Education

My Random Reflection @ 53

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By Adeola Aderounmu

My Random Reflection @ 53

It has been 18 years since I started to write this series: My Random Reflections. Usually, they bothered around my personal life and Nigeria. In recent years my focus shifted from Nigeria to what I expect of the future: a future that Nigeria would be dismantled so that the entrapped nations/countries in it can be set free to attain greatness and align with the super powers of the world. It is such a shame and a waste of human resources that both the intellectuals and fools in Nigeria are talking about a certain 2027 elections 2 years into the useless reign of the present regime. Invariably, each successive regime since 1999 govern stupidly and loot for 2 years out of four and spend the remaining two years planning for the next elections thereby bringing an already useless government to a total halt. This is the cycle since 1999 when one dictator called Abdulsalami finally handed over to Obasanjo to usher in a civilian regime. The return was overdue because in 1993, another criminal and dictator called Babangida refused to hand over governance to MKO Abiola who won the 1993 elections.

My stand on Nigeria.

I do not support Nigeria to exist as a single country because before the senseless and useless coups of 1966, Nigeria as it was, was a rising superpower courtesy of the regional government where each region supported itself through her own resources and the competitions between the regions meant that development was fast-paced and the regions were at some point faring better than almost all the European countries.

Yes, Western Nigeria was ahead of London and Paris before the coups of 1966 that brought a unified system of government to replace the regional government. I have flooded my blog with this historical perspective several times and since many young people do not know these historical facts, they are being fooled quarterly with fake elections that have buried Nigeria permanently as one of the worst places to live in the world.

I refuse to accept any tourist or tourists’ slogan that rate Nigeria high. The minimum wage in Nigeria is about N70 000. It cannot buy a bag of rice! Any Nigerian living on minimum wage cannot afford a 1 – 3 hour stay at any internationally rated tourist destination in Nigeria. So, please let that rest. There are several other arguments to support my claim that Nigeria is one of the worst places to live on earth. Drive around Festac and see a trip to hell. Drive off Lusada road. Drive Matogun area. Forget about Lagos Island where the distractions blind you from the realities of our lives in this country. For the past 3 weeks, from the end of June 2025 to this day the 13th of July 2025, you cannot register a SIM CARD in Nigeria. Is that even a country? Please…! Where else on earth does network that bothers on national security stops working? Where? Then you don’t get any official information and no date for activation of the network can save or take the lives of 200 million people.

The Value Of The Naira. The Black Out Factor.

The naira which is the official currency of Nigeria used to have more value that the pounds and dollars a few decades back. Today in 2025, the value of the naira is next to useless. A medium fancy mama put in Nigeria will demand N5 000 from you for a decent meal. In the lowest of category, maybe N2000 when you finish ordering 2 spoons of rice, one meat, 3 for N100 dodo and water for N200. In some places where they serve you meat, the meat is as small as a SIM CARD. It’s not better to cook at home. What can a minimum wage of N70k do? You can spend it in a few minutes buying bread, rice and yam. A lot of good food substances in Nigeria are out of the reach of the ordinary citizen today. What a tragedy for the value of the naira and what it can take home.

The value will continue to depreciate as long as the government remains corrupt. The politicians pay themselves huge wages, several millions per month to be sure. The country relies heavily on oil that belongs solely to the people of the Niger Delta. Production and manufacturing are declining or non-existence. A key factor here is the near total absence of electricity in Nigeria. In 2025, electricity remains scarce in Nigeria and it is essentially seen as a luxury. The Power Holding Companies are grossly incompetent and the infrastructure to maintain constant power supply in Nigeria does not exist. Several homes and companies that used generators or power plants have given up. The cost of fuel to run their generators and plants have increased astronomically. Nigeria is a typical scene for survival of the fittest. Eat or be eaten! The government does not work for the people. The government is dissociated from the ordinary citizens. The politicians and the people live in parallel worlds.

Our Health

One familiar news that came up this week was Buhari and Abdulsalami as patients at a London hospital. These 2 useless former rulers in Nigeria are old and receiving treatments abroad. If you want a reminder of how useless all former Nigerian rulers are, this piece of news is it. How can you be a president in a country and you do not deem it fit to build a hospital of international standard where you, your family and other citizens can receive treatment?  I made a recent post on this topic.  How crazy, how stupid can you be not to use your position to build hospitals across the country? People will not shout tribalism if you started it in your hometown and extend it nationwide. These rulers are fools!

What Next For Nigeria? Where Do We Go From Here?

Nigeria is planning an election for 2027. Already in 2025, governance is almost at a halt. It is the 2027 elections that is on the mind of the gullible citizens as the politicians formed new fronts, now coalitions as if anything is new. In a post on this blog, I have tagged Atiku as Nigerians biggest political prostitutes based on the number of parties he had formed or joined and in 2025, he lived true to that tag. In Africa, Atiku is the greatest political prostitute ever. Now, I have lost count of how many political parties under his arms.

In 2011, I dismissed any new elections in Nigeria. In 2025, my stand is the same. Elections in Nigeria will bring more poverty, more impoverishment, lower standard of living, ever sinking value for the naira and a life-long experience of hopelessness for a population approaching or probably over 200 million people.

Nigeria jagajaga in the lyrics of Abdulkareem.

There are flashes of comfort and affluence here and there but those in my opinion are distractions.

To get a picture of Nigeria, you need to visit places where the ordinary citizens live. Live among them, experience their pain, fear and anxiety. Those who said it is fun to be in Nigeria are the rich and powerful. They also include the people Fela described as suffering and smiling. 44 sitting, 99 standing!

Is there anyone in Nigeria today who can survive on a minimum wage of N70 000 naira which is less than USD 50/ month? How can a human being live on USD 1,5 per day? In 2025, you are expected to live on 1.5 dollars or less per day.

So, where do we go from here?

This generation of people or citizens preparing for the 2027 elections are wicked, callous, and selfish. The politicians and the general citizenry alike are evil.

Nothing good will come out of those elections. I have seen Nigerian elections since 1979 and the outcomes are the same and the culmination is staring at us in the face. Why do you want to do another useless election to promote insecurity, poverty, impoverishment, sadness, madness and total citizen disorientation? Why? Why?

There was a system before the 1966 coups that put the different regions in “Nigeria” at par or even ahead of the rest of the world. It is that system, an adaption of it or an outright dissolution of Nigeria that is the way forward.

I make bold to state that there is no politician or group of politicians that can save Nigeria under a unitary system of government. It is senseless, it is barbaric, it is madness, it is unheard of. It is not the solution. It is the ONLY PROBLEM WITH NIGERIA because it gave birth to all he myriads of problems we are facing.

So, why do you, why do we want to keep doing something that has been tested since 1966 and proven to be a failure? Who can explain that to me? I am a teacher and, in my training, you are not supposed to be planning to fail. Your goal is to succeed.

2027 elections in Nigeria is an affirmation in the belief of Nigeria to stick with failure. I will never understand it now and for the rest of my life. Never!

The system of government must change or the nations or countries in Nigeria must be set free. This is the only guarantee that greatness can come to this region in the next 2 to 3 decades. The fact that the change has not even occurred means that we have one or two generations already programmed to fail through the senseless unitary system.

I hope that our children and grandchildren will prosper in the Yoruba country. I have no hope other than that.

aderounmu@gmail.com

All Rants, And No Change. A Dilemma Called Nigeria.

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A Dilemma Called Nigeria

Adeola Aderounmu.

In recent weeks, in recent months actually, I have not been keen on blogging. It is not for lack of ideas. It is not that there are no more biting issues to discuss. There is still a lot to tackle. In our world, for all time, there will never be a shortage of what to write about, what to discuss and what to engage with.  The difference between writing 20 years ago and writing nowadays are the impacts of social media and AI. I digress no more.

Nigeria has been the central issue in my over 2 decades of blogging. In some articles, I have completely lost hope on what my generation and the generation before mine can do to restore dignity and hope to that region which the British criminals called Nigeria. So, I started to address the generation after mine.

There is a very loud outcry to the ongoing genocidal attacks in Benue State, Nigeria. The outcry and the lamentations are in order. But this is not an isolated occurrence. This was not an unexpected attack. That the terrorists in Northern Nigeria plan to overrun the entire country is not news. There have been coordinated attacks in almost all the Nigeria States. There are settlements of foreign “people” across the Nigerian region or country. I do not think it would be impossible to unleash mayhem on the entire country.

The visit of Bola Tinubu to Benue is cosmetic. The killers are on ground, and they will continue with their conquests of land and regions in Benue and in other places. Majority of people do not understand the kind of existence they were born into in Nigeria. Majority are ignorant of the meaning of Nigeria. They do not know how Nigeria came into existence and that Nigeria was never created as a country but as a business enterprise for the orgy of the British empire.

So, the shout about the genocide in Benue will probably mellow but the fundamental problems with the existence of Nigeria would be ignored because the level of ignorance and lack of knowledge among the people is overwhelming and stinking.

There are final and permanent solutions to the problems of genocide in Benue and other places across Nigeria. But these solutions do not exist as long as Nigeria remains one country. The people need to be educated that they are not Nigerians by nature and ancestry. For example, I am Yoruba. Some of you are Igbo, Hausa and so on. The people need to know that the British colonized the regions and formed Nigeria as a business enterprise and that regardless of what may be good about the union, the things that are bad about it are far enormous and damaging like the killing in Benue.

In our best years, we prospered most under a regional government in our respective ancestral land. It was not to last as the things that divided us came to fore and we killed one another for power because it is human to want to dominate over other tribes/nationalities, and that is what make sporting activities great human endeavours.

Now, how do you define dominance in a Nigerian context when the British brought unrelated nationalities together and called them Nigerians? The kind of dominance that each nationality in Nigeria seek and the lack of it for the other groups would continue to breed the kind of massacre in Benue. The fact that Fulani would even invade from far beyond the useless boundaries created by the foolish British colonialists has complicated the matter.

We have seen this over the decades and to think that VDM or a Tinubu visit are antidotes is the beginning of a new phase of collective amnesia and uncured madness. The “wars” we fight every 4 years during our stupid elections are the greatest indicators of our differences, the kind of differences that will NEVER be healed for as long as Nigeria exist.

I mean, the Nigeria of today has come to play into the hands of the colonial masters. The criminal colonial masters can see how their plans to destabilize the west African region have been a great success. They can see how the rising kingdoms of Oyo, Nupe, Igbo, for example, have all crashed believing they are Nigerians. It is again the question of intellectualism, it is the question of race superiority, and it is the question of common sense and the absence of it. The “white man” said you are Nigerian, and you accepted it. The while man said, you are not Igbo, you are not Hausa, you are not Yoruba, and you all accepted it.

This is the problem with us, not identifying and reclaiming our nationalities. We need to reclaim our ancestry and our original nationalities. How would I accept a foreigner invading the Yoruba country without declaring the action a war? The people of Benue would defend their land and their ancestral possessions if we stop telling them that they are Nigerians. By waiting on Nigeria and Nigerians, Benue may become lost to the invaders and their existence will be reduced to slavery or second-class citizens in their ancestral land. This is where many nationalities in Nigeria are heading, losing their identities and ancestral possessions.

The most we can do if we want to live “together” is to revert back to regional government and decide our destinies, our future and the extent of our prosperity in our different regions. The best we can do is to revert back to our kingdoms as they were before the colonial thieves glued us together for the business purpose of the Queen of England and a mistress of Lugard gave us the name “the people of the Niger area”.

There will not be immediate gain from our dissociation. However, in about 50 to 100 years, your children, grandchildren and unborn generations will bless your graves. The longer we wait to start the process, the more Nigerian slip into oblivion, the more the massacres, the more the genocide, the more the useless politics that breed poverty, hopelessness and penury for more than 100 million people. Nigeria is not just the poverty capital of the world, the country is the biggest laughingstock in the world. It will not change until all the nationalities entrapped in Nigeria emerged and claim their rightful places among strong nations across the world.

In our lifetime, we have the task to challenge the status quo, we have the tasks to write the true stories of our lives. We must not be afraid, and we must do all we can to leave the world a better place than we met it. We owe our children a lot and we must disappoint them more than we already did.

One thing is certain; the west and the powers that rule this world are afraid of the re-emergence of powerful kingdoms like The Yoruba Kingdom, The Igbo Nation/Biafra, and so on. They knew where we were before they disrupted and stole our civilizations.

Benue is not an isolated occurrence; we must all fight to be free. There is no other way.

My American Diary (Part 2). Family Appreciation.

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A Photo Story

By Adeola Aderounmu

One of the things we take for granted, and often too, is the basic unit of the society. Family.

Family was the major reason I travelled to the US in 2024. I will share of the details with you, in no specific order.

New York with Uncle Gbaike.

This photo was take in New York at the residence of uncle Gbaike. Beside me is my nephew who took care of his cousin (my daughter) from the first day she arrived in New Jersey. He helped her to get to school and to see that there was always a family around the corner if she needed anything. My niece did not appear in any of these photos because she got married and lives in Texas. I understood she opened up her home to my daughter during one of the holidays.

The issue of how family works, or not work is beyond the scope of this essay. I just want to appreciate the Aderounmus’ in the United States for rallying around one of their own who came calling from Sweden.

New Jersey.

This was on one of the 2 graduation days ceremony. My nephews whom i have not seen in over 2 decades and who have now become mes standing by those of us who came from Sweden. The celebrant herself was not in this photo. She was up stage getting her rewards and awards.

I have to thank Damilola John for taking care of Eniola from day one until the day of her graduation. Guarding angels are not made in heaven. They are made by kind actions of humans to humans. As mentioned earlier, Debby acted as a big sister and opened up her home in Texas. All these under the guidance of Uncle Gbaike in New York.

Lawrenceville School New Jersey

We took a table at Lawrenceville and had a great time at the graduation ceremony.

Family is everything. May the future shine bright for you.

Aderounmu.

Extra picture showing the African community of graduating students from Lawrenceville 2024 along with the school principal.

South Africa: From Apartheid to Slavery?

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The people of South Africa are fast becoming slaves in their own land. South Africa owes it to herself and the rest of us who fought for their emancipation to educate the bunch of fools in their countries and by default their children to prevent them from becoming both self-destructive and xenophobic.

South Africa: From Apartheid to Slavery?

By Adeola Aderounmu

For a few days now the biggest and saddest news out of Africa is the xenophobic attacks in South Africa.

Like a whirlwind the sad occurrences in South Africa overshadowed the election results and controversies emanating from Nigeria.

In March 2014 l wrote a piece titled: Nigerians in South Africa, Victims Or Culprits? At that time the South Africans had engaged Nigerians and other African nationals in some bouts of xenophobic attacks.

When the dust settled, the information l got at that time was that South Africans already promised another showdown with unspecified date and time. The rage was there all the time.

Then in March 2015 l got an email from a South African citizen. He highlighted the several sins and crimes of Nigerians living in South Africa. He also condemned Nigerians trooping to a country where the locals are jobless.

There was a bitter complain in the email, that what was once the pinnacle of Pretoria and Johannesburg, Sunnyside and Hillbrow, have been turned into Nigerian hub of sex, alcohol, drugs and modern slavery.

The writer of the email stated that Nigerians are destroying the image of Africa through their illicit activities in South Africa.

He was also not pleased about my comment that the South Africa police are corrupt. He shouldn’t worry. Recent events around the world including the USA continue to fulfil our fears that the police are not only corrupt, but also rotten in many places. South Africa is not an exception.

What were missing in the email are the positive aspects or the essential roles that many Nigerians and other African nationals are playing in the South African health and service industries amongst several others.

Suddenly a few weeks after l received the email from this angry South African, the stupid king of the Zulus made his hate comments.

xenophobic South Africa

xenophobic South Africa, A man looting the Ethiopian store and another waiting to kill foreigners

The king was angry and claimed that foreigners are spoiling businesses for them-the locals.

Just like the email l received the king also claimed that foreigners are selling drugs, promoting prostitution and competing with the locals for the few jobs available.

The Zulus are the major perpetrators of the xenophobic attacks in South Africa because it was their king that gave the go ahead to kill and pursue. This is why Durban is the worst affected place. It is in Durban that the King’s order originated.

This is not the first time the Zulu king is instigating violence. This is not the second time he is igniting xenophobic attacks by his utterances that usually play on the fragile emotions and the stupidities of his people.

Regrettably this is not going to be the last time sensitive comments about the roles of foreigners in South Africa will be used politically or otherwise to set black Africans against their brothers and sisters from another country.

The Zulus are very problematic people. It appears that the other tribes like the Khosas and the Buas are not in support of this recent madness in South Africa.

The attacks have since spread to other places. Limpopo and Johannesburg are also affected. People are being killed and goods are looted from homes and stores.

As I settled down to write this essay l got reports that a certain Julles town in Johannesburg was under attack. This is a place where many Nigerians run auto businesses in form of mechanical workshops. Many cars in the workshops have been burnt down!

There are several schools of thoughts on the rising xenophobic attacks in post-apartheid South Africa and where this could lead to in the future.

One that is a consistent narrative from different sources in South Africa is that some South African citizens can be categorised as lazy, stupid citizens. They are the ones that are easily manipulated by hate speeches such as the one given by the stupid Zulu King.

This school of thought believes that this category of South Africans is always jealous of the achievements of the foreigners.

In this post-apartheid South Africa the arguments go further that the locals have refused to do something good with their time and energy. They wait on the government to give them houses, water, light and other things all for free.

A careful analysis on this behaviour with respect to the situation during and after the collapse of the traumatic apartheid regime needs to be investigated and reported. It may help politicians in South Africa to come to their senses.

Why have the citizens of South Africa failed to take advantage of the opportunities around them thereby allowing foreigners to perch on these opportunities? What is the role of the lack of education in all these brouhaha? Why are the people generally regarded as lazy?

My investigations revealed that the people behind the massacre and looting in South Africa are those who blame the whites, their fellow Africans and even their government for everything that is not going well with them.

Sadly they have refused to get up to do something tangible with their lives. They enjoy drinking, smoking, sleeping and idling around while expecting that everything should be given to them for free. In extreme cases they loot and take from others by force or through the use of arms.

An average uneducated South African does not understand how foreigners from Malawi or Zimbabwe doing menial jobs are able to make ends meet because they don’t get the logic that little drops of water make a mighty ocean.

They are so myopic they don’t know that Nigerians can make profits with their legitimate businesses starting with little investments. They should come to Nigeria and see how hairdressers, small shop owners and several petty traders keep their families together with the profits from their different businesses.

It appears that South Africa will forever remain hostile to Nigerians and other people in their midst. The xenophobic attacks of April 2015 were already predicted in March 2014 after similar attacks.

Words from south Africa continues to reveal that these attacks will continue but at varying degrees. The prediction is that South Africa may go down one day if the government does not wake up to put her acts together.

If this ever happens, the country that has called itself by the name of an entire region-Southern Africa-will not receive aid or help from other African countries.

The post apartheid children of South Africa will eventually be taught the history and lessons of the apartheid years and that may be their saving grace from the way of perdition that they have chosen.

The successes of South African companies and organisations rest on the shoulders of the educated ones among them and the foreigners that appreciate such gestures.

It must be emphasized that those carrying out xenophobic attacks in South Africa don’t care about South Africa companies and interests abroad. They don’t comprehend it and that is why retaliations of any form will not bother them.

On this matter of xenophobism, retaliations are not the options anywhere.

This is where the roles of the government of South Africa become extremely important. They must (and by force too) educate this bunch of fools and by default their children to prevent them from becoming both self-destructive and xenophobic.

The children of the Zulus, all the children of South Africa must not be allowed to grow up with greed, jealousy and foolishness. It will spell doom for the future of the region. The leaders, l was told need to come clean and educate their citizens better. They cannot continue to threat them with kid gloves because of their selfish political gains.

From the Nigerian angle, l think it is about time Nigerians in South Africa look at themselves in the mirror too and take a stock of their sojourn in South Africa.

There are Nigerian professionals and business people in South Africa. They live and work there and contribute to the development of the country. For them South Africa is home. This is the same for Nigerians around the world, doing great in different ways. This is legitimate and a part of human nature and existence.

Unemployment is a serious problem in South Africa. So when it comes to Nigerians living on the streets in South Africa or Nigerians seeking political asylum and having no means of legitimate livelihood, l think this is an unwarranted incursion into the South African enclave.

It is this category of Nigerians that have been clumped together with other foreign nationals as pests and a burden to the South African society

To make matters worse, the Home Affairs Office in South Africa is making several billions of dollars annually from the illegality of issuing permit.

The government of South Africa has turned the issuance of resident permit to a national income earner. At R3000 for an application that can be turned down several times, this industry has come to represent the face of the South African National scam.

Still there are disturbing images of maltreatment of black Africans including thousands of Nigerians seeking different types and shades of permits.

The government of Nigeria must repatriate her citizens who have become a source of burden and even menaces to the people and government of South Africa.

For the ones who have chosen the drug business or prostitution. It is up to the South African government to sharpen her legal system. The police cannot remain corrupt while the people expect a miracle of sanity. The South African police are very corrupt and illegal businesses will always thrive in the midst of corruption.

The cure for drug businesses and prostitution is a functional law system and not xenophobic attacks. It is not as if the South African citizens are saints on this matter. People should be treated equally under the law irrespective of their nationalities or countries of origin.

One cannot also forget that South Africa is well known for the spread of crimes amongst the population. Johannesburg is ranked high among the most dangerous cities in the world.

Every day young South African rascals steal and even molest other people in the society. Sometimes guns are used and people are killed. Some people l know have suffered in the hands of South African criminal gangs.

South Africa has a lot of work to do. To stop apartheid, many African countries stood up for South Africa. I remember the endless chanting of Nigerian musicians back in the days. They sang and shouted down the walls of apartheid.

The people of South Africa are fast becoming slaves in their own land. What has become of black majority rule in the hands of the ANC? Now the aggression is towards the same people who helped them to gain freedom. There is anger in Harare and there is anger in Lagos.

Nigeria must get fully back on her feet again especially as everyone waits anxiously for the take off of the APC mandate at the national level.

Many Nigerians will return home because they are tired and frustrated in South Africa. Many other African nationals may follow suit.

History will record the next recipients of the fatal blow coming from the ignorant people of South Africa. Hopefully then the people would have identified their real enemies.

At that time when the cycle of slavery is complete and fully manifested, maybe eyes will be opened and knowledge will be common.

My final suggestion is to the people and government of Nigeria.

Arise O’ compatriots!

As your brothers and sisters start to return home, let them be fully reintegrated normally into the society. Their potentials as professionals, business people and entrepreneurs must not be allowed to rot away on home soil.

Hug them. Do not stigmatize them.

aderounmu@gmail.com

Why Men Should Cook

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Cooking can be a form of relaxation. It is surely art. A nation or a country can be built on well laid foundations that start from the family.

Why Men Should Cook

By Adeola Aderounmu

Time in the kitchen is time well spent

Time in the kitchen is time well spent

A nation or a country can be built on well laid foundations that start from the family. I have argued for parental leave for both mothers and fathers in Nigeria.

Unfortunately there has not been any progress in that area. The typical Nigerian life is driven by harsh economic realities and unpredictable socio-political circumstances.

In one of the most complicated situations in the world, the influence of culture and religion in Nigeria provide for a lot of arguments and discussions on the roles of men in different functional and complicated family situations.

All the men in my nuclear family are great cooks. How is that possible?

The credit goes to our mother who complemented our education effectively on the home front. In Western Nigerian secondary schools (during my time) boys are encouraged to choose Agricultural Science and the girls Home Economics.

As I recall now it seemed that the society also played a biased role in determining the roles of men and women. Therefore it appeared that unless the boys took great interest in cooking or their parents especially mothers taught them at home, they always ended up unable to cook.

Many are quick to emphasize that it is the role or even the “job” of women to cook. In traditional African settings that is largely true. The last statement can be expanded even as a topic for an academic dissertation based on the settings of the traditional African societies and the division of labor amongst the men, women and children.

It has always been imperative that women are able to cook, I may state.

My arguments in this essay are towards the men. I think that the men should be able to cook as much as the women. There are many examples of men who are better cook than their wives or the women in their lives.

These arguments are based on the realities of a changing world that cannot be locked up in the past.

Why should men cook? I will draw mostly from personal experiences.

Cooking as I have found out can be a form of relaxation. A wrong notion might be that a man needs a cold bottle of beer after a stressful day at work.

Cooking can relax the mind and body

Cooking can relax the mind and body

If your kitchen is tidy it is one of the best places to retire to after a hard day’s work. It is a place where you can either throw away your disappointments or show your happiness for the day.

Under any of these circumstances above there should be no hindrance to showing love and care to your children or to your visitors or friends depending on the company you keep after work.

Cooking is art. By systematically creating a piece of meal or a nice, tasty diet from essential raw materials, you might forget or relish about how the day has been and cherish the moment when your children, friends or family enjoy the products your serve to them.

A man should cook to ease the strain on the family.

The children should not suffer or eat junk food simply because their mother is working late one day a week. They should not bear the brunt of their mother visiting a friend during the week or attending a ceremony on Saturday.

If the man is at home, he should be able to stand up to the responsibility of keeping the family going and cooking should be the least of his worries.

There will always be situations when the man is alone with the children at home. That time should not be the time to put up the “I don’t care attitude”. It should not be the time to insult the mother of the children simply because she is held up with another activity.

Some men will never accept that they neglected the obligation of learning how to cook when they were growing up.

Men don’t cook in my family is an outdated expression. When I went to the university I always ate from mama-put is the outburst of a lazy mind. Wake up and look around you. Face the reality of your time and brace up for the era you live in!

Many students can cook despite the fact that they ate at Mama-put and other decent restaurant-which one is your own?

Cooking helps the women to appreciate and boast positively about their men. They feel a sense of gender equality without struggling to achieve it. In a functional family this can promote sexual attraction and help the family to stay psychologically healthy.

Pie: cooking is a form of art

Pie: cooking is a form of art

I do not mean that cooking prevent separation or divorce. It is just one of the ingredients that help as long as the relationship exists.

When both men and women take turns in the kitchen especially when the turns are not based on a schedule, it helps the children to understand that they are required to also take responsibilities for many things in their lives.

The act of pushing blames or looking for excuses start from the family and children learn too quickly from their immediate environment.

Cooking helps children to learn in diverse ways. Science, art, creativity and mathematics are all embodied into cooking.

In Nigeria I can recall that we learned how to cook using a lot of estimations in our judgments of what is required or needed.

Now when I cook sometimes with instructions and using units like “deciliter” or other measurements-I appreciate the level of my mother’s mathematics. It is almost unbelievable what our mothers did!

I know some men take to cooking as a hobby. This means that, by looking or by some sort of interest they just got going at cooking and found it easy and lovable.

I am sure this category of men have found cooking as a useful hobby at those times they are alone as bachelors or married men whose wives are away for certain reasons. They are able to step-up and take charge of the kitchen.

Turning this hobby into a responsibility will be useful on the long run.

From the foregoing, the ability to cook can also help men (and women) to live independently if they choose to be single.

In my family the time between the secondary school leaving year and the university admission year was reserved for intensive course in cooking with my mother. Invariably that was the time you take over the responsibility of cooking for the others in the family who are at home or getting back from work.

Long before that time, it was recommended to be an observer as mama dished out orisirisi from different pots on our stove that was powered by the kerosene.

Growing up in my family back in Nigeria, I know that both boys and girls have equal abilities in the kitchen. I mean a balance of culinary skills. What may vary is the creativity that we add as we went our separate ways.

The documentation of my days at Jaja and Mariere Halls of the University of Lagos cannot be complete without the flavor and aroma the boys in the halls added to the hostels every day.

Later on I met a friend (names withheld) who told me that he could hardly make a cup of tea. He was actually not joking that he cannot even fry an egg. He frequents my room at the College of Medicine in Idiaraba and I always try to show him how I cook. His case was hopeless. He is still my friend today.

When I have had visitors at our home in Stockholm, some people were unable to hide their shock as to the long time I spent in the kitchen. I cook and I tidy up after cooking. Then I tell them why men should cook and tidy up. I hope some women are not fighting their men based on my kitchen behavior.

I do not believe it is the role of women to always do the cooking or tidy up. My mother would chase me out of the kitchen if I start to cook when the kitchen is dirty. In some extreme cases that I remember, she will put out the fire from the stove and I have to take it from the beginning.

There is a time to add the salt and there is a time to slice the onions. No stones in the beans or you’ll eat all the beans yourself. The rice cannot stick together and the tomato sauce must be well fried. Oh Mamma!

Today I appreciate those teachings more than ever before. You will never see me in a dirty kitchen. I can get ill in a dirty kitchen and that is not an exaggeration. It is not a function of wealth but common sense and lessons about hygiene well taken from my mother.

In Nigeria, many families will probably be unable to synchronize their meal times but with proper planning breakfast and dinner at home should be a possibility. Depending on the weekend schedules, families should strive to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner together.

People should stop giving excuses on why they cannot cook or eat with their family.

Like many other issues affecting the upbringing of children, many men will continue to blame it on “lack of time”.

There will never be enough time for what a man wants to do in his lifetime. The same is true for women. People should be taught how to manage their time using the family (spouse and children) as the starting point.

Parents should help their children to acquire cooking skills at home. Bring the children into a safe and tidy kitchen and show them how to cook.

It will be a long walk for the Nigerian society but it is achievable across all the regions if sensible and capable people take over control of the politics and the economy across all the various regions.

Nothing is impossible when there is a sincere roadmap that is not left in the hands of idiots and complete nonentities who are driven by selfish interests and absolute greed.

In Nigeria, it is imperative that the different regions are allowed to re-emerge.

There is a lot in the identities of each ethnic group that are submerged and lost in the name of unitary government that shows lack of respect to individuals and folk-group.

People should be allowed to tap into their cultural and traditional family values. They should be taught how to plan their homes appropriately with respect to family size and responsibilities.

It is time to lift the positive values within the family through regional adaptive education and merge them with the demands of a global village.

Properly educated children will build strong families and dependable communities. They will form the backbones of viable regions across Nigeria. The future can be bright and better.

My late mother’s teachings at home and an adaptive, undiluted education in Western Nigeria fit perfectly into a functional life at home and across the world.