealth meet the needs of those outside its borders and then follow behind with hands outstretched for a loan of the very wealth it let go?” (p. 681). He also states, (It will not do for any region or community to keep silent when the people of another region and community are being slaughtered” (p. 726).
There is so much to highlight in this wide-ranging engaging story that no review could possibly do it justice. Don’t let the book’s size or the author’s reputation intimidate you. It’s a fun, easy read, and you may learn a lot. As always, Ngugi places the primary burden of resolving Africa’s maladies solely on Africa without shying away from the complex, detrimental influence of the colonial past. The question of whether Africa will experience globalisation as the latest reincarnation of an oppressive colonial past or participate actively as a contributing voice of reason may in some small part be presaged through the reception of this telling book. Thank you for this gift of a book and for holding up a mirror in which to exorcise so many daemons.
Credit: Daniel Paracka, Journal of Global Initiative.
After his first bestselling novel, Things fall apart which almost caused an unresolved discourse between American hip-hop star 50 cent, and Nigerian author Chinua Achebe goes on to publish another mind blowing Novel by the title, The Arrows of god. The Arrows of God also went on to make name for itself just like it’s predecessors. It takes off with a plot built on Nigeria’s colonial administration with an expanded view into Igbo tribal life.
Ezeulu is the priest he also is the arrow of Ulu, the god of the village of Umuaro. The village relatively isolated from colonial administration largely goes about its business undisturbed but intrusions do take place. One such earned Ezeulu the trust of Winterbottom, a trust that is to prove damaging later. Another – peripherally – is the intrusion of Christianity in the form of a church established near Umuaro by one John Goodcountry, a church to which Ezeulu sent one of his own sons to be his spy, but on the long run this son of his became a Christian hereby causing the son to disconnect from his father and embracing Christianity, a faith he begins to adopt as his own with increasing dedication.
Another encounter which was the third affecting Ezeulu directly comes with the building of a road. The administration decides to bring in unpaid labour in order to hasten the project onwards, and another of Ezeulu’s sons is volunteered as one of the labourers. A wayward lad, given to sloth and overindulgence in the local beverage, he turns up late for work with a hangover and taunts the overseer with his attitude. The overseer, an Englishman, beats him severely for doing so.
Ezeulu, then, is not as well disposed to the colonial administration as he might be when Winterbottom decides to set Ezeulu up as a local chief in the area following the policy of indirect rule whereby trusted locals take positions of authority on the administration’s behalf. He summons Ezeulu to attend him, such summons always being delivered by locals who, running the administration’s errands, cannot resist using their position to levy taxes and to gain benefits by making demands with the supposed authority of the administration itself. Their arrogance in delivering their message further compounds Ezeulu’s negativity and, moreover, they do not know the basis upon which the summons has been made, further frustrating Ezeulu who finds the summons peremptory. Ezeulu resists, refuses on the basis that a man in his position is not to be summoned in this fashion, but fellow villagers not wishing to offend the white administration prevail upon him to attend.
He arrives to find Winterbottom indisposed by illness and a deputy, less familiar with the situation in Nigeria and not knowing Ezeulu at all, has the task of making the offer. Ezeulu refuses, and the deputy imprisons him out of irritation, and in the hope, he may be able to persuade him in that way. Here, Ezuelu’s absence from the village becomes important. With each new moon, he eats one of a dozen yams from the previous year. When these are used up, he announces the new harvest of yams but, in his absence, yams have gone uneaten. When he returns, then, for the ritual to play itself out, the harvest is fatally delayed. There is some question here in my mind whether Ezuelu is pedantic about this merely given his dedication to the ritual, or whether irritation with his fellow villagers at sending him on his demeaning mission plays a part. The ambiguity may have arisen from my o’er-hasty reading, but it does seem Achebe focuses upon the latter when Ezuelu first makes his decision, the former as events work their way through as a consequence. Either way, Ezuelu is adamant.
Goodcountry, the priest, sees an opportunity. He puts it about that if the villagers bring offerings of yams to his own harvest festival, the Christian God will protect the villagers from the wrath of Ulu and so they can bring in their harvest. Many of the villagers prove reluctant to abandon their traditions in this way, though their plight is severe, and Goodcountry offers them a solution. However, Ezuelu is to suffer yet again when one of his favoured sons, in temporary ill-health, is prevailed upon to undertake a strenuous activity at a funeral ritual. It is too much for him, and he dies.
Ezuelu is now a broken man and, the arrow of Ulu, the villagers see a broken god. We know that their abandonment of the old ways for Christianity is now inevitable.
Whether or not Achebe intends his readers to see the book in this light I do not know, but for me, this is a story of the unintended consequences of power, and the inevitability of its leading those over whom it holds sway into the ways of those who wield it. Winterbottom may be content for the villagers to continue with their traditions so long as they cooperate with the administration, but that very cooperation has consequences. The fact it is able to simply commandeer labour brings tensions, and it is only able to do so because of the awe in which the administration is held, however that may or may not be acknowledged. That is a tension that must be resolved. Moreover, no local aware of the ways of the tribe would have kept the priest away from the identification of the new moon and disrupted the annual ritual. In other words, the two cultures can exist side by side only in temporary stasis. Even with the best of intentions not that I am claiming the best of intentions for British colonial rule in Nigeria overall the dominating culture must prevail and usurp its predecessor. The tensions are too great between them, and the more powerful culture will inevitably win out as the old, perforce, fails to live in harmony with it, even if the disharmony is unrecognised by the usurping culture and its actions in bringing it to the fore are unintentional.
This is one work of fiction I love but may not quite understand too well it’s contradicting plot or should I say plot complexity. It is although a good read for anyone craving to know more about the missionary move to the eastern part of Nigeria and the corresponding response of indigenes to the worship of purportedly unknown God.
It is good to instil into children relevant knowledge at least at the tender age they are wise enough to absorb wisdom. Most important is the issue of how to make money which launched Robert and Mike into the search on how to make money. Robert got to know on time some catalyst needed to aid his actualization of wealth. This becomes the bedrock of what begins as an adventure into the search for wealth which of course began with his inquisitiveness.
There seem to be elements of naivety or simply put sincerity of the heart in Mr Kiyosaki’s (Robert’s dad) response to him on (pg 34) where he says; “Because I choose to be a school teacher, but I really don’t know how to make money…” Mr Kiyosaki was blatantly transparent here and I begin to wonder if any father wouldn’t know how to make money in this present dispensation.
The idea of learning from two dads is one driving force for which I think this book caught the attention of most of its readers alongside the fact that one was rich and the other poor. At first, I had wondered the possibility of this title. Of course, we all know it is never possible that this would happen, but then I got to understand the relationship Robert built with his socialist dad (Poor dad) and his Capitalist dad (rich dad) who later lectured him on the cash flow quadrant.
Learning from his rich dad helped Robert set the distinction between the four major factors in the cash flow quadrant. Asset, liability, income and expenditure being the subject on which Rich dad taught Robert about finances played, a key role in determining how we handle money. Rich dad’s teachings happen to be a good start for Robert, setting the distinction between the rich and poor. An important distinction is that rich people buy luxuries last… (Pg 117). And this makes me think why we want to get all the good things of life all at once, even when we are not financially ‘there’ yet. The ability to delay this immediate financial gratification would have been a good idea if people can just wait for a little and watch their asset grow bigger.
Using the cash flow quadrant formula which has income and expenses upward and asset with liability downward, Rich dad was able to lead nine-year-old Robert and Mike the right way aright where money making and investment is concerned.
This is one book that will never go out of print, not in the mind of readers that it had gone on to engrave itself. Even when copies physically go out of print the mind still will reproduce such an astute literature ever written on the subject of money and investment. If you were given financial education while growing up, good for you but if you weren’t made to learn a proper financial education like Robert and Mike enjoyed while growing up, at least you find this book.
Getting to understand how the English monarchical political systems works can hardly be well understood to one’s preferred taste until some mystique about English royalty or other royal services are unravelled. This is a memoir of Stephen P. Barry, valet to Prince Charles after his twelve years of sojourning in the British Royal service.
On the opening pages of this book, Stephen eulogises the pleasure he finds in being a prince’s valet. Becoming a prince’s valet was particularly sought- after job… (pg 12). He further highlighted his pleasure in being considered for a royal appointment, a job he thought has got security. He seems more attached to the prestige of being seen as a royal emissary more than the mouth watery offers the job sets to give to him. Well, here I think the part of every man wants a majestic attachment, making everyone wanting to feel important. The author further establishes this fact when he went ahead to learn more about the basics of the job which in turn paid (see pg 34, 36, 41, 42).
There I was in the back of his brand new Aston Martin… (Pg 15)
Studying the personality of Prince Charles and on account of this story, one can deduce that he is down to earth a humble man, a man of good breed. This can hardly be understood when one is not close to royalty. I wouldn’t have expected a prince to give his valet a ride while he sits at the owner’s corner at the back seat, but life at least has taught us that successful men do not necessarily need to announce themselves, their humility will. It has often been said that being discreet and always wanting to command respect is what is obtainable in royalty, so this in a way upset my curiosity. Prompting me to know more.
Shirts are made to measure by Turnbull and Asser and again he chooses the fabric and styles in the comfort of the palace… After reading this part of the book I’d thought maybe someday I will also become Prince Charles in Buckingham [lol…in my wildest imagination] you know it is such a great privilege for him to have been serviced with a special home service embellished with all respect needed for royalty. It brings about that prestige attached to royals even though it is obvious that the cost of home or palace service makes any item bought by the royals double expensive.
In getting to meet the royals at least on paper, Stephen Barry unleashes their country lifestyle and their pattern of doing things. Here he explains in successive order, how the royal family seems to have specially selected time, members of the family do things. And sincerely I seem to be thrilled by this organised lifestyle of theirs. The author writes as an authority to reckon with where the Royal family’s lives and most especially the Prince’s welfare is concerned. At least he’d lived the better part of his life knowing the makeup of the royal family. One must have thought being a member of the royal family warrants spending exorbitantly, enjoying the best life has got to offer, but the author did states of how purchases are regulated by the prince. This, of course, goes hand in hand with an instruction on the things needed to be bought and how much is budgeted for each item to be purchased. [Penultimate paragraph pg 71, 75].
After an attempted murder of the queen, and on the event of the successful assassination of Lord Mountbatten and lady Brabourne I would astutely summate that the royals weren’t also secured from external tension after all [pg 92]. Securing the royal residence wasn’t just an idea conceived out of the blues to give the royals a good taste of royalty but several cases of insecurity wouldn’t just let go the pessimistic attitude abiding within their security officials.
Working with the British monarch indeed was a great education and exposure for Stephen Barry who initially wouldn’t know how to break the news of his final goodbye to the prince and princess of Wales. He had been part of the prince’s life and he (The Prince of Wales) as well can hardly do a day without having his most preferred Valet in his daily picture. Stephen P. Barry knew his time was up in the Royal service and especially his service to the Prince of Wales and courtesy demands that one leave the stage when the ovation is high and so bidding the family a final bye was befitting after his twelve years as valet to the Prince of Wales.
This is the first book opening my eyes into the British monarchical system and mostly into the pattern of living which the royal family imbibes. If you’ve never been to Buckingham palace at least you have this book.
Nifty Review 
