The Wordsmith Blog™

Do you worry about the start of a new week? Have your worries now developed into a hatred for mondays? Do you ever go to bed on Sunday night unable to sleep?  Are the stresses of the week ahead keeping you awake?  If you’re like most people, the thought of starting the week can cause for some degree of anxiety.  Many of us actually wish that everyday of the week would be a weekend. It is inevitable to have a start of a new week. And mind you, the note with which you kick start your week goes a long way to dictate what events will take place all through, and your responses to them. To be frank, we all get worried about the start of the week for various reasons best known to us, but there are some universal reasons for these worries. However, there are some simple steps you can take to ease the worry and get your week off to a positive, productive start. 1. Make your list:  Most of us have a running to-do list of both long and short term tasks.  Before you start your week, highlight

There are only 2 answers to every question of Life,besides them, others are mere MODIFICATIONS and never perfect answers. No situation in the life of a man ever leaves him sitting on the FeNcE, because EveRy mAN is either "HERE" or "THERE",and there's nothing like a HERETHERE. We somewhat answer a YES or a NO to every given situation either through verbal or non-verbal communication. Beware! The Yes you say today,may make you a NO tommorrow,and the No you say today can make you a YES in the future. REMEMBER THE SUBTLE YES EVE DISPLAYED IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN? IT BROUGHT US TO THE POINT WE ARE TODAY. Like that folk song we used to sing way back in elementary days; "Wherever you go, wherever you be... Do not say a YES when & where you mean to say a NO". Life is an aggregate of choices, and every man is made or mar by the aggregate of his YES' and NOs. The ability of a man to make PROPER use of these two words in LIFE,is what i call TRUE INDEPEN

1)Fine: This is the word a woman uses at the end of any argument in which she feels she is right about but needs to shut you up. Never use "fine" to describe how a woman looks. This will cause you to have one of those arguments. 2)Five Minutes: This is really half an hour. It is equivalent to the same "five minutes" that a football game is going to last before you take out the garbage. 3)Nothing: This really means, "You'd never understand." "Nothing" is usually accompanied by a woman's desire to turn you inside out, upside-down, and backwards. "Nothing" is often said prior to an argument that will last "Five Minutes" and will end with the word "Fine." 4)Go Ahead (with raised eyebrows): This is not permission. This is a dare. One that will result in a woman getting upset over "Nothing" and will end with the word "Fine. 5)Go Ahead (with normal eyebrows): This means, "

The clock is ticking, the time is drawing near Day break and night fall, the days pass by. I used to live in a whole yard in freedom, now am bound, tied down in this boredom. Now I understand why Gam pretended to be sick, its now so clear to me, he did want to leave the pen. He was fit just seconds before they appeared, it puzzled me to see him change immediately he saw the guests. Lucky Gam, he'll be glad he didn't leave, he acted like he already knew what things would be. Full of experience incomparable, offcourse, he's spent 2years here in Amadu's pen. I wish I knew, but how could I? When no one ever talked to me. I was all alone, all the while, hoping for someone to come end my mystery. Alas it came, i saw the duo moving around us, checking us out one after the other. They where men, looking for something, but I couldn't place what exactly it was that they needed. With so much expectation, I watched the scenes of how they sampled out all of my kinsmen, but

Seated with my legs crossed, eyes straight, mouth ruffled upwards, scratching my cheek to my under jaw, swinging from side to side, I was awaited Usman who promised to bring my share of sallah meat. If the next minute passed without him showing up, it will be exactly an hour since I’ve been waiting for him to arrive. With my eyes so tinted, nose blown out, knuckles cracking under the pressure of their neighbouring fingers, I awaited Usman like a man whose entitlements after retirement was being denied him. In the midst of my wait, I looked away and saw this view, a young man pulling a stubborn ram across the road. Quickly my thoughts ran like a flash, and the question popped into my subconscious; WHAT GOOD DOES SALAH DO THESE RAMS? I beheld the young man pull the ram like “Come here, you are beginning to waste my time” and I also saw the recusant ram draw back like “What good will you be doing me where you are taking me to?” T he tussle got so bad, the young man employed a whip beca

...That man at the centre of the Arik plane incident was/is mad, but as soon as he saw a higher altitude madness on display(The Turbulence), he bowed, submitted his madness, and started screaming "God Is Great". Passengers on board who couldn't comprehend his ordeal, took him for a Terrorist. Little did they know that he too was actually being terrorized by higher forces. The pilot, who quickly contacted the control towers, perhaps had thought the troubled man was an hijacker. But little did he too know that the man himself had been hijacked by higher degree hijackers. Behold "The Unseen Angle" The real story that couldn't be popularized as it beats the media eyes. LOL!!!!!!! -The Wordsmith.

...Like a discipline, this thing has got it rules, schedules, manuals and strategy. I tell you it isn't one of those things people find interesting. Its boring, Its killing especially when you don't know when its ending. It s WAITING, the very word that stands in between a promise and its fulfilling. And its WEIGHTY, if not handled the right way, it could crush the soul even before its circles are completed. Like I said before, its not one of those things anyone will find interesting, because its natural for a man to want to get instantly what he wants, ask or think. To face the reality, LIFE is a JOURNEY, and that journey is called WAITING. The preacher once told me, "Good things come to those who wait". I quickly summarized and rephrased, "Good things come to those who accept life as a journey, made up by a whole lot of waiting" life I must inform you, is ALL ABOUT WAITING, and the earlier you knew, the better prepared you'll be. A journey as uniq

..."Don't cry over yesterday, its gone, Don't lose sight of tomorrow,it will soon be here". For every today that is, a tomorrow for sure will be. But sadly, many have made tomorrow an impossibility by their combined actions of yesterday and today. I write to you with two inks today, like fighting one enemy with two different sword (the aim remains to overcome). You'll get to understand as we journey deep in this. ...Change they say is the only constant thing, this truth of which some have laid hold of, while some still live as though, all things will remain the same. I looked through the past as I searched history books, I carefully noted the numerous great inventions and ground breaking discoveries that made the headlines of those days. Great discoveries they were, the ultimate they seemed, at that point, man never wished for or saw anything better. I followed the progressions, then I saw that only a few years passed before the "Ultimate" which use

Permit me to publishe a variety of lists on strange religious practices, religions you never knew existed, and weird cults, but not a list of bizarre religions. This list is designed to fill the gap by discussing ten religions that most of us have not heard of (for good reason as you will see). Be sure to use the comments to tell us about any other bizarre religions and, especially, your own experiences of them. (10) Scientology Scientology has featured on a previous list, but if I didn’t include it here the comments would be inundated with “where’s scientology?” questions. The Church of Scientology is a cult created by L Ron Hubbard (Elron) in 1952 as an outgrowth of his earlier self-help system called Dianetics. The Church of Scientology holds that at the higher levels of initiation (OT levels) mystical teachings are imparted that may be harmful to unprepared readers. These teachings are kept secret from members who have not reached these levels. In the OT levels, Hubbard expl

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters, NAPTIP, has carried out a covert operation evacuating Ten Nigerian girls working as sex slaves in Abidjan, Cote d’ivoire. The girls who were brought into Abuja in two batches are from Edo State, Delta, Rivers and Benue States respectively, with Edo State topping the chart with six girls. The Executive Secretary of NAPTIP, Mrs. Beatrice Jedy-Agba disclosed that the operation which was intelligence driven was in collaboration with the regional bureau office of Interpol in Abidjan and an Abidjan based Non Governmental Organization, family Essan for Protection and Promotion of Human Rights, FEPDH. Mrs. Jedy-Agba who spoke while receiving the girls in NAPTIP Headquarters on Wednesday, sued for more intelligence sharing; co-operation and collaboration between West African Law Enforcement Agencies on trafficking in persons as a panacea to breaking the stranglehold of the criminal networks on the sc

Anyone with an inbox knows about "419 scams". They are the messages from mysterious strangers in possession of vast wealth and in need of a bank account to transfer it into. The senders are often assumed to be Nigerian, hence the name - 419 is a section of the Nigerian criminal code pertaining to fraud. Read more: "Happy spamiversary! Spam reaches 30" But what about the people behind the scams? They are known locally as "Yahoo Boys", a nod to their preference for Yahoo email accounts. Journalist Sarah Lacy tracked a few down and reported that times are hard, in part because westerners have become suspicious of emails that offer them massive lottery wins. Yet, beyond the occasional encounter with an intrepid journalist, we know little about a group of people who seem intent on trying to scam the entire planet. Thanks to Joshua Oyeniyi Aransiola, a sociologist at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, the 419ers are now a little less mysteriou

he African society views same-sex relationships as repulsive. Yet in Nigeria, homosexuals live among us. A few hide their status from the world’s prying eyes, while the majority however do not care. Some of them take Ruth Olurounbi through their worlds, insisting that they have been unfairly judged and misunderstood. Her report: Temitope Ali (not her real name), became a lesbian at age 15 during her secondary school days at a girls only boarding school. She was sent to the boarding school because ‘it was the in thing back then’, she said. Besides, a boarding school was an avenue for self discipline and self development in the arts of felinity, among others. Ali said, looking back, being a lesbian was something she couldn’t have imagined herself being, considering that she was from a devoted Muslim home which frowns against same sex relationships. “In fact, having heterosexual sex before marriage is something that is strictly frowned on my religion. So, becoming a lesbian is somethin

"Its high time we stocked our barns with tubbers of yams, and our silos with grains, because there's food scarcity looming in the air. Since the recent devastation by flood of major farming settlements in the country, food production has reduced to an all-time low state, due to the washing away of several farmlands and existing crops. Its no surprise that this warning is coming at this time, Nigerians had better prepared for the coming scarcity as we hope and pray the rains stop coming down heavily, and the R.Niger stops over flowing its boundaries." Courtesy : The Wordsmith. Here's what the PDP has to say about it: The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday warned that, in no distant time, food scarcity would hit some parts of the country. PDP in a communique issued by its National Publicity Secretary Chief Olisa Metuh, said Nigerians must know that flooding was a global phenomenon. The statement reads in part: “PDP has commended the President for the

Following the sad events which occurred on the 5th day of October 2012 at Aluu community in Rivers State, Nigeria, where 4 innocent Students of the university of Portharcort, Nigeria were gruesomely murdered and thereafter set ablaze for allegedly stealing laptops and phones, a new word has now been added to the Nigerian vocabulary ; "Aluu". Aluu (Adjective) : Wicked, Callous, Brutal, Barbaric, In-humane, Devilish, Blood thirsty. Example : Come on man, don't be so aluu! Aluu (Noun) : A person whose thoughts are evil, animalistic, evil and barbaric. Aluu (Verb) : To murder, kill for no just cause. The newly introduced word "Aluu" can be used in a sentences like the bellow; *)That young man sitting in the corner is aluu, the earlier we left this place, the better for us. Create more sentences here!

…I miss the days when live was simple, when I didn't have to think of what to eat, what to wear, what to speak, nor what to do, and everything went easy. It never used to matter whether I knew what I was doing, all that matters was that I was active, alive and doing something. I close my eyes and imagine those good simple days and wish things remained the way they were, but quickly open my eyes to reality, to who I am today. its hard to swallow, am grown and have lost my innocence, lost my dependence, lost all the bliss I used to enjoy as dividends of my ignorance. I miss the days when life was simple, when I'll do the worse and everyone will say "Allow him, he's only a kid". What immunity! I miss being immune. I miss those days when live was simple, when I never used to know the distance of where I went, all because I was siting comfortably on somebody's back, then, a 10 kilometre walk and a 50 never use to make to me any difference. I miss the days when li

History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe - (Review) Achebe: an exhortation to better governance. No writer is better placed than Chinua Achebe to tell the story of the Nigerian Biafran war from a cultural and political perspective. Yet, apart from an interview with Transition magazine in 1968 and a book of Biafran poems, Nigeria's most eminent novelist has kept a literary silence about the civil war in which he played a prominent role – until now. In his engrossing new memoir, There Was A Country, Achebe, now 81, finally speaks about his life during the conflict that nearly tore Nigeria apart in the late 60s. In many ways, the early part of Achebe's life mirrors the story of early Nigeria. Nicknamed "Dictionary", Achebe was a gifted Igbo student and enthusiastic reader, a member of the "Lucky Generation" of young students who rubbed shoulders at top institutions under the tutelage of Oxbridge colonials. They were effortlessly absorbed into the media, industry a

Show me the man who's contented with what he's got and doesn't want more, and I'll show you a man lying in a coffin. The wants and needs of man are so insatiable and inexhaustible, and the realisation of one dream one births the question "What Next?". No matter how high a goal you set for yourself, No matter how tall an ambition you're nursing, No matter how unbelievable the dream you've got, No matter how unthinkable the vision you see, The day you lay hold of it, you'll get to confirm my paradox that ; THERE'S NOTHING LIKE SATISFACTION. It defies logic to know that the word satisfaction never existed in the dictionary of mankind, as the poise to get more always override his sense of satisfaction and contentment. Even at the peak of his career, he wants more, he wants to try something else, he wants to be something new, he just never gets enough. Don't get things twisted here, I'm not condemning who we are, follow me carefully and

Nigerian soldiers moved house to house on Wednesday in an urgent bid to hunt down attackers responsible for the massacre of 40 people who were shot or had their throats slit in a student housing area. The raid in the early hours of Tuesday near a polytechnic university shook the town of Mubi, located in Nigeria's volatile northeast, where Islamist extremist group Boko Haram has carried out scores of previous attacks. Last week in Mubi, Nigeria's military conducted a high-profile raid targeting the group, killing a senior Boko Haram figure and arresting 156 suspected members. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan called the gruesome off-campus attack "sad and shocking" but its motives remained unclear, with some officials suggesting the massacre may have been linked to a recent student election. Jonathan has ordered Nigeria's security agencies to investigate, his spokesman Reuben Abati told journalists. Police have given an official death toll of 25, saying at lea

Everyone has got Ability, but sadly, not all have got the Opportunity. We're all quick to blame the Prostitute, but we've got no idea about what pushed her to that Institute. We're all quick to say "She's merely a Tailor" but if she didn't struggle to be one, we'll still call her a Failure. Now he's done his best to become a Mechanic, and you gore him, tell me, who's going to fix your engine when it starts to Panic? You say he's too gifted to be a Bricklayer, but you hardly remembered him in your Prayer. *Deep thoughts here. Life Kicks Everyone's Ass One Time Or The Other. The best of men do not get the best of life everytime, and the ones who seem to be getting the best of life at the moment must have had their butts kicked by it one time or the other. Stay hopeful in this fight for success. Once you keep it strong you'll still get there. Its not the Honourable that turns Capable, but the Capable turns Honourable. Today you'

Millionaire offers $65 million to any man that can woo his daughter A businessman from Hong Kong has offered a $65 million dowry to any man who can win the heart of his lesbian daughter. Cecil Chao announced the financial reward of HK$500 million after his daughter, Gigi, married her same-sex partner of seven years in France earlier this year. “I don’t mind whether he is rich or poor. The important thing is that he is generous and kind hearted,” 76-year-old Chao was quoted as saying. “Gigi is a very good woman with both talents and looks. She is devoted to her parents, is generous and does volunteer work,” he added. He also rejected “false reports” that Gigi, 33, had married abroad, saying she was still single. Chao, who owns publicly-listed property developer Cheuk Nang, could not be reached for comment. Same-sex marriages are not recognised in Hong Kong, a socially conservative Chinese city where homosexuality was decriminalised in 1991. Chao is well known in Hong Kong’s soci

Life's essay has got so many punctuation marks repeated as many times as possible, but features just one Full stop. *If you've not gotten the ".", then you don't give up, it simply means the essay continues. Challenges that come in life, merely punctuates the free flow of life essays, as none is capable of ending it. As we journey through life, we'll encounter situations and occurrences that could feature more than once in a lifetime. Life's essay is only ended where death (The Full stop) meets it, and until that final punctuation, no punctuation (Situation) should be mistaken as the end of the road. Life's essay comes in different styles and formats; Some have it long, Some have it short, Some have it suspense filled, Some have it thrilling, Some equally have it free flowing. What you're faced with at the moment(once it doesn't kill you), can only be a part of the essay, and it will sooner than later COME TO PASS away. Friends, because you w

"The recent happenings in the northern parts of the country might just be signs of God's own justice on that part of the country which is characterized by the dreaded, destructive and life claiming activities of the Boko Haram sect." Popular views from the media and social networks shows that some agrieved citizens of the country who have lost lives of friends, families, and properties couldn't but show no form of sympathy on hearing about the Adamawa flooding, and most recently the over flowing of the River Niger. A tweet I retrieved(respecting anonimity) stated "They better stop blaming Cameroon or any other African neighbour, na God dey punish dem, and na God go punish them for all the people wey dem don kill". Could this be true? Is God begining to punish the North over the prevailing Boko Haram activities? In the wake of the River Niger incidence,no fewer than two million people have been affected by flood in Kogi State as River Niger continues to ov

...Its so amazing, that we leave the main things, to choose the vague things, just to boost our ratings. I go a gazing, I can't but scream, 'na weytin'! When I find myself hating, 'cos on silly things, so much importance we're placing. I see the shame awaiting, Even though today the trail we're blazing, and we're feeling like Masons, in no time, realities we'll be facing. By that time, we'll be shaking, Seeing the many mistakes we've been making, then we'll look up to God and be faithing, a sorry case, we've only just begun the wailing. Life's a mix of PRIORITY and WAITING, Do first the main things, look next, the play things, then you'll be the one dictating, how life's rotating. Akogun Olalekan (c) 2012.

What women want! My version of the popular World Wide Web. Let me ask a simple Question? What do women want? I decided to ask the women themselves,I am going to publish the few answers I got as the response came in. Mind you I didn't edit the responses, So as to bear out their minds,I promised the women their names would not be publicized. Read and Learn from them! Miss A said :We just want happiness,Its broad I know but thats what we want. Miss B: I doubt if women know what they want. Even if we list things we think we want or traits Expected in our men. It cant be done no man can be 100percent perfect same with a woman So its all wishes, in the end a woman will always settle for whatever her man has except she is not ready to settle den she'll keep pursuing d pipe dream dt a perfect man exists My view. Miss C : An honest response won't make a difference. Thanks Miss D: There

We’re all allotted the same 24 hours in a day, so why is it that some people manage to accomplish amazing feats with their time while others struggle to maintain even a basic level of productivity? The answer isn’t gallons of coffee or cases of Red Bull.  In fact, the secret is simple!  The people who are able to accomplish more in the amount of time we all have are those who are skilled – whether naturally or through concerted practice – at making their work as effective as possible. If you want to be more successful, one of the easiest ways to bring about this change is to become more effective in your daily work.  Here’s how to do it… Step #1 – Understand the difference between “effective” and “busy” We’re all busy, right?  Take a look at the tired and stressed faces around your office and you’ll see just how “busy” people are these days! But just because we’re busy doesn’t mean that things are getting done effectively.  By understanding how these two key terms differ, you’l