Nigeria Attains 5000 Megawatts Electricity Generation

The Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, yesterday announced that for the first time in the history of Nigeria’s electricity generation profile, the country has attained the milestone of generating about 5,074 megawatts of electricity.

Disclosing this through its Deputy General Manager, Public Affairs, Clement Ezeolisah, the System Operator department of TCN announced the attainment of the new peak generation of 5,074.7MW as well as the highest maximum daily energy of 109,372 Megawatts Hour (MWH) which it transmitted across to electricity distribution companies in the country.

Ezeolisah revealed in a statement that the new mark was attained at 9.30pm on Tuesday, February 2, 2016.

According to the statement, “The System Operator, TCN, is pleased to announce the attainment of a new record peak generation of 5,074.7MW and also the highest maximum daily energy wheeled nationwide of 109,372MWH on February 2, 2016,” the statement said.

Source: Daily post

Access Lagos City Marathon..... Loading

Titi Oshodi, Head of Public Affairs Department, Lagos State Sports Commission, says the maiden Access Lagos City Marathon was meant to boost tourism, entertainment and sports in the state

Oshodi told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) ahead of the race on Saturday in Lagos that it was the first of its kind in the 30 years of marathon existence in Nigeria.

She disclosed that more than 1,000 volunteers for the race, adding that they would also help in the assessment of the competition.

She said that the marathon would also impact positively on the economic development of the state.

“The marathon will boost the economy of the Lagos State owing to the nature of the race.

“We have many elite athletes from all the parts of the world participating in it.

“Many of the marathoners arrived on Thursday in preparation for the race,’’ Oshodi said, noting that the technical medical and indeed all logistics were ready for the competition.

“All the logistics have been put in place by Lagos State Government to ensure a smooth hosting.

“The government has put in place medical services to respond to emergencies and also put in place a combined team of traffic managers to ensure smooth traffic control.

“We hereby regret any inconvenience the usage of the routes will cause road users; we appeal to the road users to bear with us,’’ she said.

Oshodi also said that the response received so far by the marathon was unprecedented, noting that the world record holder and other notable marathoners are enthusiastic about it.

“Most of the world leading marathoners arrived yesterday (Thursday) and they are ready to prove their mettle.

“We have marathoners from the U.S., Ethiopia, Uganda, South Africa and other African countries.

“We also have volunteers from outside the shores of Nigeria simply for the marathon; they are here to assess the standard of the marathon.

“We have over 1,000 volunteers trained by the Lagos State Sports Commission for the race; they will complement the efforts of other officials.

“We are appealing to Lagosians to come out en masse to cheer the athletes and make it a huge success,’’ she said.

7000 Jobs To Be Created In Niger State

Rice company, Pearl Universal Impex Limited, is creating over 7,000 jobs through its rice farming project in Niger State.

Following a successful pilot phase of its rice project in June this year, the firm says it was ready to determine the variety of rice most suitable to Saminaka, a community situated around Swashi Dam in Borgu Local Government Area of the state where it currently has 500 hectares of land.

Chairman of Pearl Universal, Pulkit Jain, said that the project would create 3,000 direct and 4,000 indirect jobs through its out-grower scheme.

Jain also revealed that $100m (N20bn) would be committed to the cultivation of 7,500 hectares of rice farm and construction of two rice mills in the state in the next three years.
Extracted from the Punch Newspaper 

What Are You Looking For?

I have come to discover the reason so many of us do not get what we ask for. It happened to me firsthand and I'll love to share the lessons I learnt therein with you guys.
What we do most times when we ask for something is that we plant groundnuts then fast and pray and expect to harvest yams.
Bear in mind that what you are asking for in this scenario is something commendable you know, like the will of God upon your life - for there are some things we do ask for and do not receive because our motives are bad - yet do not receive and you begin to ask why?
Let me cite an example, Cynthia goes to work at 9:00am, closes at 3:00pm instead of 8:00am and 4:00pm respectively. Cynthia needs to upgrade her paycheck, Cynthia goes to church and the brethren organize fasting and prayer for promotion. Cynthia fasts for a week and is trusting God for a promotion. After her fasting exercise, Cynthia was asked to resume early and close late, Cynthia does not settle for this. She still maintains her 9:00am to 3:00pm routine and is still trusting God for a breakthrough. Dear Cynthia, it doesn't work like that, only grace works in that dimension. If you desire change then you need to change.
Stop making requests for things you're not ready to have, shoes you are not ready to wear. Many youth and adults today lament on how their financial lives would have been made better if only they had enough capital. Give them that capital and they do not know what to do with it.
We reap exactly what we sow. Don't ask to live a long life when you're not ready to honour your parents. Don't ask for a child when you are not ready to take care of one. Don't ask to be a soldier when you are not ready to go to war. Don't ask a lady out if you are not ready to make her your wife. Don't ask for a Sugar mummy/Sugar daddy if you are not ready to suffer.
Strive to know what you ask for, understand at least a little of what you are asking for and be ready to face the responsibilities and consequences accompanying that which you are asking for.
God bless Nigeria.  

What Is Wrong With NEPA?

I was having a good day until my mum entered my room this morning and dropped our January electricity bill on my table and I went sour and wild.
They say Nigeria does not produce enough power to satisfy her populace - which is something we should not even be hearing in the first place - hence they have resorted to a rationing method of disbursing the rare commodity and Nigerians have not been raising placards or anything of that sort. We are a happy people you know...
Whenever a pole gets felled by a natural disaster, the affected neighbourhood gets to fix it. There's no transformer in a community or the existing one gets damaged, members of such community will have to levy themselves to secure one of their choice, according to the strength of their 'contribution' as though distribution companies were less concerned about the quality of their distribution.
What then puts peppered finger in my eye is the superfluously outrageous bills that accompany this epileptic power supply. In my place, the rationing we get is in 48hrs interval, which means you're supposed to see your bulb glow in two weeks for a month. What's more? You'd be lucky to get supplied for 24hrs during your active supposed 48hrs which means on the average, you get to see electricity in less than a week for a month and some human beings will then bill you 5k!
Fellow Nigerians, if we cannot come out and say NO to this injustice, we then are not ready for a change and the labours of our heroes past would be in vain.
Forget about the explanations and excuses. The technology involved in generating electricity is not new. We're not reinventing the wheel for Christ's sake!
In South Africa, they produce about 40,000 megawatts of electricity and the bulk of it comes from coal fired stations (bringing Enugu State to mind) and supplying Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique & Zimbabwe whereas the Giants of Africa cannot boast of 4 megawatts!
These generators we import and keep importing do not help. There are so many businesses most of us venture into that is detrimental to the common good of Nigerians. Generator importers should start thinking of something else, it would be better for them and for everyone that they bring their resources together and build a power plant. They surely would earn more in the long run and be blessed beyond their graves.
Of the many reports I've gotten from interviews, our low income earners have demonstrated willingness to pay even 10,000 naira monthly on electricity. "As far as we can see light steady, we are ready to pay any amount" they say.
Let's help ourselves.
God bless Nigeria. 

Reviving The Nigerian Economy

The nation's economy is dwindling and our lawmakers are collaborating with the relevant stakeholders to see how a sustainable blueprint/framework can be designed and implemented so that Nigeria can pull herself out of the pit she's fallen into.
This is commendable and should be supported by all. However, we should all bear in mind that such policies would yield good fruit in the long run. There are a few adjustments we can do individually which is capable of yielding short term results as well as fast track the realization of government policies such as:

• Paying taxes 
• Curbing excessive appetites 
• Patronizing indigenous goods and services 
• Patriotism 

The watchword here I think is patriotism. Great men and women plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. If we cannot imbibe this 'greatness' attitude, we cannot make reasonable progress as a nation. 

Nigeria is suffering and she requires a united citizenry to heal herself of her afflictions. This is not a time to prophesy that the nation's economy cannot determine your own economy and all that. Even if it doesn't affect you, it affects your neighbour whom you ought to love as yourself. This land was given to us by God and we ought to manage it well. 

We've been a consuming nation - which is the reason for this season - and our national consuming habit is but a compounded reflection of our individual consuming habits. You shouldn't say we produce nothing as a country when you yourself produce nothing..... A pot calling a kettle black scenario. 

I always dreamed of purchasing a Toyota Camry, but as it stands now, my dear country is bleeding and desperate situations beg desperate measures hence I would have to settle for a car assembled here in Nigeria. This is my first step towards a better economy, define yours today if you have the well being of our future generations in mind. 

God Bless Nigeria. 

Young Nigerian Builds A Fuel-Vapor Tank

Obinna Ezendu a young and vibrant inventor has come up with a brilliant idea of maximizing the fuel efficiency in petrol powered engines.
The technology makes use of the fuel vapor rather than its liquid for combustion which not only saves the rate of fuel consumption, but also promotes cleaner burning thus sufficiently mitigating the rate of carbon emissions which makes it environmentally friendly.
This technology is still crude, but has succeeded in opening our minds to the possibility of making the most of our petrol powered engines.
The government who seeks to diversify her economy has to key into this innovation as this possesses huge economic growth potentials.
Click on the video below to see how this technology works, plus the contact details of the young inventor. Do good to cheer him up....
God Bless Nigeria.

An Open Letter To The Ministry Of Information & Media Stakeholders

The eye is the window of the soul and our ears also compliment the eyes which is why whatever gets into our brains ought to be adequately 'filtered' as they possess the capacity of building us up or destroying us.
Taking a close look at the bulk of information Nigerians are exposed to, one gets to wonder less at the increasing rate of unpatriotic attitudes and moral decadence in our society.
The media has been saddled with the responsibility of dispersing information to humanity and they ought to be commended for the good job thus far. However, let truth be told that 'destructive information' and lies have dominated the media, almost eliminating constructive ones.
When was the last time you ever watched the network news and got inspired or even smiled? We mostly encounter stories that make us feel bad about our country, stories we pray against, stories that make us feel weak, stories that render us unproductive. It's only when you are aware of specific information sources that you get to listen to or read exactly what's good for you.
In Nigeria, we complain about so many things (our media is chiefly responsible for this), how President Buhari and his government are deceiving Nigerians, how Dasuki did this and that, how robbers now operate, how people die mysteriously, how we pay tax and see no dividends, how electricity tariffs are so high, how bad our roads are, how this, how that making everyone feel as though Nigeria is a hub of catastrophic quagmires.
Only a microscopic few see this country in a different light. The transformational programs on ground, essay competitions, poetry and art exhibitions, quiz competitions, spelling bees, sporting activities (other than football), NGO/GO health and community programmes, agricultural programmes, youth empowerment programmes, scholarships and grants, technological advancements, etcetera. Such are not properly propagated and ignorant Nigerians would swear blindly that Nigeria does not do this, Nigeria does not do that, and these could be things already in existence for decades!  Worthy feats our media personnel consider uninteresting.
I challenge the ministry of information to look seriously into this issue. The things we hear and read have a compounding effect of either building or destroying an entire generation. Our citizens need to be encouraged and motivated. Lying to citizens in whatever guise is childish and unprofessional.
God Bless Nigeria.

Nigerians and the 'Sharp-Sharp' Mentality

There is nothing as uplifting as a positive mindset just as there is nothing as destructive as a negative one. We are always in a hurry to acquire everything only to miss out on the ultimate.
Imagine being asked to transfer water from a filled drum to an empty one using a tea cup! Of course it's only logical to assume that such a task would take several hours to accomplish, but no; we want it done in ten minutes! The question is: How?
That's the challenge we face in almost every facet of life today. The problem is not that things being done in a better and faster way is condemned, but our ability to figure out what things to be done with speed and those needing time to be nurtured is the issue here. An understanding of Jeff Olsen's slight edge principle can help illumine our minds on the subject matter.
This principle postulates that every result is born out of the accumulation of several little actions over time. It also asserts that each result is directly proportional to the time spent for its actualization. That is the larger a result (goal) the longer the time spent for its realization, and the smaller a goal, the shorter the time required for its realization.
For example, looking at the life of Jesus Christ, he began his public ministry at the age of 30 and died at the age of 33. We may ask, why did he wait until he was 30? What had he been doing with his life all the while? The answer is that he spent those 30 years preparing himself, and we all can testify to the immortal fruitfulness of his 3yr old ministry!
We seem not to be understanding the nothing-good-comes-easy phrase. When you dream of achieving anything momentous, you must have to give it enough time, else you will overburden yourself and risk chickening out too soon.
I did not write this article to address individual needs for humans are quite diverse, but I wrote this to speak on how such issues affect our politics as a nation.
If a Chairman/Governor/President /etc will come out and address the people that he/she wants to transform his/her area of jurisdiction within four to eight years, then he/she plans to grow weeds not trees.
One feasible way of moving a society forward is the development of a sustainable plan/blueprint of such a society to be agreed upon by majority of the relevant stakeholders. Such plans of course would be categorised into several actionable phases and all that would be required of the leaders and their subsequent successors is working on the laid out plans and making adjustments where applicable. Shikena.
I get disturbed when one government promises to work on industrial development, they are yet to complete this, and another opposing government is campaigning to work on electricity. The next one promises education and then another says good roads are a necessity..... No plan. And the end result is a tray filled with half baked bread.
Everyone is eager to do something 'quick' within four years so as to earn security for a second term in office and such quick projects seldom stand the test of time. We now prefer snacks over meals, and when the body accumulates more snacks than 'real food' over time, it begins to feel weak and sick.
This wrong phenomenon is exhibited by both the leaders and the led. President Buhari promised change for Nigeria, and upon assumption into office a few months ago, people are already agitating and shouting "where is the change?"
The truth is that if Nigerians truly understand the magnitude of change this country needs, we would know that it can never be achieved in Buhari's lifetime.
If I were to be the president, I would focus on laying out a road map that Nigeria needs to travel upon to the promised land and educate Nigerians on this blueprint and act on the actionable phases my limited time in office will grant me.
We all ought to support our leaders in the actualization of a better country. Throwing stones and raising dust at our leaders is like tickling the driver of a vehicle in motion. If he loses focus and crashes, you too might not be spared.
God bless Nigeria.  

Palm Oil or Pam Oyel?

I came back home yesterday evening and settled down to 'whack'  my ona g'ishkapa (tuwon shinkafa) with alakpa (gbegiri) meal. On swallowing the first ball, i felt a sharp slap on my jaws, that wrong-palm-oil kind of slap and my evening was ruined. I just had to eat because of the fish, pepper, beans etc plus the time and effort my younger sister Joy had put into the cooking, but I was vexed in spirit.
What heightened my vexation was the fact that this palm oil was bought from our neighbour who came to advertise that she now sells good palm oil. "Mummy I dey sell original palm oil now" she said, but as it turns out, she either knows not what she is selling or she simply is hungry to earn a bad reputation.
Let me iterate the experience of this 'original palm oil' in question.
Upon opening the 5 litre gallon of original palm oil, mum saw that it had congealed which made her to doubt its 'originality' but felt she should give it a try.
Mararaba district in Nasarawa state happens to be quite hot in the afternoons, hot enough to melt an exposed candle stick, but that same afternoon when Joy was preparing the soup, the oil, unlike liquids had taken its own shape inside the gallon. Placing the gallon over raw flame to melt the oil was time wasting since the gallon was filled, so she had to squeeze, shake and hit the gallon held upside down before lumps of palm oil dropped into the steaming pot of soup constituents like animal droppings which still took time and stirring to dissolve completely! Palm oil!
I then inquired on how such a bad product was processed and was alarmed to discover that the ideal palm oil is being mixed with akamu (pap) in order to boost its volume and thickness. Akamu! For some of us who believe we've never taken pap in our lives well..... I believe in miracles.....
Is it that our palm oil producers cannot process enough palm oil to satisfy the customers and hence resort to this 'health threatening' alternative or is it simply an act of greedy wickedness?
The Golden Rule asserts that everyone should be treated in equality and fairness but this rule is being observed mostly by none, myself included. These producers actually produce two brands of Palm oil. The 'family and friends' brand and the market brand. This family and friends brand was what Adam actually named 'palm oil', the market brand can and should be named something else. Like 'pam oyel'
There are certain things that manufacturers ought not to adulterate. I am okay with wristwatches, jewelry, shoes, bags and the likes being adulterated but never what is ingested into the human body. Things like food, drugs and drinks should be off limits inasmuch as adulteration is concerned. Affordability should not even be debated upon here.
As for the consumers of pam oyel, I advice you guys to stop patronizing such products at the detriment of your health. I am not an expert in the palm oil business but I hope those who are would help drop a comment or two. Here are a few tips I would like to share though :

• Never buy palm oil that feels like butter. The cold weather is not responsible but the akamu inside is. 
• Never buy oil from a boiling drum/pot at any distribution/retail outlet. It's not a post manufacturing nor a purification process but rather a technique used in keeping the oil in the second state of matter i.e. liquid. 

Confirm palm oil no dey sleep even for Jos, and the scent alone dey cure some sickness.
Let's work together and get bad palm oil out of our markets. 

God bless Nigeria.