Oladipo Ademola Esq

I can not deny that I love banking with Guaranty Trust Bank. They do their best to make me happy. Even, commissioning Asa to sing their theme song, and its a lovely song.

You can get the song from here.

Wouldn’t you rather take my hand and let me lead. Wont you rather trust me?

Guaranteed to take the lead. Guaranteed to be the best in all that I do.

Cool. Relaxing. Asa, damn girl, you are good. 

Saturday night. My mind was set on spending a great part of it at Swe Bar and Lounge (primarily because I had heard that it is a cool place to while away time in the midst of drinks and flat screen TVs). But, sometime in the day, I lost the urge to give my liver the prime job of filtering alcohol, so I convinced my friend, Wale, to chauffeur me around town.

First, we visited the e-center at Sabo, but for a Saturday night, it was unusually dull. Sorry, it was UNUSUALLY DULL. (Emphasis intended). He received a call from a client to come to Victoria Island, so off we headed to the Island. In our characteristic manner, he called the client and postponed the appointment to Sunday. Perfection.

Still we were headed to the Island, so we agreed to just pop in to Swe Bar, but he doesn’t drink. Mind changed. Again. How about Feeds? He asked. I replied, no problem. We got there and I corrected him, its called Reeds and not Feeds. Correction taken.

We tried strutting in. Yes, I said tried. The security man wouldn’t let us in. My friend was in shorts. I was in leather slippers. I was ok, he wasn’t. Still we convinced him to let us in. And no, we did not bribe him.

Inside, I experienced some kind of serenity that was worth every kobo I spent there. You need to have a business dinner? This is the place for it. You need to impress that lady? (note: I did not use the word chick) This is the place for it. You just feel like lazing about? This is not the place for it.

I ordered a shot of Remy Martin VSOP. Needed something to start the night with. I called a lady friend of mine and she advised me not the get drunk. I gave a simple reply…with their prices, its going to have to be a very expensive drunkenness. Wale doesn’t drink, so we had to order food.

Nice looking menu. Then again, I am not used to restaurants of this class. All the items on the menu looked the same (save for the description of what was contained – which all still looked very similar). Good waiter, he helped me make a decision. I chose the Gai Pad Med.

(i didnt take any pictures, found these on the web. got’em from here and here. my order was similar to that in the distance)

It was a lovely meal. Period. Ordered a Fruit Punch. Wale ordered a Milkshake and a Chapman. I ordered the bill.

We left and headed for home. We spent about 2 hours there and enjoyed every bit of it. Now, I heard All Roads Lead to Bacchus down the road. Tomorrow?

A Nation’s Identity Crisis
By Reuben Abati
You may not have noticed it: Nigeria is suffering from an identity crisis imposed on it in part by an emergent generation of irreverent and creative young Nigerians who are revising old norms and patterns. And for me nothing demonstrates this more frontally than the gradual change of the name of the country. When Flora Shaw, Lord Lugard’s consort came up with the name, Nigeria in 1914, she meant to define the new country by the strategic importance of the Niger River. And indeed, River Niger used to be as important to this country as the Nile was/is to Egypt. We grew up as school children imagining stories about how Lugard in one special romantic moment, asked his mistress to have the honour of naming a new country in Africa. Something like: “Hello, sweetheart, what name would you rather give the new country that I am creating?”
“Let me give it a thought? , Awright, how about Ni-ge-ria darling?”
“That would do. That would do. How thoughtful, my fair lady? You are forever so dependable”

And the name stuck and it has become our history and identity. But these days, the name Nigeria is gradually being replaced by so many variants, that I am afraid a new set of Nigerians may in the immediate future not even know the correct spelling of the name of their country. For these Nigerians whose lives revolve mostly around the internet and the blogosphere, the name Nigeria has been thrown out of the window. Our dear country is now “naija” or “nija”. What happened to the “-eria” that Ms Shaw must have thoughtfully included? The new referents for Nigeria are now creeping into writings, conversations, and internet discourse. I am beaten flat by the increasing re-writing of the country’s name not only as naija or nija, but consider this: “9ja”. Or this other name for Nigeria: “gidi”. There is even a television programme that is titled “Nigerzie”. In addiiton, Etisalat, a telecom company has since adopted a marketing platform that is titled: “0809ja.” Such mainstreaming of these new labels is alarming.
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I was reading an article about the Bayelsa Biometrics project on Sun News Online, a project I am part of. My intention was to copy the article for our website, when I saw the Glo advert. For some funny reason, I clicked on the advert (something I am strangely wondering why I did it), to visit gloworld.com.

I left the page to get busy on some other things and came back to meet a Plesk Landing Page.

Glo, or rather, Glo Webmasters. Wake up.

The classic break up line. This time, its between me and Google’s Chrome. The ultra new browser designed to weep me off my feet and make me fall in love with its speed, responsiveness and clean looks. Yeah, it did try. For a while. But why have a beautiful bride who is only beautiful and nothing more. I am an African man, I believe in beautiful brides. I also believe in functional brides. That is why, I have to remove Chrome from the favourite bride position. sorry, it just didn’t work out as well as I thought.

Am back to Firefox, my ever faithful lady.

On Eve of Trial, Settlement Agreements Provide $15.5 Million for Compensation to Nigerian Human Rights Activists and to Establish Trust Fund

http://wiwavshell.org/

http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=africa&item=090609090934.08u6m1hy.php

http://remembersarowiwa.com/

Twollow on http://twitter.com/ShellGuilty