RiverNaija

Many times, people ask me what they need to do to write well. Even though there are many things one needs to do to be able to write well, there is one among them that is fundamental. And that is: “If you want to write well, read novels, and more novels.” It is as simple as that. Other types of books are good. Magazines, newspapers and journals are also good. But if you want to write in a compelling manner; if you want your readers to read your works from start to finish; if you want to hold your audience captive; if you want to entertain your audience rather than just educate them and bore them stiff, the solution is simple: Read novels. And what type of novels are we talking about? Any type of novel would do. Any novel that agrees with your spirit. Any novel that has an interesting story. Any novel that can hold you captive. Read as many as possible. Read them all the time. Soak yourself in the narrative. In a couple of years, you will see the impact. Why is novel-reading this magi...

This is coming at a time when Nigerians are exporting religion and superstitions to the rest of the world; when our so called "men of God" assert that the cures for diseases are to be found in prayer houses rather than laboratories; when our universities have become the birthing places of pastors and imams; when we have become accustomed to pastors making extraordinary claims such as driving cars on empty tanks and resurrecting the dead; when the medieval belief in witchcraft and the practice of witch-hunting are ever so pervasive; when jihadists are engaged in a campaign of terror to spread sharia. I can go on and on. A university is a place of enquiry and enlightenment but every year, impressionable young minds arrive on our university campuses hoping to be nurtured in the art and science of enquiry, the tool by which all progressive societies have advanced themselves; but instead, a great percentage of their university time is taken up by religious activities such as pra...

The dictionary defines materialism as a preoccupation with material objects, comfort and consideration to the exclusion of spiritual, intellectual or cultural values crucial for wholesome living. This malady manifests itself in a subtle way in our modern lives as clutter which builds up as we collect things for a number of reasons – for use later, sentimental reasons and so much could be spent in acquiring it even if we may never get to use it since it is possible that after buying it, we discovered it is not vitally relevant to our lives. However, it may really hurt us deeply to give it away because the two areas in the brain associated with pain light up in response to discarding clutter. The brain views the loss of such valued possessions as the same that causes physical pain. This psychological connection to things unconsciously leads to accumulation of stuffs, whether it is in the closet, office desk and in the surroundings capable of inducing negative impact on ability to focus...

This topic came up in my mind after I read an article entitled, ‘Are Nigeria politicians crazy?’ What is quite obvious concerning Nigeria is that she is blessed with natural resources and some folks add that we are blessed with human resources — a point I disagree with. Of course, we have numerous professionals, technologists and even academicians who, possibly, may be literate but not educated. This does not confer on Nigeria the status of being “blessed” with human resources. The value of human resources in any society is the calibre of mental capital it can deliver. We have a critical mass of human resources with some literacy, but not essentially educated. We have acquired some knowledge in a manner that did not interrogate our culture, hence the disconnect between our elites’ claim to education and their leadership failure in all ramifications. Our politicians do not have mental illness; they have only taken advantage of our mediocre cultural software to express their greed. We ...

John intends to start a business, Ada wants to write a book and Bayo is good at music and wants to become a professional musician. They have many ideas running through their minds about these things they want to do. John has a lot of business ideas, Ada has ideas of different plot lines for her book and Bayo has a lot of good tunes in mind. But they all have a common problem - how will they bring these ideas to reality? Ideas are great but unless something is done with them, they remain worthless. In this post, I will try to suggest ways to go about bringing your ideas to reality. The points are not exhaustive because I intend to make it brief. Please stay with me. 1. Get organised. Scott Belsky in his book on this subject states that a surplus of ideas is as dangerous as a lack of it. The tendency to jump from one idea to another drains your energy and you struggle to make progress. Without some structure, you can become an addict of the brain-spinning indulgence of idea generation....