Message of Hope

Damola Morenikeji and Nigeria's President, Olusegun Obasanjo - as the latter affirms his hope for Nigeria and Nigerians

Leading the Future

ADM and some pupils at one of his programme.

Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child

Aanu Damola Morenikeji and Obiageli "Oby" Ezekwesili (CFR); World Bank's Vice President for Africa.

Award

Damola Morenikeji with the Governor of Ogun State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun after becoming the first recipient of the Ogun State Youth Award for Excellence in Health and Community Service.

Sunday 30 October 2011

Introducing NETAD National Essay Competition

From the words of Sidney J. Harris, ‘Ninety per cent of the world's woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves’.


Network for Talent Discovery is therefore initiating its first national essay competition to tackle the menace of self misery, and calls on students, youths, administrators, writers, public servants and all stake holders to play their role in fighting the menace as stated by Sidney J. Harris and participate in the competition.

The topic for deliberation is ‘Self discovery; an impetus to national development’.

To participate, write an essay of not more than 750 words on the above topic. Send a copy of the essay and personal details – typed in Microsoft Word – to netad.ngo@gmail.com.

Please note that personal details should include surname, first name and other names, detailed address, date of birth, age, gender, state of origin, local government area, contact phone number. For students and undergraduates, please include the name of your school/ institution, course of study, department and faculty, present year or level of study, name of H.O.D and other relevant details.

Entry closes on Saturday, 12th November, 2011.

Winners will be notified and awarded at the NETAD National Youth Forum, Abeokuta edition.

For further enquires, text +234 (0) 7039563908, +234 (0) 8033184381, +234 (0) 8031336740 or mail netad.ngo@gmail.com

Fb: Network for Talent Discovery (NETAD) or click here.

16 year old Compronian wins Teaching Service Commission award.



Aanu Damola Morenikeji recieving the award.
 
It all happened on Tuesday, 26th January, 2010 at Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, where Educational Giants in the state converge to honour be honored by the Ogun State teaching service commission. The historic event, under the chairmanship of Dr Onaolapo Soleye (a famous Elder, leader and Educator, who is also the newly appointed Vice Chancellor of Olabisi Onabanjo University) featured and awarded Ten Great Giants, – which include; Otunba Gbenga Daniel, Prof. Segun Awonusi, Dr. Tai Solarin, Chief Kenshington Adebutu, Chief Adeola Odutola, Chief Timothy Odutuyo Kuti, Chief Olabosun Lampejo, Chief Olatunde Abudu, Chief (Dr.) Mrs. Matilda Iyabo Apampa and H.R.H. Oba Moshood Alani Oyede – Four retired Permanent Secretaries, Four retired Principals general, Five proactive past Principals, Four proactive principals, Eight distinguished role model staffs and One Gateway Future Giant among others.



Fresh air of glamour eloped from the giant air conditioning system of the Valley View Auditorium, Oke-Igbehin, as Master Aanu Damola Morenikeji was called upon to receive one of the most special and encouraging award of the day which is THE MOST OUTSTANDING SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENT AWARD. Piquancy was added to the occasion when it was announced that he is the child author of Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child, a book he wrote in year 2002 – while he was transiting from Primary School to Secondary School – at the age of Nine (9) years, thereby making him the youngest author in the State.


The 16 year old alumnus of Comprehensive High School, who is the youngest awardee of the day, born February 24th 1993 to the family of Mr. & Mrs. B.A. Morenikeji started his Primary School education in 1995 at Sakis Memorial Nursery / Primary School, after which in 1999, he was admitted into Paragon International Nursery / Primary School, Obantoko, Abeokuta, where he read Primary one (First term only), Primary two, Primary three and Primary five (since he enjoyed double promotion from Primary three to Primary five). In year 2002, he proceeded to Paragon International College, Oke Aregba, Abeokuta and later to Comprehensive High School,
Ayetoro where he was made the Social Prefect. While in school, he is always at the forefront of representing his school at various competitions. Though a Science student, he loves creativity and child development activities.

During an intensive interview with the child author, it was deduced that his flair for creative writing was noticed during his primary school days and therefore in year 2002, during the long vacation, his Daddy – Mr. Morenikeji B.A. challenged him to write a book before the end of the holiday. Fortunately, this challenge gave birth to his juvenilia titled Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child. In addition, the challenge, which since then sprouts other unpublished fruits annually has produced The Glorious Child in the year 2003, No other chance in the year 2004, The So Called Police in year 2005, A Stroll to the Animal Kingdom in year 2006 and The Evil that Money Do in the year 2007. In all, Damola had written six (6) books. Interestingly, his first book Spare the rod and Spoil the child had its foreword written by renown educationists; Dr. E.O. Filani (Provost, Federal College of Education, Abeokuta, Ogun State) and Dr. Holumidey Lawrence (Director of Education, Paragon International Group of Schools, Abeokuta, Ogun State) was launched in March 2007 at the Cinema Hall of Gateway Hotel, Abeokuta, thereby cutting his first tooth as a creative writer.



The young lad receiving an handshake from the Governor of Ogun State, represented by the Commissioner for Education.

Remarkably, Morenikeji Damola Aanu, who is recently proclaimed GATEWAY FUTURE GIANT by the Ogun State Teaching Service Commission (See TESCOM NEWS – latest edition), was on Sunday, 19th August, 2007, shot-listed and awarded Artiste of the year (2nd runner up) by the Ogun State government during the prestigious 2006 Ogun State awards of excellence. Also, on Thursday, 11th June 2009, he received an OUTSTANDING AWARD by the Student Representative Council, Federal College of Education, Abeokuta for his achievements in creative writing and creativity in general at such a tender age.


He (Damola) is a registered member of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), and had represented ANA Ogun State Chapter at International conventions, and the youngest at all conventions attended, where the likes of Dr. Gabriel Okara (the oldest poet in Nigeria), Dr. Jerry Agada (former minister of states for education who is now the National President of ANA), Hon. Wale Okediran, Prof. Kole Omotoso, Odia Ofeimun, Mr. B.L. Wikina (Dean, School of Arts and Social Science, Federal College of Education, Abeokuta), Mrs. Tope Olaifa (Chairperson, ANA Ogun) and other art guru were present. He is also a member of the Nigerian Red Cross Society, and presently the Deputy Coordinator of the Ogun State Youth Wing.


He is the initiator of Teen writer club, a club aimed at discovering and developing young talents in creative writing in our secondary school, which he started in Comprehensive High School, Ayetoro in year 2007 and had began to yield positive results part of which produced Lawal Mistura Ojuolape (17 year old author of The wicked step mother and other story) in year 2008 and Adeosun Tosin (18 year author of Peace at last) in year 2009.


Due to his love for children intellectual development activities, he is floating a magazine called TEEN’S PATHFINDER. The magazine which apart from its major aims is expected to awaken the reading culture in the youths. The magazine is also aimed at serving as medium for educative information to be provided free of charge to the less privilege children and Nigerian youths in our secondary schools so as to inculcate the habit of reading and creativity in them. It will also serve as a medium of encouraging other children writers to forge ahead in the world of creativity by making their educational contributions published. The magazine, according to him (Damola) is to be distributed free of charge. Astonishingly, at present, he is still seeking for sponsorship of the magazine which when published will make the youths better people and in turn make Nigeria a greater nation.


When the awardee was asked about what he was doing at present, he stated, without hesitation that ‘in realizing my zealous goal to make a change in my generation, and considering the words of Artemus Ward which says that ‘no man has the right to be a literary man unless he knows how to spell’, I observed that most students do not know how to spell words comprehensively not alone using them in correct sentences’. As his little contribution towards putting a halt to this social and educational challenge, the most outstanding secondary school student in Ogun State organized the first spelling competition in Ogun State (if not in Nigeria) tagged SPELLING GIANT COMPETITION. ‘I organized the first edition of the competition on Wednesday, 16th December, 2009, although it was solely sponsored and rigorous, but I thank God it was a success. I am working towards a more elaborate and fascinating Second edition of the competition, proposed for the month of March’. The first edition which produced Seun Koshoedo - Olusegun of UNAAB International School, Alabata, Abeokuta, as the Spelling Giant took place at Music Reciatal Hall, Federal College of Education, Abeokuta. ‘My dream for the competition is to make it rise above challenges an grow till it gets to the National level, involving all states’ he concluded.


When asked how he felt when he was receiving the award, Damola responded by saying ‘I felt extremely excited and honored, and I thank God for opening my book of remembrance’. Talking to his generation, he advised that ‘we should stay focused, since everyone is born with divine gifts, the next step is for us to discover and develop it. I would also want to implore my colleagues to make judicious use of time, and by God’s grace, the sky is our starting point’.


‘On the final note, I thank God for perfecting his will upon my life, I also send my indepth gratitude to the Chairman, Staffs and members of the Ogun State Teaching Service Commission for counting me worthy of the award bestowed upon me. I also appreciate my lovely parents, members of the Association of Nigerian Authors, my fellow first aiders, I mean members of the Nigerian Red Cross Society, my well wishers, and everyone who believed in me. I promise to keep the flag of creativity flying in my beloved country – Nigeria’.

Appreciating God for providing Nigeria with such gifted child, Dr. Holumidey Lawrence (Proprietor, Paragon International Group of Schools) affirmed to Damola that ‘I cannot but continue to thank God for your life and your type of parents, Congratulations my boy …’.

Congratulations Damola, eternity, not the sky is your limit.

(c) January 2010

Wednesday 19 October 2011

Apis mellifera storms UNAAB


It was a dreadful evening for some staffs and students of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta as bees invade the institution. The invasion which took place as staffs round up their day activities to retire at home created panic to all beings at the premises of the University.
 
According to an unconfirmed source, the bee attack disrupted a board meeting of the College of Animal Science and Livestock production, leaving not less than 20 staffs and students including high ranking Professors of the College with memoirs of the attack. It was learnt by witnesses that the chaos started some minutes after the hour of three as people ran for safety.

The Chief Security Officer of the institution was later called, along with the Red Cross to rescue the situation. Minutes later, the University health centre was filled with casualties – of which adequate treatment was given.

At the time this report was filled, a lecturer and student of the College of Agricultural Management and Rural Development had been rushed to the Federal Medical Centre,Idiaba, Abeokuta to receive further treatment.

However, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof.Olufemi Olaiya Balogun celebrates his 58th year on planet earth today as the Senior Staffs Asoociation of Nigerian University (SSANU) awards distinguished personalities who had played their role in upholding democracy in the Nation.

Sunday 9 October 2011

Why You Should Stay Hungry & Foolish by Steve Jobs


This is yet the most celebrated speech made by Steve Jobs. It was the 114th Commencement Address to graduating students of Stanford University on June 12, 2005.

Steve Jobs
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. 

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories!

The first story is about connecting the dots
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
 It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.
Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.
And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.
We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love.
And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.
This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous.
Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Thank you all very much.

Jobs, before his death last Wednesday, resigned as CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios earlier in the year.

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Dangers of Mobile Phones

 I was reading the papers last week and stumbled on this article written by Ayodeji Ganiu and published in TELL magazine on the dangers of mobile phones.


It started as a rumour. Now researches have confirmed that radiations from cell phones are deadly to users. Recent research results have shown that waves coming from cell phones are harmful to the physical body and organs such as the heart. Research has also shown that cell phone radiations may also affect reproductive organs adversely. Gaby Badre, a medical doctor at Sahlgren’s Academy, Gothenburg, Sweden said, “Addiction to cell phone is becoming common. Young ones feel a pressure to remain inter-connected and reachable round-the-clock. Children start to use mobile phones at an early stage of their life.

There seem to be a connection between intensive use of cell phones and health compromising behavior such as smoking, snuffing and use of alcohol.” Badre is not alone. Many scientists believe that radiation from mobile phones may cause the users to exhibit different symptoms like headache, earaches, blurring of vision and even causing cancer. In view of these, mobile phone users are advised to reduce the usage of their phones as much as possible. But mobile phone addiction is a big social problem.

Psychiatrists believe that mobile phone addiction is becoming one of the biggest non-drug addictions in the 21st century. Gbenga Adebayo, president, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria said, “many sleep with their phones under their pillows and others put it in their pockets. Nigerians should be sensitised on phone usage to minimise any harm that might eventually arise from prolonged use of it.” Indeed, cell phones have become a major part of culture. It used to be a tool for business alone and now it has become a key of communication for personal use, for families, and now, even for children.

Today there are more than two billion cell phone users being exposed every day to the dangers of electromagnetic radiation, whose existence government regulators and the cell phone industry have refused to admit. Some of the dangers include genetic damage, brain tumours, and other conditions such as sleep disorders and headaches. Besides, experts warn that the number of hours used on mobile phone is irrelevant as the danger mechanism is triggered within seconds. For a safer use of cell phones, the World Health Organization has issued a number of guidelines. These include the fact that mobile phone users should limit their exposure to harmful radio frequencies by cutting the length of calls and use hands-free devices to cut exposure by keeping the instrument away from the head and body. These, the global health body says, will go a long way to help people minimize the dangers associated with excessive use of mobile phone.