Growth, Growing and Rebasing the Economy

Whenever the crowd are singing a chorus of any initiative I know it’s time to put on my thinking cap.

The problem of numbers in our world is that it attempts to cloud out reality in the guise of clearing doubts.

People who have issues grasping reality hide under the assurance of numeric bamboozling for understanding.

Thus, I wasn’t in the least surprised when news came about the World Bank lumping Nigeria with other “extreme poor nations”—and the people were trying to make a head or tail of the words “extreme” and “poor”. That’s a symptom of the evils numeric intelligence can cause to a society. If the same information has been passed in statistical pills it would have been digestible for majority of the citizens.

As a Development Knowledge Facilitator, I know the perils portend in any statistical portioning of 0.05% of any population sampling. But to an average reader, the knowledge of arithmetic and the insignificance of such percentage is burn on his mind and he carries on.

The recent economy rebasing of Nigeria as the largest in Africa, on GDP amounting to $509 billion, needs a cautionary note. Like everything Nigerian, the drums are bursting in the rooftops and liquors carpet our streets in celebrations of this feat. By the virtue of that calculation, Nigeria crests as the 26^th economy of the world but we still rusts away as the 121^st on the scale of per capital GDP.

Upon happening on the news—or the figures if you like, words rushed up to my head. One of which is, so? What is the economic reality of the new categorisation? What’s the significance of taking such assessment in 2014, having done the last in 1990? Is there a pattern, logic or sheer whim to all this? What in black and white, grammar and phrases does it mean to worth $3,500 as a Nigerian on per capital expectation?

Not all growths are growth.

Protruding belle maybe a sign of good living in this clime, it is also a telltale of obesity in others. Tumour is also a kind of growth, lest we forget. In fact, weeds exhibit this growing potential too. Remember, if a man jumps up he goes up instantly but immediately gravity exerts control over him, but if he grows up he stays there.

We know more people would rather do business in Ghana than in Nigeria; our youth will take the southward plunge the way of Prince Henry the Navigator, rather than stay back home. That is, what it means to be a great economy—desirability by both natives and foreigners. Are we anywhere close?

Meanwhile, can someone put this to me in subjects and predicate?

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This is a contribution to #AtoZChallenge at @AprilA2Z. You can find me on Twitter: @SeeWilhelms

Four Skills I wish Women had but luckily they don’t

On Sunday, I noticed with some genuine concern that Livelytwist, aside writing well, does lookable original graphics for her blog and I registered my surprise.

While I don’t entirely deny my chauvinistic views they are mostly factual all the time. Well, that’s not a matter for today.

A riposte bounced off that comment asking for anything rare I could do—the classic case of “What can a man do…? While there are a million things a man can legally/illegally do that women can’t… in the spirit of egalitarianism, I would make a list of four skills I wish women could do but fortunately they can’t :)… men are just that awesome.

Graphics Designs

With the conversations women have with mascara and watercolour kit one would expect they should be natural graphics designers. Well, I do graphics, though at amateur level, than any woman I have met. The first time I met a woman that pretends to know anything about graphics was at a conference and she was responsible for the visual presentation of her group. I knew right away something was wrong with the men in that group. I discovered they all suffered from different shades of glaucoma. In all my doing, I have only met four women—one in Nigeria, three outside the country.

Female Drivers

Is it just me or there is a dearth of female professional drivers? One of the pastimes of traffic-held individual is to fantasize about variable possibilities of a better society. Recently, my best effort of daily-drive musing is to ask: why don’t we see any female driving any male in an arrangement that could be perceived as a Boss-driver relationship? I mean with all the perks of the male snoozing off in traffic at the owner’s corner? Why, don’t we see women sympathetic enough to feminism employing a female driver? Does this have anything to do with the fear for an increase in homicide rate, especially in the case of a female-female, Boss-driver relationship? Take it from me; females are poor managers of ego.

Parking lot Etiquette

I know this is a sexist opinion, but I hold it nonetheless: Women do not park as well as me-n. Sue me, take my license away or jam my seat belt, but it’s the truth. Tell me that women are smarter, nicer, and better-looking than men. Tell me they are compassionate, sensitive and intuitive… but don’t tell me they can park a car.

I was standing at the topmost floor of a plaza on Monday trying to look out for my car and who may be trying to block my going out. Soon, a woman drove into the lot and left her car with such a thoughtless abandon, something akin to this| / | the middle stroke representing the positioning of her car. Not up to five minutes later another woman pulled over beside our first culprit and we ended up with something like this: | \  / |. I am not here to judge but it is a matter of etiquette or lack of it.

Let’s concede some points though

Some little girls taught me how to ride a bike in the creeks of south-south 🙂 …but who needs such skills anyways? It is as good as a woman armed with haggling skill in a shopping mall.

 

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Another contribution to the #AtoZChallenge at @AprilA2Z

I am on Twitter: @SeeWilhelms

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That Charles is a Chauvinistic humorist is a stale news but you should know that his writings are fast requiring some 3-digit IQ censoring. If you cannot relate or agree to this post something is definitely wrong somewhere, but not here!

Explaining it all to you

Not today, but soon perhaps, I’ll be explaining the difference between PDP [Peoples’ Democratic Party] and APC [All Progressive Congress] to you. I’ll tell you how they both started, who is fighting who and why. I think by the time I finish my explanation, it will make a lot more sense to you than it does now. First, of course, I’ll have to find out myself.

I haven’t quite decided how, but I’ll probably start by explaining the difference between the two parties. One of them is peopled by corrupt politicians and we know the other is populated by those excommunicated from the other.

One of the downsides of the issues for most Nigerians is that the faces in the two parties are essentially the same. A face you saw on the television yesterday adorned in green and red is waving the broom, with so much violence, today. It isn’t as though they look like Militants or Boko Haram. Looking like Militants or Boko Haram makes it a lot easier to tell them apart than calling them PDP or APC. Don’t worry about it for now, though. Just as soon as I find out what it’s all about, I’ll let you know.

While I am at it, I might as well comment on the similarities between the NPF and the INEC. The former means Nigeria Police Force and the later means Independent National Electoral Commission.

Both names share the simplest and most hidden ironies our time. The force is owned by a select few and the commission is commissioned to the apron springs of a single party.

They both determine which court orders they obey and which state or party deserves a listening ears.
Injustice, deprivation and pilferage have being the bane of this nation.

The Nigeria of today may as well make no pretences to alternative choices as we can hardly make a guess on the alternative. Impunity reigns in both ruling and opposition parties to the chagrin of the people.

Governance has been reduced to a ping-pong game of accusations and puerile allegations. The work is left undone and the nation descends down the abyss of degradation like a vehicle without a clutch.

It is a pitiable state we are in and it is time for all and sundry to put hands on the plough of nation building and make a destiny for ourselves.

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This is a contribution to #atozchallenge @AprilA2Z

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Please, follow me @SeeWilhelms
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…to add a little is creativity!