Conversation with a thief (Season 1 episode 1)

I am not going to reveal where this conversation took place, but it was for real.
"What will you do when you come out from prison?" I asked the young man.
"I will go back to stealing, that's all I know how to do"
"Why don't you learn a skill now that you are here?" I asked. "The state provides it for free"
"No that won't give me enough. Do you know I can make your salary on a good day?"
"But on a bad day you will be caught" I said.
"It doesn't happen often. Do you know how many times I have stolen before I was caught?"
"No"
"Over 30 times"
"And did you make money in all of them?"
"No. But can you guess the highest amount I have made?"
"No"
"Try a guess"
"Ok. $500"
He smiled. "No, $9000. I found it in an empty apartment"
"How long did the money last for you?"
"Close to a month"
"And after that what did you do"
"I went back to stealing"
"And you were caught"
"Yes"
"Does that not teach you something?"
"No. The punishment is light compared to the crime"
"How many years do you have?"
"9 years"
I was shocked. 9 years in prison and somebody thinks it's nothing.
"How old are you?"
"23 years"
"Long have you been here?"
"5 years"
Still shocked.
I will stop here to come out of my shock. I will continue this conversation to show where it leads to.

Football season is getting to an end. So what's next?

Finally Leicester lifted the English premier league title. Harry Kane topped the league with 25 goals, but it was the players from Leicester that caught the eye. James Vardy, Megharez, Morgan the captain and Ngolo Kante, the most wanted defensive midfielder in the Premiership. Another news that made headlines was St Totteringham Day. How Tottenham almost, I say almost clinched the title but they started tottering to the extent that on the final day they only needed a point to come second and end the season above Arsenal for the first time in 21 years, but they collapsed at Newcastle, losing 5 - 1 to a ten man team. At least arsenal fans has something to celebrate.
Barcelona made the great escape and lifted the La liga, after stuttering for about two or three games. And for once we don't get to talk about Messi or Ronaldo, but Luis Suarez. Yes Suarez, the biter. He out scored everybody, notching in 40 la liga goals. To think that Wenger had opportunity to buy him. but could only price him at 4000,001 pounds was a joke. Zidane won 21 games, drew 3 and lost 2. Good record for a first timer who took over when the team looked like they were not doing well.  Ligue 1 was since won by PSG with Ibrahimovich scoring 38 Ligue 1 goals. Respect to him. Now he is leaving unless they replace the Eiffel tower with his statue. There is a rumour he might end up in Arsenal. Hopefully.
Juventus won Seria A but Gonzalo Higuian made headlines after breaking Gunnar Nordahl's 66 year old record of 35 goals. He scored a hat-trick on the last day to take his tally to 36 making him the highest goal scorer in Italy. Another news of note is Klose, yes Klose. The world cup goals record holder, who is the most capped German player at 137 that saw him appear in four world cups. At 38 years of age, he made his 139th appearance for Lazio capping it with his 54th goal for the club. Respect to him.
Bundesliga was easily won by Bayern although Dortmund made a spirited effort to catch them. Lewandoski was the highest goal scorer with 30 goals. Some of the main headline news was Matts Hummel voicing his willingness to move to Bayern before the season was over and signing a deal with them before his last match. Long time ago Pep Guardiola also said he was leaving Bayern and heading to the Premiership. this caused a little furore in England as top managers became fearful for their position. he was accused of causing confusion and taking undue advantage. Well it's no longer news that he has signed a deal with Mancity.
Now that it is almost over, with the Europa cup on Wednesday 18th May 2016 and champions league on 28th May to cap a dramatic window, what's next for the clubs and players? Euro 2016 is also around the corner.
Transfer news of course. I will keep you posted on who is going where and who is staying.

Corporate Fraud in United States

Corporate fraud in United States is very common. By this I mean when big companies treats a customer in the wrong way and you won't know who to talk to or how to go about getting compensation. I have experienced it with ATT drop calls and still being charged for those calls. Moving my phone upgrade several months forward when I should have paid up for the phone.
In April I bought  six tickets from Spirit airline to come back to Dallas from Chicago. On that day I got several emails from the company saying the 7.57pm flight was delayed and as at 7.54pm I got the last one saying the flight has been moved to 8.46pm. Okay, I and my sisters decided to chill. Around 8.26 I decided to go and ask the desk ladies what time we will start boarding and they told me the plane left at 8.25pm and the board behind them showed the plane left at the time. I was livid with anger, as there was no announcement to announce boarding. As at 8.15pm, they were still issuing boarding pass to passengers. Around 8.50pm, I got another email from them that the plane left at 8.20pm, contradicting the display board time that showed 8.25. They started refunding or rescheduling passengers to 9.15am flight. Because I had my wife , two sisters and two children with me I bought another ticket from United airlines. The spirit airline staff assured me I can get my refund from Dallas office. The rest of the story is history. after series of calls and emails they gave me a voucher for future travel to be used before June 16th.
Recently, I made a couple of bucks through my blog and I was excited. I had told a lot of my friends about my blog and they were excited too. Then I woke up on morning, opened my email and there was an no reply email from Google claiming that I was clicking on my own ads and there goes my money. All the sleepless nights and efforts gone. and who do I report to? Nobody.
The government should look into all these little frauds and find a way to protect the average person because when you add all the money involved in these frauds and multiply it by the millions of people going through these on a daily basis, these companies are making millions

"Fantastically Corrupt"

The above adjectives is the way British Prime Minister, David Cameron described my beloved country Nigeria, "Fantastically Corrupt" This caused an outrage in Nigeria. It got me wondering, what is actually wrong with the statement? Who are the people outraged? Is it because he used the word "fantastically"? Are we not Corrupt? Nigeria is corrupt, simple. If not, how do we describe the actions of people like Dasuki, Ohakim, Deziani, Udenwa, Haruna, Nenadi Usman, and the rest of them that I did not mention or I won't have any space to finish this article, who took billions of Naira that was meant for other projects. How do you describe when a top government officials takes money from Central Bank and give it out like it is his personal money? How do you describe the country that has an outfit like NIMASA where billions of Naira were paid for projects that does not exist?
These people that are outraged are the same people that are involved in these acts. If they don't want the country to be labeled corrupt, then how do we describe the country where Customs and Immigration officers at the international airport will stand right in the mist of everybody and tell a traveler that the food items he is carrying out of the country will be quarantined. They do everything possible to delay and frustrate the traveler, but once you produce a couple of Naira notes, the food items will be let through. How do we describe a country where Police Inspector General said that renewing tinted glass license is free, yet Nigerians are made to pay N25000 by the police for renewal. I don't even want to go into police extortion on the roads or bailing somebody at the police stations. The list is endless.
President Buhari is doing a good job fighting corrupt, but the country has not yet reached that stage where the corruption tag can be removed. So he should not be "embarrassed" as his press secretary said.

Nigerians have suffered enough.

Fuel now to sell N145.00 in Nigeria from N87.00. That's almost a 70% increase. The question now is how is the government going to compensate Civil and Public servants whose salaries can barely purchase anything or sustain them throughout the month. Are they going to increase salary? What contingency plan do they have for these government workers or are they going to wait until Labour Union threatens or goes on strike before they make any plans for the workers. Definitely, business men will raise the price of their products in order to compensate for the raise. Transportation will go up. So the poor civil servant who has three kids in university and one or two in private schools will be caught in between. How will the worker make ends meet? I hope the government already has an answer or solution to the above questions, because they will arise.
Removing the fuel subsidy is the best thing that will happen to the country if managed very well. Corrupt government officials and business men have bled the country with subsidy. Removing it is supposed to create competition and bring prices down in the long run, and make the product available. But how are we sure importers of petroleum products are not going to connive and keep the price high to maximize profit? knowing the country's business environment, I hope that won't be the case. Monitoring agencies should be effective, because Nigerians have suffered enough.
In the United States, price of petroleum products keeps fluctuating, because their is real competition. In the last two years it has gone down almost 50%. Nigeria has a lot to learn from this country on managing our oil.

Is Pep Guardiola a fluke?

First, let me congratulate Leicester City football club for winning the English premiership. That was quite a feat. I will not fail to thank Chelsea FC for making it possible by making sure Totteringham did not win. That game was like a WWE match. 9 yellow cards to Tottenham players. What happened to the beautiful game?
Now let me get back to the issue at hand. Pep Guardiola will not win the champions league with Bayern. It is now official, after three years of managing the club. Pep is a good coach, especially with his football philosophy, tika-taka. He dominates the opponent. People claim he did well in Barcelona because of Messi and Xavi, and a good team. That might be true or not. I don't care how he achieved that with Barcelona, but I have never liked his idea of leaving a team when he doesn't achieve something or feels his team is weakening. That does not make him a great coach. He is now heading to Manchester City, English premiership where a team like Leicester can win the title. After three years, how are we going to judge him? Is he going to win the premiership, yes I think maybe once. Is he going to win the champions league? I don't think so. So where does that place him? Is he going to run to seria A or ligue 1? Those are the two best options that will be left and he won't have any other big leagues to run to.

I wrote this about him in March and I still believe it to be true. At Manchester City, he will not dominate the premiership. He does not have as much quality players there as in Barcelona and Bayern. But he is going to buy. Big names will follow him but when these big names and big clubs finally realize that he is a hit and run coach, what's going to become of him? I will be alive and I will see. But I think the premiership is going to expose him real bad and he is going to be frustrated. Then what? Run or will he stay? We will find out.

Nigeria facing another problem

Nigeria has almost won the war against boko haram, now they are up against another problem. Fulani herdsmen. They have been attacking villages, killing and maiming innocent citizens. Agatu, and now Nimbo in Enugu state. They are also involved in kidnapping. Evidence is the kidnapping of Olu Falae from his farm.
These men have become a menace to society.
This brings up a lot of questions, like, why are they killing innocent people. Wqho is arming them, because we know on their own they don't have the wherewithal to get such sophisticated weapons? What purpose do their financiers hope to achieve? Why are the northern governors defending them? It was the same scenario when boko haram started, the northern governors kept silent. Are there individuals trying to make sure this government does not succeed?
These are issues security agencies have to sort out before the situation escalates. The earlier they nip this in the bud the better.