DexterTheGreat

I don’t know why Nigerians do this. You know very well someone has violated your rights, and instead of backing you up, they start advising you not to take action because “you’re an immigrant” or “you’re a student on a visa.” This just reminded me of an experience I had here in the US. Some years ago, a tax preparer diverted my tax refund into her own bank account and had the audacity to pull the “you can’t do anything” card on me. I later learned she had successfully pulled that on some ignorant international students and went scot-free because they had no balls to hold her accountable. A few Nigerians I told advised me not to do anything: “You know you’re a student on a visa.” One even said, “You’re not even supposed to file a tax return.” Imagine that - - an international student working as a graduate assistant and paying taxes is “not supposed” to file taxes? This is a PhD student oh🤦🏽‍♂️. I hate to say this but Nigeria produces some very ignorant graduates. That moment reminded me yet again why Nigeria is the way it is today. We have too many “baby” adults who refuse to hold anyone accountable. Long story short, I showed the tax preparer why I’m doing a fully funded PhD in the US. It’s not by chance; I had six fully funded offers and chose one. So, I think of myself as a confirmed “Kpọkrikpọ.” So, I did some “research” and sent a mail to the IRS. By 11 p.m. the same day USPS confirmed delivery, the same tax preparer who had been ignoring my calls and messages suddenly started blowing up my phone. I made sure not to answer until the next day. By morning, I had multiple missed calls, voicemails, and texts from her, begging me to reconsider and settle. With what I wrote and the evidence I attached, I knew there would be consequences. I knew she was cooked. In less than 24hrs, I got my money. Not a cent missing. It took me calling the IRS to confirm that my full refund had been returned to de-escalate the situation. Knowing how to fight for your rights is a life skill.

Nothing about Arsenal’s bid to win the Premier League title appears easy, and it looked like two more valuable points were about to be dropped against Everton. That was until a certain Max Dowman helped create an 89th-minute winner for fellow substitute Viktor Gyokeres and then added a second himself — becoming the youngest scorer in the competition’s history in the process at 16 years and 73 days. Cue pandemonium at the Emirates. 📝 @amylawrence71 🔗 nytimes.com/athletic/71111…

Between 1960 and 1999, an estimated $400 billion of Nigeria’s oil revenue was either stolen or misappropriated. To put that in perspective: if you laid $400 billion in dollar bills end-to-end, you could make 75 round trips to the moon. A conservative estimate puts post-1999 losses at well over $100 billion. Nigeria is not poor.

@AskMichaelTaiwo I don't understand why this man is getting sticks for this post. Nowhere did imply that he is in agreement with the EB1A requirements. He only stated the obvious. Or maybe it was because of the timing of this post?

Interestingly, this achievement is not enough for him to get the EB-1A visa.

There’s a reason most of the westerners who fetishize IQ online tend to cluster around academia, research, policy analysis and think tanks. Their world rewards abstraction and credentialism and is a relatively closed system with Gaussian outcomes. Many of them have never created anything in genuinely chaotic environments or places where outcomes are mediated by other people, institutions, timing, incentives and sheer contingency. They mistake their local optimum for a universal one. So when they say IQ is “highly predictive of success,” what they really mean is success as they understand it which is success in linear, test-aligned, institutionally curated niches. Which is why things like educational attainment, job complexity an the like are always their set of examples, because these are in domains that are explicitly designed to reward the cognitive traits IQ tests measure. Although they may not admit it, many of them would be uncomfortable with the reality that a random online streamer who has accumulated leverage outside credentialed systems is more objectively successful than they are by the standards most people actually care about. When confronted with this, they either contest the word “objectively” or redefine success altogether retroactively reshaping the goalposts so their own position remains central and dignified. But for the majority of people, success is very simple lol. It is basically financial and social security, some optionality and leverage. It is the ability to absorb shocks and still remain standing. By those measures, being a highly intelligent but economically and socially fragile physics professor is not an obvious win. People who have actually built things especially people who grew up in environments where plans routinely collapse under political, economic, or social instability understand this instinctively. They know that real world success is non-linear, path-dependent, and deeply social. It involves many other people, many moving parts, and a great deal of effort applied over time. Crucially, they also understand something the IQ wankers hardly ever consider which is that effort is endogenously suppressed. People work hard when something matters to them. A lack of visible effort is not necessarily a lack of capacity any more than it is a lack of incentive, meaning, or perceived payoff. And effort plays a far greater role on mileage which compounds into success. The narrow, niched definition of success that IQ wankers cling to exists largely to preserve a clean 1 to 1 mapping between their test scores and their life outcomes. Interrogate their definitions very well and you’ll find an ego-soothing fiction somewhere there. But it is not how most people experience the world, and it is not the kind of success most people are trying to achieve.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dedicated his life fighting for equity and justice. He taught us that even in the face of intimidation and discrimination, we must never stop working towards a better future – a lesson that feels especially relevant today. Change has never been easy. It takes persistence and determination, and requires all of us to speak out and stand up for what we believe in. As we honor Dr. King today, let’s draw strength from his example, and do our part to build on his legacy.

@AskMichaelTaiwo Pushing back against abuse of power is why we enjoy some semblance of freedom from autocracy.

@AskMichaelTaiwo You did the right thing by minimizing the variables that could have made the situation go south, especially given that you were an international student. However, as a citizen, he had no reasonable cause to ask you to enter his vehicle.

In August 2010, I was driving from Arkansas through Oklahoma to Texas. I got stopped by a cop. He said I was doing 71 mph on a 70mph highway. 99.9% of cops in the US won’t stop you for going one mph over the speed limit on the interstate. I knew I was dealing with an outlier here. “Step out of your car, sir.” To me, this was unnecessary. Most cops would be fine with just asking for your drivers license and car registration. Yet, I complied. “Where are you going to, sir?” “For an academic conference in San Antonio.” “Who’s your passenger, sir?” “A fellow graduate student going to the same conference.” “Go and stay in my car, sir.” “Pardon?!” “Walk to my car, open the door, get in and stay there, sir.” My heart started racing. This cop is clearly annoying but I won’t give him an opportunity to turn a bad situation worse. So, I went to his car and stayed there. A menacing looking K9 (a police dog) was with me in the cop car. I kept praying that the bars were strong enough to keep us separated. The cop proceeded to ask my passenger the same questions. Her answers were similar to mine: we were graduate students going for an academic conference. He came back to me, issued me a “warning” ticket for “over-speeding” and let us go. That was it. The whole encounter lasted maybe 10 minutes. It didn’t make the headlines. You know why? Because I allowed a law enforcement officer to do his job. Even when I felt he was doing too much, I gave him the space to satisfy his curiosity. I could have called him a racist, or said he was profiling me, or make his job more difficult. I saw no sense in any of that. You will not find me defending nonsense. If a law enforcement officer makes a demand in the line of his duty, be a good citizen and comply. There’s no reason to acquire an unneeded ticket, or arrest record, or worse, much worse, just because you want to assert your rights.

One of the most bizarre things I observed at Shell was how someone would spectacularly fail at a $$$ project, and instead of being demoted or fired, the opposite happens. They get transferred to manage another high-visibility project or even get a promotion! It took me a long time to understand this but when I did, it changed everything for me. You see, performance is measured in most companies on two prongs: the what and the how. The “what” is the actual result: did you or did you not strike oil after drilling that well? The “how” is the behavior you displayed during the entire process. I was too focused on the actual results but I later found out that leaders rate behaviors higher. Hence, a project might fail in that it did not meet its stated objectives and yet the project manager might come out a winner because of how he carried himself through it all. So what are the behaviors highly cherished by the higher ups? First is daily updates. Forget weekly reports. Tell your boss and other key stakeholders about how the project is going at least once a day. When I say “tell”, I mean “tell.” Don’t rely solely on an email or a tool. Find a way to get in their face daily even if just for a min or two to verbally articulate the status of things. The pros at this put a standing 5-10 min meeting on their calendars and they come prepared to discuss the highlights and issues that need addressing. Which leads me to the second point. Second, involve your superiors in solving the problem. Don’t form James Bond or Jackie Chan, trying to do it all alone. Any issue that will lead to a delay or cost overrun or any other wahala should be brought up asap to be discussed. Much easier to do if you talk with them daily. It is hard for them to blame you on the outcome of a project they have been integral to. Third, conduct a “lessons learned” session where you perform an autopsy on the dead project. Share these lessons far and wide. You will be hailed as a sage. Suddenly you are now the guy helping the company become better by spreading wisdom gained from the school of hard knocks. This act alone has landed many people their promotion. Bottom line: you can secure victory from defeat. The high flyers in your company do it all the time. If the project succeeds, they win. If the project fails, they win. Be like them.

My 2025 wrapped. 1. Got closer to God. 2. Travelled and got paid to speak accross 17 cities globally. 3. Signed and became an official partner of MTN the biggest telecommunications company in Africa. 4. Took 5 children from Nigeria to America and won multiple chess medals—from Atlanta Georgia, to New York City including a gold medal at the United Nations games. 5. Spoke at the Harvard Africa Business conference, Graduate school of design, MIT and New York State university. 6. Delivered a Keynote speech at the United Nations. 7. Our kids won gold at the key academy chess masters tournament and tied for first place at the Ecobank chess tournament against 500 top schools in Nigeria. 8. Set a new world record for the longest chess marathon in recorded human history alongside my brother Shawn Martinez for 64 HOURS in the heart of Times Square. 9. Forever grateful for my friendship with Russ, our work @thegiftofchess and its continued expansion accross Africa and globally. 10. Got into the US state department IVLP fellowship alongside 20 fellows from around the globe. 11. Co-designed my very first luxury chess board with Neo chess and sold out all 100 (a million Naira each) in less than 6 hours. 12. Featured with Grammy award winning superstar TEMS for a chess themed Hennessy campaign. 13. Won over 15 awards this year including the Earnest shonekan leadership award by the Harvard business school alumni association. 14. Got a Brand new Car courtesy my amazing @nordmotion family. 15. The chess in slums innovation Hub with Lufthansa airlines Help Alliance came fully alive this year and we did high level tech training for thousands of children from Design, robotics,chess to AI. This got us 2nd place at the STEMite NAFESS innovation challenge. 16. Visited the Duolingo Headquarters in New York with 5 children from the chess in slums project, spoke to the entire product team and helped Beta test the new chess course. 17. Earned the most and gave the most I ever have. 18. Partnered with my friends @hackSultan and @SamuelOtigba to give out free Laptops weekly to young undergraduates with internship opportunities. 19. Launched my first Children’s book written by the legendary @lolashoneyin . It went on to win the children’s book of the year at the Akada book festival. 20. And my most important achievement this year is we sponsored the education of thousands of children, gave out many scholarships and have kickstarted our 10 year vision to build the biggest chess academy/free school in the world. I gained so much this year but it was also filled with many painful losses and hard lessons. My health also suffered greatly as I completely neglected self. I hope to be kinder to my body next year and spend more time with my loved ones. Above all, I’m grateful. Thank you all for being a part of my unfolding story and I hope you have an incredible 2026. I still believe in what my eyes do not yet see. Keep going dreamer❤️

The biggest foolery of this year is Nigerians especially the diaspora ones that are affiliated with IPOB that stewpidly and foolishly went to report Nigeria's insecurity situation to Donald Trump....... I lived in USA for two years during and post my graduate school....and i took my time to study the USA dynamics....and how the country works...i did a lot of deep dive....from politics, to corporate, to immigration and dynamics of foreign relations..... Something many Nigerians in diaspora do not get....only few do! While in school, i noticed something uncanny. ... First, Most support programs targetted for Africa were channelled mostly to Kenya and Ghana..... And if you think has ONLY to do with Nigeria's public governance , then you are very ignorant... 2nd, Nigerians in USA even those in graduate schools generally BAD MOUTH Nigeria publicly at every opportunity thinking its for their good...VERY SILLY. Even when Oyibo is recognising positive things about Nigeria, it is Nigerians that still counter them and project more negativism and scary stories about Nigeria. Interestingly immigrants and students from worse countries would NEVER do that. ...at least to 3rd parties 3rdly, Generally, Americans are high on patrotism. No matter. So, they DO NOT RESPECT any citizen of another country that DISRESPECTS their country. So guess what, the more ypu NIGERIANS foolishly think Oyibo should come to your rescue to solve internal problems...the More they will DISRESPECT you. More so when Nigerians globally have been noted to be high on CRIME - FRAUDSTERS! After all the plenty noise, did @POTUS come to your rescue? NO! Of course he won't. Why should Tax Payers money be used on you withiut clear commensurate benefits! Instead he further slammed partial ban on Nigerians....and those of you on GREEN CARD...your position is shaky.... As for the CITIZENS...your plans ti immigrate your relations is in JEOPARDY You Nigerians are the ones DISGRACED...not Nigeria ! Nigeria is an inanimate entity....

@Ar_senalXtra_ There is no flair in how Arsenal play. They are too methodical/rigid. Get in one or two more players with flair. In football, players with flair make a team unpredictable. Methodical players also win you games but become predictable after a while.

🚨 I can confidently say with the way we’re playing right now, even Haaland wouldn’t score 20 goals in this team. It’s time we face the truth: we’re not playing like a team serious about winning trophies. We said Aubameyang was finished under Arteta ,but go check what happened when he left. He went on to score goals elsewhere. The problem isn’t always the striker. Sometimes, it’s the system around him.

"Anti-Muslim Church Militias Nigeria" 😆 Man just needed to make up shit.

Everyday I realise people don't understand that Messi and Ronaldo were extreme outliers even amongst elite footballers.

STATEMENT MADE.

You can be completely alone and at your lowest, and life will still go on. The world won’t stop for you. That’s why you must rise for yourself and do what's best for you. Because in the end, it's you who has to fight for your growth. So, take action, no matter how little.✌❤💡

Before the end of this year, what I'm praying for will be delivered to me in Jesus name. Amen.

#EndTerrorismInNigeria #EndTerrorismInNigeria #EndTerrorismInNigeria #EndTerrorismInNigeria #EndTerrorismInNigeria

The perpetrators deserve no mercy. There is an urgent need for our armed forces to eliminate every single one of these terrorists. It wasn’t always like this. Terrorism cannot be a part of our normal lives. Where are they appearing from and disappearing to? Where is the intelligence? Mr. President please demand more accountability from your security chiefs. This needs to end now Sir. 💔