nsikan james

@omotodun_ Give that baby a ‘Toothbrush Moustache’ ASAP… so my ‘Guten Tag, Herr’ lands properly. 🤭

Who else had an uncontrollable smile while watching this 🥺💕

I may have been under 10 when I first read Macbeth, but many of its lines have stayed with me; like choice fragments from a hundred other great books. Certain words, once met, never quite release you. I could wake from a troubled dream and recite W. B. Yeat’s ‘The Second Coming’ or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s ‘A Psalm of Life’ without faltering. When you instil a reading appetite in a child, there’s something it does to the mind. I grew up in an academic household. My late father brought home up to 5 newspapers a day, and you’d better not be caught idling on the cartoon page. I devoured the editorials. Books and research papers routinely took over our dining table. My mother, now a retired Prof., still claims I was correcting university students’ scripts at age five. I suspect she’s exaggerating, but not by much. I often skipped classes just to read in the library, hiding books in obscure locations so no one else would find them before I finished. Even then, I treated reading like a private pursuit, almost a discipline. I remember sitting for my JS3 exams, writing one of those standard letters to the Commissioner. When I realized many students chose it because it seemed easier, I cancelled mine and switched to the apparently harder essay on a social issue. Partway through, an examiner peered over my shoulder and asked me to stand. “How old are you?” I may have been 11/12 at the time. “That’s impossible!” Her words: “No one writes like this at this age.” Getting into that prestigious school in the first place was its own story. My father had a habit of bringing home old exam papers, sometimes ones used to wrap groundnuts. He’d smooth them out, even iron them, and leave them around without a word. One such relic, a 1973 WAEC SSCE paper, became my test. I attempted its essay question and left it behind, thinking little of it. I was in JSS2 at the time. My father quietly filed it away. Later, when I tried to transfer schools in my third term, they refused to admit me. They even had the effrontery to suggest I finish the term elsewhere and return to repeat JSS2 as they wouldn’t admit me in JSS3. It didn’t matter that I was first every term since my JSS1 at the other school. My father said nothing at first. Then he retrieved that essay from his briefcase and handed it to the principal. “He wrote this,” he said. The principal looked at it, then at me with disbelief. “You mean he wrote this?” My father nodded. “I’m admitting him straight away!” she replied. From there, I went on to win national competitions, serve as editor-in-chief across 4 editorial boards at university and be a ghostwriter on international postgraduate proposals, theses, and grant applications with a long list of successful outcomes. These days, tools like ChatGPT don collect work for my hand. Hahaha! Such are the times. One compliment I hear often, and dislike just as much, is: “Your English is very good.” I always wonder what people expect from someone whose father studied at Cambridge, and who had read Homer’s epics and maybe half of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets before I’d learned to wipe myself perfectly. If I weren’t dividing my time between practicing medicine and running a tech company, I suspect I might have become a very successful writer. My greatest obstacle, however, is my own exacting self-criticism. For the past 13 years, I’ve been working on three medical thrillers, yet I’ve never quite persuaded myself they are ready, or worthy of publication (so far). 🫠

Carelessly quoting Macbeth, someone will read an essay he writes today and reference Macbeth then immediately assumes he used ChatGPT …

Sometimes you have to push yourself

@AniebietChrist3 If you haven’t seen The Godfather yet, you really should. It’s one of those films everyone ought to experience at least once.

I spent 3 months chasing a contract to supply laptops to a private school. I did the research, got quotes, even used my own money to design a proposal with mock-ups. My cousin was jobless at the time, so I asked him to follow me to the meeting for moral support. I introduced him to the proprietor as “my brother.” After the presentation, the proprietor said he’d get back to me. Two weeks of silence. I called, he said “we’re still reviewing.” A month later I drove past the school and saw a van offloading laptops. My cousin’s company name was on the side. I thought it was a coincidence. That evening I checked CAC. He’d registered a business 3 days after our meeting, using my exact proposal format. Same specs, same pricing, just his letterhead. I called him. He didn’t deny it. He said “you were too slow. Business is not family. If I didn’t take it, someone else would.” He even told me the proprietor said I looked “too young to handle 8 million.” The worst part? My aunt called to beg me not to “spoil his chance.” Said I should be happy one of us got it.

@ruffydfire Promenaden Hauptbahnhof Leipzig - Europe’s largest terminus. My old stomping ground, steeped in nostalgia. An absolute beauty. ❤️ Genießen Sie Ihren Aufenthalt. 😁

Leipzig, state of saxony

In the 1920s, a Stanford psychologist tracked genius children for 50 years. Malcolm Gladwell breaks down what he discovered: Rich families → successful. Poor families → failures. Not average. Failures. Genius-level IQs that produced nothing. He spent 60 minutes at Microsoft explaining why we're wrong about success: The psychologist was named Terman. He gave IQ tests to 250,000 California schoolchildren. He identified the top 0.1%. Kids with IQs of 140 and above. His hypothesis: these children would become the leaders of academia, industry, and politics. He tracked them. And tracked them. For decades. The results split into three groups. The top 15% achieved real prominence. The middle group had average, moderately successful professional lives. And the bottom group? By any measure, failures. The difference wasn't personality. Wasn't habits. Wasn't work ethic. It was simple: the successful geniuses came from wealthy households. The failures came from poor families. Poverty is such a powerful constraint that it can reduce a one-in-a-billion brain to a lifetime of worse than mediocrity. There's a concept called "capitalization rate." It asks a simple question: what percentage of people who are capable of doing something actually end up doing that thing? In inner city Memphis, only 1 in 6 kids with athletic scholarships actually go to college. If our capitalization rate for sports in the inner city is 16%, imagine how low it must be for everything else. Here's something stranger. Gladwell read the birth dates of the 2007 Czech Junior Hockey Team: January 3rd. January 3rd. January 12th. February 8th. February 10th. February 17th. February 20th. February 24th. March 5th. March 10th. March 26th... 11 of the 20 players were born in January, February, or March. This isn't unique to the Czechs. Every elite hockey team in the world shows the same pattern. Every elite soccer team too. Why? The eligibility cutoff for youth leagues is January 1st. When you're 10 years old, a kid born in January has 10 months of maturity on a kid born in October. That's 3 or 4 inches of height. The difference between clumsy and coordinated. So we look at a group of 10 year olds, pick the "best" ones, give them special coaching, extra practice, more games. We think we're identifying talent. We're just identifying the oldest. Then we give the oldest more opportunities, and 10 years later they really are the best. Self-fulfilling prophecy. The capitalization rate for hockey talent born in the second half of the year? Close to zero. We're leaving half of all potential hockey players on the table because of an arbitrary date on a calendar. Kids born in the youngest cohort of their school class are 11% less likely to go to college. 11% of human potential squandered because we organize elementary school without reference to biological maturity. Now here's the part about math. Asian kids dramatically outperform Western kids in mathematics. The gap is enormous and consistent across decades of testing. Some people say it's genetic. It's not. It's attitudinal. When Asian kids face a math problem, they believe effort will solve it. When Western kids face a math problem, they believe the answer depends on innate ability they either have or don't. Here's the proof. The international math tests include a 120-question survey. It asks about study habits, parental support, attitudes. It's so long most kids don't finish it. A researcher named Erling Boe decided to rank countries by what percentage of survey questions their kids completed. Then he compared it to the ranking of countries by math performance. The correlation was 0.98. In the history of social science, there has never been a correlation that high. If you want to know how good a country is at math, you don't need to ask any math questions. Just make kids sit down and focus on a task for an extended period of time. If they can do it, they're good at math. Why do Asian cultures have this attitude? Gladwell's theory: rice farming. His European ancestors in medieval England worked about 1,000 hours a year. Dawn to noon, five days a week. Winters off. Lots of holidays. A peasant in South China or Japan in the same period worked 3,000 hours a year. Rice farming isn't just harder than wheat farming. It's a completely different relationship with work. There's a Chinese proverb: "A man who works dawn to dusk 360 days a year will not go hungry." His English ancestors would have said: "A man who works 175 days a year, dawn to 11, may or may not be hungry." If your culture does that for a thousand years, it becomes part of your makeup. When your kids sit down to face a calculus problem, that legacy of persistence translates perfectly. Now consider distance running. In Kenya, there are roughly a million schoolboys between 10 and 17 running 10 to 12 miles a day. In the United States, that number is probably 5,000. Our capitalization rate for distance running is less than 1%. Kenya's is probably 95%. The difference isn't genetic. The difference is what the culture values and where it spends its attention. Here's the most fascinating finding. 30% of American entrepreneurs have been diagnosed with a profound learning disability. Richard Branson is dyslexic. Charles Schwab is dyslexic. John Chambers can barely read his own email. This isn't coincidence. Their entrepreneurialism is a direct function of their disability. How do you succeed if you can't read or write from early childhood? You learn to delegate. You become a great oral communicator. You become a problem solver because your entire life is one big problem. You learn to lead. 80% of dyslexic entrepreneurs were captain of a high school sports team. Versus 30% of non-dyslexic entrepreneurs. By the time they enter the real world, they've spent their whole life practicing the four skills at the core of entrepreneurial success: delegation, oral communication, problem solving, and leadership. Ask them what role dyslexia played in their success and they don't say it was an obstacle. They say it's the reason they succeeded. A disadvantage that became an advantage. Here's what Gladwell wants you to understand: When we see differences in success, our default explanation is differences in ability. We forget how much poverty, stupidity, and attitude constrain what people can become. We refuse to admit that our own arbitrary rules are leaving talent on the table. We cling to naive beliefs that our meritocracies are fair. The capitalization argument is liberating. It says you don't look at a struggling group and conclude they're incapable. It says problems that look genetic or innate are often just failures of exploitation. It says we can make a profound difference in how well people turn out. If we choose to pay attention. This 60 minute Microsoft talk will teach you more about success than every self-help book you've ever read combined. Bookmark this & give it an hour today, no matter what.

Unfortunately, your assertion may not be entirely correct. I have drunk milk all my life, from Nigeria through several years living in multiple countries overseas. Then, about 6yrs ago, I began to experience GI upsets after consuming milk/dairy products. Now I can only tolerate plant-based alternatives. A similar thing has happened with Semovita. Now, whenever I visit Nigeria, I have to limit my diet significantly, as many foods that I had previously eaten without problems tend to upset my stomach. As children, most people produce sufficient lactase, the enzyme responsible for breaking down lactose (milk sugar). However, in many adults particularly those of African, Asian, or Mediterranean ancestry, lactase production can gradually decline over time. As a result, even if one previously tolerated milk without issue, the body may eventually lose the capacity to digest it efficiently. Late-onset lactose intolerance in your case; and in mine possible gluten sensitivity, and perhaps changes in the gut microbiome are all plausible explanations for this pattern. As a learned individual with a wide platform, it is advisable to interrogate the evidence carefully rather than make sweeping generalisations.

My first trip outside Nigeria was when I found out I was lactose intolerant. Because I drank foreign milk. I was so confused and told people I had always taken milk all my life in Nigeria with no issues. The issue was I never took real milk in Nigeria. 🙂

Unfortunately, I’m inclined to disagree here. Yes, Forest Whitaker does well in the role, but his performance is really only convincing to those without an acute ear for accents. He gives a fair impression, but it doesn’t sound authentically Ugandan, let alone Kakwa. It’s similar to Morgan Freeman in Invictus or Will Smith in Concussion: strong performances, but unconvincing impersonations. Even among Nigerians from different ethnic groups, there are noticeable differences in speech despite broader stereotypes people might recognize. Native dialects and languages shape the way we speak from childhood, influencing tone and pronunciation in ways that are incredibly difficult to reproduce convincingly in adulthood, even for skilled actors. I remember Maria, my neighbour in Germany, who was born in Russia but had lived most of her life in Germany. Standing over 6ft tall, with a broad build, blonde hair, and blue eyes, she could easily pass for what many would consider a typically German appearance. Yet she once lamented that Germans could instinctively tell she wasn’t German.

@AsakyGRN Sorry, but I don't buy it. An American, Forrest Whittaker played Idi Amin's biopic and did excellently. Just get talented actors..

“I’ve watched a lot of Hollywood movies where there’s a mention of Nigeria, Lagos, Ayo, or Chichi. I always cringe when I hear the accent actors use while playing Nigerian roles when they aren’t Nigerians. You can’t get an Asian man or just anybody to sound Nigerian. Just get a Nigerian.” — Genevieve Nnaji says.

@BlaqYhemmy @MrMekzy_ Prescribing a medication by its generic name is standard practice. Therefore, in your case, the prescription should ideally have stated Prednisolone rather than Predicare. Brand-name prescribing is only appropriate when there is a clear clinical justification.

@MrMekzy_ But you know it's not the customer's fault. Same when I wanted to get drugs yesterday at the pharmacy. Biofenac- I was given Clofenac Roshal- I was given Turbovas Predicare - I was given Prednisolone I was told it's the same drugs but just different brands.

Woman: Pharm do you have this drug? *Hands me a prescription* Me: Yes i do.. This is it ma, it’s 4500. Woman: But it’s not the same name, what’s on this paper is cefuroxime. That’s what I want. Me: And that’s what I just gave you. It’s the same drug trust me. This is just the brand name of the drug. Woman: Wait let me call my doctor to confirm. Me: Okay no problem. Woman: He said you should give me Zinnat. Me: Okay it’s available, it 18,000. Woman: Ah it’s too expensive. Shey you said that other one is the same drug? It’ll still do the work abi? Me:

Tennis players live 9.7 years longer than sedentary people. Not 9.7 months. 9.7 years. Nearly a decade. The Copenhagen City Heart Study tracked 8,577 people for 25 years and ranked every sport by how much life it adds. Badminton: 6.2 years. Soccer: 4.7. Cycling: 3.7. Swimming: 3.4. Jogging: 3.2. Tennis almost triples jogging. A separate study of 80,000 adults found racket sports cut all-cause mortality by 47% and cardiovascular death by 56%. Swimming hit 41%. Aerobics hit 36%. The question is why racket sports destroy everything else. Three mechanisms stack on top of each other. First, the physical demands. A tennis rally requires explosive sprints, lateral cuts, and sustained aerobic output. You're training fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers simultaneously. Most cardio only trains one system. Second, the cognitive load. You're reading spin, predicting angles, adjusting position, and executing motor patterns in real-time. Your brain is solving spatial puzzles at 80+ mph. That hand-eye coordination and strategic processing builds neural connections that protect against cognitive decline. Third, and this is the one researchers keep coming back to: you literally cannot play alone. Every racket sport requires another person on the other side of the net. That forced social interaction triggers neurochemical benefits that solitary exercise cannot replicate. Strong social connection alone increases your chance of longevity by 50%. Jogging is you and your thoughts. Tennis is you, a strategic opponent, and a community. Dr. Daniel Amen is right. The data is overwhelming. If you want the single highest-ROI activity for a longer life, pick up a racket.

It’s unfortunate that he seems to lack self-awareness, accountability, or willingness to reflect. As a result, he’s missed the opportunity to learn and has chosen to gloat instead. Do you realize how consistently late someone has to be before it leads to termination? Situations like this usually arise from repeated patterns rather than isolated events. Without genuine reflection, he’s likely to repeat the same mistake at the new job, as there’s no indication he’s learned from it. He also fails to recognize how his conduct might influence perceptions that could disadvantage others who look/talk like him when being considered for the role, which is a shame.

Man narrates how he lost his job in Canada at 11:40 and secured a new one with higher pay and promotion in under 10 minutes.

This is the saddest video I’ve ever seen today 😭😭😭😭

That’s not quite accurate. Govts often step in to support distressed companies; sometimes through bailouts, partial nationalisation, or by taking an active role in management, when they believe a failure would pose systemic risks to the wider economy. A clear example is the 2008 global financial crisis, when several major financial institutions were rescued to prevent broader economic collapse. There are many documentaries out there on it.

@anthonyabakporo @UchePOkoye @Voiceofigbos @BOTAD01 @D_goodybag @Franeb @thebardogbamola @TheBeninBlogger @TheAjakeManger @IfeanyiDeclan Oga,they're more brutal with indebtedness in the Western/Developed world.Many giant companies have run under.ENRON,the giant American energy company is history.Asians,go as far as committing suicide when their businesses run into indebtedness.This is accountability.

This is Obi Jackson's Nestoil headquarters in Victoria Island Lagos. It had been sealed since October 2025. It was sealed at first with signages and tapes, some time early this year I started seeing Police vehicles in front of the place. I want to ask how wise it is to shutdown a blue chip company because of debt ? When we can just put a system in place that ensures activities are on and payment is made through a financial medium the company cannot hinder ? Nigeria is not ready to build, all they do is destroy. Owing is not a crime, lack of institutions that can recover debt without shutting down businesses is the crime against our Labour Market.

There’s a reason I abhor talking science with internet folks. Many boast a very virulent strain of stupidity, you risk becoming infected just by engaging them. Long rant here - stay with me! A few weeks ago, I was almost dragged into an argument about vaccines. Someone casually accused me of spreading misinformation because I said vaccines had saved mankind, before going on to list only a handful of vaccines’ success stories. One person made a particularly bold assertion, so wrong it was almost impressive in its confidence. I nearly dug in, then caught myself. I had to remind myself that I didn’t spend over six years in medical school, complete residency training, start my own medical consulting practice, and work as a Global Health Fellow in some of the most challenging back-of-beyond settings across West and East Africa just to argue with strangers on Elon Musk’s internet about the basics of immunology. Where would I even begin? Innate vs. Adaptive? Active vs. Passive Acquired immunity? Should I warm up with antibodies before getting into Fab fragments? At what point do I stop? I stopped myself, disengaged, and let them stew in their ignorance. One of them then began bombarding me with American newspaper clippings full of COVID-19 conspiracy theories. I laughed. Absolutely not worth my time. You want to follow Americans to have political arguments about healthcare? You forget that when an American gets bitten by a snake and emergency services arrive, nobody asks whether he’s Republican or Democrat. Everyone gets first-class healthcare first; then you can return to your tavern brawls.  I went through the TL of one of my challengers. I was rather amused. Oh! You don’t believe vaccines work, but you are crying over antivenoms? Are you not a clown? How much do you know about a topic to hold an opinion and argue against scientific evidence? You besmirch vaccines because the govt. brings it to your doorstep, so you don’t see its value. Over a decade ago, I was that ER doctor waiting for snake antivenom to arrive from Onitsha, that was 2 states, and almost 4 hours away for a patient who had spent 4 days at a herbal home and arrived the ER clinging to life by the skin of the teeth. The real tragedy is that when you finally wake up from your delusions, you’re still Nigerian, and you still have to deal with that reality.  Truth is, arguing science has never appealed to me. I didn’t even do it with my peers. We’d come out of medical school exams and there would be a thousand wild diagnoses flying around, everyone ready to die on their chosen hill. Back then, once I told you my diagnosis was Neonatal Sepsis, I wasn’t sticking around to hear how you arrived at Marasmic Kwashiorkor. We’d part with a friendly handshake: “Oya sabi your own, mek I sabi my own.” If I never argued with my peers, why would I argue science with you - random crypto trader, sports betting connoisseur or ‘Madame Swt-Juicee-Cat-Lipz’ on Obasanjo’s internet? I’m sorry, you simply do not have the surface area of gyri and sulci for that.

I really thank Mr Kunle for everything he did for me, with those Geography classes. I would have turned out to be a 32 year old man on the internet whose argument to "NASA is lying about Artemis II" is: "Why is the sun shining on us, and not shining on them?" Jesus!

Nigerians often seem to struggle with numerical reasoning. Many are unable to appreciate context, percentages, averages, norms, extremes and exceptions, etc. That’s why you’ll hear figures casually thrown into arguments like “over 99%,” “99.99%”. No clear source or evidence to back them up; just numbers pulled out of thin air. One thing is certain though, they rarely fall short when it comes to reasoning in needless superlatives. In another scenario, try pointing out that most people don’t have reliable electricity, someone might quickly respond, “Well, I know someone who does.” A single anecdote is then used to dismiss a broader reality, and it’s held onto with surprising certainty. I have always said that the tendency toward exaggerated, unsupported numbers/facts is almost a defining feature of the classic Nigerian archetype.

Just some guidance, my learned brother @egi_nupe: It is always better for an intellectual to say “I am not aware of any lawyer who will…” instead of “No lawyer will…” That is because no one knows everything or everyone…not even Ezemmuo.😊 You ended your post well when you used “almost impossible” instead of “it is impossible.” Well done.

Congratulations, Chief! Very well deserved. I had the pleasure of working with you in Notts and have always appreciated your support. You kindly agreed to be my referee, which helped me attend a course in Cambridge and set me on the path to a Global Health Fellowship in East Africa. I’m not sure if you remember, but it made a lasting difference. Thank you.

It’s official! UK Specialist Register O&G (Urogyn) - 12 years after specialist recognition in Kenya, 20 years since qualifying as doctor. A prayer answered through resilience, hard work… & 400 miles. Truly grateful 😊🙌🏼🙏🏼 To all who aspire (esp IMGs) - Yes, you can! ✨💪🏼

There’s a reason that, of all the anatomy texts I’ve read, I still keep the 10th edition of Clinical Anatomy by Harold Ellis close at hand. What a remarkable teacher he was. I’ve just come across a job description authored by Prof. Ellis. What a wave of nostalgia it brought. It took me back to my own teachers and those first ward rounds on the hallowed grounds of St. Margaret’s. What an age of medicine it was! Rest in peace, Sir.

Babygirl is going to end up being a doctor just like her daddy! A medical degree is definitely in her DNA! #BlackGirls #FutureDoctor #BlackDoctors

It’s disappointing that what could have been a thoughtful reflection has instead spread misinformation through an overly simplistic view of how preventive medicine actually works. I don’t know a single doctor who consistently fails to offer lifestyle advice to patients. If anything, it’s a core part of clinical practice. He should be grateful for having the willpower to begin a weight loss journey, because for many people, that step is incredibly difficult. In fact, many struggle so much with change that they would rather face serious health consequences than adopt healthier habits. Do you know there are over 1 billion smokers worldwide, despite widespread awareness that smoking causes cancer. That alone highlights how difficult it is to change human behavior. Encouraging patients to adopt healthier lifestyles or to break lifelong addictions is one of the most challenging aspects of medicine. How many times have I advised patients to quit smoking to avoid COPD or lung cancer, to improve their diet and exercise to reduce cardiovascular risk, or to cut down on alcohol only to encounter those same patients continuing the very habits that put them at risk? At some point, personal responsibility has to come into play. Blaming doctors for keeping people unhealthy ignores the reality of how difficult behavioural change is and undermines the effort that healthcare professionals put into prevention every single day.  Sadly, I’ve seen so many comments on here allied with exactly the same wrong sentiments. Instead of taking responsibility for your unhealthy lifestyle choices, you rather choose to believe it’s the doctor that wants to keep you unhealthy. Do you know how silly you sound? 😏

Opeyemi Famakin finally reveals how he lost so much weight in such a short period of time 👀

Give these guys an Oscar.