My prayer for those seeking admission into UNILAG

1. May you suffer the annoying heat that DLI has to offer
2. May you strain your ears to hear the unwanted stories theat your lecturers would have to say
3. May you have to stand for lectures even when you get there by 7:30 am cos your colleagues would have to keep seats
4. May you get into brawls with your colleagues when they keep seats
5. May you have to do assignments that will not matter
6. May you walk under the hot sun to your faculties everyday
7. May the distance between your faculty and hostel be long
8. May you enjoy the companiy of the friendly giant mosquitoes in AKT
9. May you have to shout porter pump water cos he won't until you do
10. Against all odds may you come out with a first class

RED ALERT - AS EXAMS DRAW NEARER

Exam time is probably the most dreadful moment in unilag as all kinds of austerity measures come into play. Students now burn the midnight candle at three ends - middle inclusive. Those who neither attended lectures nor knew the lecturers now throng to the libraries to occupy space.

The age old formula of LACRAMME LA POUR LA FORGET now comes into use. Students read only to pour in the exam hall and forget immediately all is over.

Funny enough some students are yet to buckle down even at this point in time, I for one have no atom of pits for them but I pity those who sent them to school.

Whatmore the holidays are near and we can't just wait to start flexing.

AS BBs WON’T STAY PUT

AS BBs WON’T STAY PUT
Nowadays, BBs no longer stay where they are supposed to be, as girls in their generosity flaunt them for the world to see and die of jealousy, (just in case you do not have one)

Girls now say hello by waving their BB’s right in your face so you’ll notice them even if you‘re blind. Some even go as far as dressing up their BB’s in suits or jackets that match their colour code for that day, for instance a girl in a purple top, shoe and purse may decide to wear her BB purple and pink the next day when she wears pink.

As girls battle for supremacy with their BB’s, we, the proverbial grass that suffers when the elephants go to war, can do nothing but watch and admire the BBs they acquired with money gotten from our kind.

Wait a minute! Before you go running off saying Chike wrote BB, BOBBY, Jiggly stuff. BB stands for Blackberry! I even put up a picture of it above. See?

Internet Cake - Make Your Website Work

INTRODUCTION

“It’s your man from UNILAG, The Akokite. Heh! Hail, Akokites! Consider Internet Cake a set of lessons on building a relevant website. There are over a million websites online. How do you ensure that when joining this highly competitive market, you keep your head above water?

 

How do you make sure that your site stands out among the millions? Well, sit up, put on your reading glasses, take out your popcorn, we’re about to go on a voyage to find the relevant website that you want and the website that your visitors need and want. It’s going to be fun working all the way… Akokite Ladies and Akokite Gentlemen, drumrolls please, introducing ‘Internet Cake’…

 

INTERNET CAKE I

GETTING A RELEVANT WEBSITE

Welcome, Akokites, to ‘Internet Cake I’. Want to take your chunk out of the “Internet cake”, so to speak. Want to own your own website and make some money out of it? Well, normally, you should start with providing a service and then, thinking of how to make money through it. But, no harm done - Money can be a great motivator to think big and in an innovative way.

In order to own a website that sells, you will need to know what sells. What need is there on the Internet that you can fill? Is it the hunger for information, free downloads, free internet browsing, social networking?

Identify the hunger that you can fill and your first steps towards wealth have been taken. Anyone who’s making his/her money is doing so because they identified a need that they could satisfy, a problem that they could solve, entertainment that they could provide. Any website that earns revenue does so because it draws traffic and it draws traffic because it has something to offer that traffic. You feel me?

1.       Play to your strengths: what online services can you offer? Is it entertainment, infotainment, social networking? Never do something you don’t believe in or know (this is law on the Internet).

 

2.       Check out the market and find out if there is demand for your skills/services – Are there other sites that offer the services you want to offer? If you will be the pioneer, then make sure you ask questions. Quiz your friends, neighbours, classmates. Find out if they want/need such services.

 

 

3.       Examine existing websites: odds are that websites that offer the services you want to offer exist. In order to compete with these existing sites for their traffic, you must come out with uniqueness, better ideas, improved services.

 

4.       Write out the proposed services of your site: write down the services you intend to offer. You must give what others are giving that the people want. You must identify flaws with the services of existing websites and solve them (better ideas).

 

5.       Now, you have the first stage. Hear this, the internet is huge. There are millions of websites. If you want a social networking site, there is Facebook. This alone is enough to leave with you just 5 members of your network. Specialization works when there are power stations on ground.

 

This is getting too long already. Check ‘Internet Cake II’

Education Vs Talent - Which'll Grant Me Success In Life?

I’ve been hearing a lot of people discuss the above, wondering which brings success, happiness and money.

Every human that ever walked this earth was gifted. Everyone has a talent, everyone has a gift. Normally, our passion points towards our talents. 

Now, it isn’t unheard of that many do not realize their talent or reach their full potential during their sojourn on earth. A man once wisely said that the grave is the richest place as it holds the unrealized dreams of millions of human beings.

Whether we define success in terms of money amassed or in terms of the level of positive impact one has on the society, whatever your definition of success, there have been eternal debates concerning the key to success. There’s a school of thought that opines that one who concentrates on their education and excels, will step out successful in the world. 

The second school of thought posits that for one to be successful, one must discover one’s talents. They hold that every human is given a talent, and that the journey through this earth is for one to discover one’s talent, improve/develop it into a skill and use it to affect the world or part of it.

I once read an episode in Mafalda (Argentinian comic) and a girl was going around talking about her father’s wealth. She happened upon a rather smart boy, and after boasting about her father’s wealth (a businessman), she enquired of him the figure his father earned. The boy’s reply was “It doesn’t matter what our fathers earn. Compared with footballers, basketball players… they earn pittances”.

I’ve been listening to people debate this issue of ‘education vs talent’ for so long that it’s got me thinking too. Is that even the right question?

Well, I’d like to put in my two cents worth. I agree with the first school of thought that education is important. It could be one of the ways to hone our talents. I agree totally with the second school of thought that discovering one’s talent, developing it and using it to affect the world is the way to success and fulfillment in this world. 

King of Pop

Shall we consider Michael Jackson, whose talents for singing, dancing and choreography, led him to unimaginable heights. He is considered one of the greatest artistes of all time.

Let’s take one of our own, Fela. He didn’t attend school, yet he discovered his talent for singing relevantly and used that to affect Nigeria. The discovery of his talents spurred him to great heights.

Do we talk of Aliko Dangote? He was a school dropout. Discovering his talent, he dove into it and went on to make himself an important contributor to the Nigerian economy and the tummies of millions of Nigerians. 

Fela Durotoye

Cobhams

The list runs long with Fela Durotoye, our very own motivational speaker, who led the 'Mushin Makeover' 

Dare we forget Cobhams? It wasn’t his education in school that spurred him to fame, but the use of his talent in music.

This isn’t an article to dissuade you from pursuing your education. This article seeks to have you sit back, think about what you love to do. Go on a mission to discover your talent, if you haven’t. What do you enjoy doing? What comes very easy to you? What is it that death and only death can stop you from doing?  

It would be awful to spend these grueling hours in UNILAG, chasing after the wrong thing. If you are already in the wrong direction, have the bravery to stop and switch. Your happiness should be secondary to nothing! 

Education as opposed to talent, I hold that this matter should not be one of contention. Just as a lion is born with teeth for affecting his environment, we are born with talents with which to change our world. 

Education vs. talent? The real question is, ‘will you be among the men who used their talents, or will you be the one who kept his talent safely locked away throughout his days on Earth?’

Life in Biobaku 2

Are You A Bona fide?

Biobaku Hostel is one of the top hostels in University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos. It is a community of the rich and the broke, the civil and the bad-mannered, the straight and the gay, the Christian and the Muslim and the atheist and the what-have-you-not, the light-fingered and the honest, the floaters and the hangers, the squatters and the ‘bona fides’ … 

‘Bona fides’… We, who paid N20, 500 for hostel accommodation …  It was just last month that we discovered that we are referred to, by the new porter, as ‘bona fides’. 

There are many ways to get kicked out of Biobaku. (1) house a squatter and you’re out  (2) sell in your rooms and you’re out … I’d love to give you the rules, but fact is we don’t obey any of them and we still sleep in our rooms each night. 

Last two weeks, I witnessed the first eviction of a squatter. Wale, squatter extraordinaire, poured water onto the quadrangle, on the new porter’s watch. Our new hostel official traced him back to our room and asked Wale, “Are you a bona fide?” Huh?! I did not get the question, at first. Wale, sharp guy, understood the question, but was so unlucky to give a negative answer. Our new porter, ‘in that case’, ordered him to pack and leave within 20 minutes. 

Wale packed and left. He returned to resume squatting after two weeks.

We can’t obey all the rules. Some are just impractical. But before you think of pouring water off your floor onto the quadrangle, before you think of plugging your laptop to a megaphone and making Biobaku groove to your beats, before you think of calling for repentance at 4 am in the morning, let me ask you this, “Are you a bona fide?”

Wake up, wake up! It’s time for morning devotion!

In Biobaku, many things can help wake you up in morning and most are like clockwork. You will find you don’t need your alarm just as long as you know the routine. 

You could give your alarm a break on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, relying, instead, on our Christian brothers who stand at the entrance of each floor, chanting, “Wake up, wake up! It’s time for morning devotion!”

Thanks to Ramadan, our Muslim brothers are woken up every day by 4.15 am for their food. You get my drift? You could give that mechanical alarm clock a break. We are all about the green movement, stick with the organic alarm, “Muslim brothers, please if you have your ticket, come down and collect your food!” Your tongue is not going to get watered, but you’ll certainly wake and keep awake with all that talk of food.

Let us take today, Friday, for example. Our Muslim brother’s ‘call to prayer’ woke me up at around 4.30 am. And, let me tell you, I did not find it funny, having been up all night.

Let me tell you, brother. If you want to read all night, do so at AKT. If you try it in Biobaku, you had better be a deep sleeper, because by 4 am, you will hear that otherwise useful call, ‘Wake up, wake up, it’s time for morning devotion!"

Udechukwu Nonso

Life In Biobaku Hostel, UNILAG

Porter, I wan pour water!

One of the problems of Biobaku, UNILAG, is disposal of waste. A month ago, disposing used water on the quadrangle of Biobaku, brushing one’s teeth on the quadrangle, urinating directly onto the quadrangle at night, dropping wraps on the quadrangle, spitting on the quadrangle, praying on the quadrangle… Sorry, I got carried away. A month ago, these things were commonplace. Every hour spent on the hostel was filled with sounds of water splashing on the quadrangle. That was a month ago. Now we have a new porter.

Now, we have a new porter who hides in specific places waiting for who will pour water onto the quadrangle. He even goes so far as to set traps for students. One funny incident occurred in my room - The new porter, before he was known as the porter, entered my room, with an innocent air, telling us that one of our pots was outside. My roommate (name withheld) went out to retrieve the pot. On finding it filled with water, he disposed of it on the quadrangle. Our porter followed him back into the room, asked for his mattress and confiscated it.

On one occasion, one of my friends (an author on Akokites’ ThoughtPlanet), believing his mattress was wrongly confiscated, stormed into the Porter’s Office and gave him 5 minutes to return his mattress or else… It’s been 5 days. The porter still has the mattress, and our friend, ‘a bona fide’, now sleeps on his bare bunk bed.

Many mattresses were confiscated during the first two weeks of the new porter’s arrival. Our people say that since the hunter has learnt to shoot without missing, the sparrow has learnt to fly without perching. Given the new porter’s infatigable fight against improper disposal of waste (or disposal of waste on quadrangle, really), Baku Men have become wiser. They now keep lookouts, dispose waste on the quadrangle and rush straight back into our rooms. The cowardly ones stick with, “Porter, I wan pour water!”

Porter, pump water!

We are well provided for in Biobaku, UNILAG. We’ve got bunks, beds, sockets that work, cybercafé, barbershop, two butteries and water. Water, H2O, aqua, omi, mmiri, whatever you choose to call it, we just can’t do without it.

In Biobaku, we have water supply 24 hours in a day. It is only made to run in our showers in the mornings and evenings, though. Sometimes, the Baku porter sleeps on duty and forces otherwise gentle Baku Men to step out to their corridors and shout, “Porter, pump water!”

This sacred call to the porter is sometimes abused by Baku Men who wake up late and are too tired to go downstairs and fetch water. I first heard this break in tradition last year. That fateful day of last year, a lone voice was heard in the afternoon, around 2 pm, screaming at the top of his lungs, “Porter, pump water!”

I just got back from lectures. It was a struggle getting in. My skin feels rather clammy. I must go wash up. I will tell you more about Biobaku when next I come online. Bye for now.

Uh! The shower isn’t running. It’s 7 pm for crying out loud. Porter, pump water!

Guys of room 216

I wonder why people do not like being talked about. I read from a book that one way to live a life was to live your life making sure that all you do you would like to see written about you. From the response I got from my last article about guys of room216, things ain't that way as I observed, I meant no harm to anyone but for some unidentifiable reason guys just did not like it. Seems like everyone's got skeletons intheir cupboards that they would not want the world to see which is quite human, unlike me, by that I mean I do not mind the whole world knowing anything about me I would always be chike opara, human, with ups and downs, good, bad and ugly sides and what more I do not care.
Moral of the story is this; live your life everyday like you'd want it to be told.
My apologies to all those whose toes I stepped upon. That was no where near \my intention but it is one of those things.
But I'm still gonna have to offend you all one more time cos I just have to talk about you guys quite briefly, but perhaps in a somewhat different way.
Or maybe not let me leave it to you guys to say whatever you would want to hear people say about you by yourself in your comments in your own words.

SHODEINDE HALL – SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Shodeinde hall, one of the craziest places to visit in UNILAG, has never failed to leave an impression, though a bad one, in the minds of those that come across it.

As a visitor to the hostel, I was greeted by the overwhelming stench of urine. Locating the toilet, which was my primary purpose of visiting, didn't give me problems as the smell got more concentrated with as each step I took brought me closer to the source of the embarrassing stench.


Staylites have a worse tale to tell. First the hostel is generally dirty making everyday there a sad story.
The rooms were initially meant for four students, but with the influx of squatters who in turn bring floaters with hangers attached to them, the final number usually sky rockets to sixteen students or there about in a miniature room.

Nightfall is the dawn of misery as bed spaces are provided for only the four 'bona fides'. For all to survive, guys sleep two to a bed in that manner eight people are already accomodated the remaining eight divide themselves into two groups four sleeping on the floor and the rest sent on a forced mission to AKT and the next night they alternate. In y room sometimes a milder form is experienced but this time one who wants to sleep wakes you up and tells you to go and read against your wish quickly he goes to sleep on your spot and leaves you dosing at the reading desk till further notice.

Lest I forget ‘Channel O’ - the hole bored through the wall dividing Shodeinde and Makama through which Makama girls are peeped at when they take their bath goes a long way to prove the notoriety of the guys in that hostel. A guy has been said to be injured severely in the eye by a Makama girl when she pushed a stick through the hole into the right eye of a guy while he fed his eyes.

Nonetheless, Shodeinde, where freshers have been said to get lost due to its complexity, might be a place to visit but just not a place to live in.

Okirika And UNILAG Girls

THANKS TO OKIRIKA UNILAG GIRLS NOW LOOK LIKE BEYONCE AND RIHANNA

Okirika has been the saving grace for campus girls who always want to be as trendy as American super stars Beyonce, Rihanna etc. Unlike their male counterparts on campus who have to spend huge sums to look good girls just need to take a N30 bus to Yaba market do some 'bend down select', pick up some okirika at very low cost come down to campus and start feeling funky. Well if not to keep themselves looking good what else can they do.

From the leggings to the bum shorts blessed with all assorted tops of all types and sizes to the weirdest looking kinds of shoes. Not forgetting the funniest of head wears the most unlikely of accessories which in some cases do not match.

Indeed okirika has done us well by keeping our girls looking good at the lowest possible cost all thanks to the guys in Yaba, Idumota, Oshodi and the likes.

Habits of A Man

I thought this was a letter Abraham Lincoln wrote his son, just found out it was a poem by Rudyard Kipling. It could be both.
Our passage in UNILAG is for mental as well as social education. We all have social lives. There's always room for improvement.

If by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count on you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

Giving - A Virtue

Hi all, everyday in UNILAG is filled with opportunities to help others, to give to others. Be the change!

The Cold Within By James Patrick Kinney

Six humans trapped by happenstance
In dark and bitter cold.
Each possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story's told.

Their dying fire in need of logs,
But the first one held hers back.
For, of the faces around the fire,
She noticed one was black.

The next one looked across the way
Saw one not of his church,
And could not bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich.

The rich man just sat back and thought
Of wealth he had in store,
And keeping all that he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For he saw in his stick of wood
A chance to spite the white.

And the last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain.
Giving just to those who gave
Was how he played the game.

Their sticks held tight in death's stilled hands
Was proof enough of sin;
They did not die from cold without...
They died from cold within.

Life's Hard But Don't Give Up!

I came across this in a newspaper. It touched and inspired me because life's about ups and downs. I share with you too.

When Things Go Wrong By Anonymous
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Last Week In UNILAG

Good friends bail you out when you are in jail, but a true friend will sit in there with you

Hey, Akokites, UNILAG Lords and Ladies, a lot of things happened last week. I was ‘in the red’ midweek, was locked out of BTN class for being late, attended the last PHS practical, lost my calculator and my pencil got nabbed! Like I said, a lot happened last week.

“Friends bail you out when you are in jail, but a good friend sits in there with you”. I read this I-don’t-remember-where, and it made a lot of sense to me (not because I was jailed), but because I was in, forgive the language, financial shit last week. I haven’t yet decided if I spent too much or if my allowance had become too small. Having just N1000 in UBA Bank Account, and being the type that prefers to tough it out than ask for help (is proud the word?), I set about calling up debts (Hey, lending money to friends is a way of investing, by the way). Despite major belt-tightening (as if I wasn’t slim enough already), the cash recalled lasted just two days (I patronize restaurants, having little or no culinary skills). One of my friends whom I used to dine with didn’t seem to notice that I was in a bad way. They say “Help comes from the least expected places”. Well, I knew the truth of that when a casual friend, seeming to notice, subtly decided to help me by handing me N4000, claiming he would need it in two weeks and wanted to save it for then.

The moral of the story – People appreciate being genuinely asked “what’s up?” I know I do

Less of Facebook

Each time I’m online, I visit Facebook (although, I must confess I’m beginning to spend less time on it giving the excess triviality of my group of friends on Facebook). Now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that each time you logon to Facebook, you are asked “what’s on your mind?” I found out last two months that you don’t have to make sense. As opposed to making some comment about the state of Nigeria or the struggle it is sometimes to work hard or something else on your mind, you could simply tell us you are eating ‘edikaikon soup and eba’, singing in the bathroom, dancing on your bed, facebooking in church, sleeping… Seeing such comments daily wore on my tolerance and patience, and thus, I’ve reduced my facebooking time and allocated more time to, ahem, other things. Or maybe I need to change my friends?

Yakubisation

This term has been accepted by 103 Baku Men as an English Word. It all started when our countryman decided to make a name for himself, albeit in the wrong way. The story is that Yakubu was the only man before an unmanned post in a World Cup match against South Korea and he made history. See for yourself.

Good morning, class. We will be treating Yakubization – the latest entry in the Akokites’ English Dictionary.

Yakubise (verb) – ₍₁₎ to mess up a very good chance ₍₂₎ to screw up a major opportunity ₍₃₎ to try and fail ₍₄₎ (sports) to score like Yakubu

Yakubisation – the act of yakubising

Now, we waltzed out of the World Cup. Let’s give honour to whom honour is due. We thank you, Yakubu, for adding to our vocabulary and I thank you, Akokites, for taking the time to read my thoughts. I leave you with this – In whatever positive endeavour that you pursue, if you yakubise (3^rd meaning), try, try, try again and you will succeed.

2010/2011 UNILAG Cut Off Marks

FACULTY	DEPARTMENT	MERIT	EKITI	LAGOS	OGUN	ONDO	OSUN	OYO
ARTS	LINGUISTICS/YORUBA	62	57	61	54	60	58	56
	LINGUISTICS/IGBO	46	-	-	-	-	-	-
	CREATIVE ARTS	57	-	53	49	51	53	-
	ENGLISH	68	61	64	64	63	62	62
	EUROPEAN LANG (FRENCH)	63	-	54	55	-	-	-
	EUROPEAN LANG (RUSSIAN)	63	-	-	-	-	-	-
	PHILOSOPHY	67	54	63	64	64	64	62
	HISTORY	69	54	62	62	55	65	57
FACULTY	DEPARTMENT	MERIT	EKITI	LAGOS	OGUN	ONDO	OSUN	OYO
ADMIN	ACCOUNTING	65	62	64	64	63	63	63
	ACT. SCIENCE	58	56	55	56	51	54	52
	BUS. ADMIN	66	62	64	64	63	64	63
	INSURANCE	63	57	61	62	59	61	58
	I.R.P.M	66	64	64	65	63	61	63
	FINANCE	63	58	61	60	59	61	60