MONTEÈCLAIRS TRANSFORMATION INITIATIVE

I was flipping the newspaper, still pissed at the comments i was getting from Nigerians on my Facebook wall  based on a picture of the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Andrew Pocock donating blood in Abuja and the Nigerian President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, at a birthday party in Ibadan, Oyo state just 24hours after the Nyanya bomb blast, when my eyes caught it,... ‘Slacktivism’! ‘ Slacktivism ’, is a condition we’re all suffering from even though it’s not peculiar to Nigerians. The term, which was coined by Dwight Ozard and Fred Clark in 1995, is a combined word for ‘ slacker and activist ’. It was coined to deride those who offer online support to causes in order to feel sane or at least assuage their feelings for or against a certain issue without actually doing something constructive about it. These ‘feel-good’ measures according to +Deola Kayode (punch newspaper) include likes, tweets & re-tweeting for a cause, signing online petitions, changing profile pi...

During my service year in Dutse, Jigawa state, I had to assist my choir director score a song and so I was given a cassette player to take home. On getting home as usual there was no light and of course one could never predict when the light would come so weighing my options I decided to get batteries for the player. About a day or two later, Nepa gave light and I rushed to my room, got the player out and pressed play. No sound. 'Arrrghhhh! Not now! not today!' I screamed in my mind. I took the player, fidgeted here and there, checked the wires, checked the power circuit point, pressed off and on again and then pressed Play. No sound. Ah, how can this be happening I thought to myself. I grabbed the player, dashed off to another Corper's room, plugged it and pressed play.  No sound. Now I stopped being confused and moved over to being worried.' Ah, this player is not mine. How do I now explain to the owner that the Player which was working is now bad. How much allowee...

The first time i saw my local church Pastor, go up the pulpit with his ipad (it was in a wake-keep service), i felt so proud of him that i told the person beside me, ‘Yea! That’s my Pastor...’ lol. What is the place of Gadgets in our worship? To enhance worship or has it become a distraction too? I remember when these smartphones just hit the shelves. Chei! Ushers in our church had clashes with members whilst trying to maintain decorum... ‘brother please put away your phone, the sermon is on’   # the culprit gives the usher a look of are-you-just-jealous-or-plainly-ignorant?#   ,then he says,   ‘thank you but i’m reading my bible on my phone’ . Reluctantly the usher would back-down to avoid a scene. I imagined part of what will pass through the usher’s mind...#with eyes rolling# ’what insolence! if not that we’re in church ehn.... hmmm... who does he think he is... Or Father forgive them though they know what they do.... Those around me know I’m a ‘g...

i hear the author is anonymous or perhaps an elementary school teacher, but i never get tired of hearing Ravi Zacharias read it out in his teachings. So inspiring, soul stirring , gently taking us back to the cross, the love of Jesus for me & you. Do read it again and again, then share your thoughts!  A New Leaf He came to my desk with a quivering lip, the lesson was done. “Have you a new sheet for me, dear teacher? I’ve spoiled this one.” I took his sheet, all soiled and blotted and gave him a new one all unspotted. And into his tired heart I cried, “Do better now, my child.” I went came to the throne with a trembling heart; the day was done. “Have you a new day for me, dear Master? I’ve spoiled this one.” He took my day, all soiled and blotted and gave me a new one all unspotted. And into my tired heart he cried, “Do better now, my child.” Author anonymous, “A New Leaf,” James G. Lawson, compiler, The Best Loved Religious Poems

THE GOOD SAMARITAN A country preacher went looking for a job and had this conversation with the interview committee: ‘do you know much about the bible?’ ‘oh yeah i know a lot, through and through’ ‘What’s your favourite book?’ ‘The book of Mark’ 'What’s your favourite part?’ 'The parable of the Good Samaritan’ ‘Can you tell us about it?’ ‘Yea, it goes this way. Once there was this man travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among the thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked him. And as he went on he didn’t have any money and then he met the queen of Sheba and she gave him a thousand talents of gold and a thousand changes of raiment. And he got into a chariot and drove furiously, and when he was driving under a big juniper tree, his hair caught under the limb of that tree, and he hung there many days and the ravens brought him food to eat and water to drink, and he ate 5000 loaves of bread and two fishes. One night when he was hanging there, his wif...

“Chimamanda’s children were falling sick so much. She had tried all the home remedies her mother taught her, plus pharmacy prescriptions but they kept switching symptoms. Once her husband returned from Abuja, they went for laboratory tests only to discover their children aged 2 and 4years had HIV/AIDS. They found out much later, that their 16year old housegirl, Angel had HIV and had infected them by consistently using her own tooth to brush the children’s teeth.” “We once heard in the news how a houseboy, when the family head had travelled, killed his boss’s pregnant wife, then raped her.” I’m sure you may have your experience , positive or negative ;I also know young people who were exposed to sex, homosexuality and kinds of bad habits by ‘house-helps’, this then forces me to ask this question, ‘Do we really need househelps ? Can we do without them? How can their excesses be checked?’. Even the popular Proverbs-31 woman had servants, so what’s the brouhaha today?   From m...

...ibadan, Nigeria, 14.20hrs. The sun was shining with a vengeance that could only mean it had a misunderstanding with the clouds or some galaxial sky-mate   that fateful Friday afternoon. I managed to catch a bike eventually, only to get stuck in traffic moments later. Why? The Muslims were praying, their space wasn’t enough and then they blocked the entire market road with their mats. I was livid. Whatever happened to fundamental human rights! Blocking an entire ever-busy thoroughfare in the 21 st Century?...hmmm!        #i reserved my comments, for safety reasons# Minutes later, I was grateful to feel the cool breeze as i entered my bank with one mission, collect my ATM card & escape. The queue was discouraging but envisaged. It got to my turn (after ages on my feet) only to be told by the Customer Service Personnel (most comported i’ve ever met) that my card was being ‘Pouched’ from Lagos ...#my eyes grew bigger# ...after a cash deduction ...