--"If music be the food of love, play on" (Duke Orsino)
Toyin Adepoju,
Listen to yourself ! Do you hear what you are saying? It sounds like one more strong Nigerian voice unabashedly advocating bribery, the root of all corruption:
"If bribery can encourage a person to be a first class student, then bribery should be employed." ((Toyin Adepoju !))
Waytin him say? Him say, so be it: "If bribery can encourage a person to be a first class student, then bribery should be employed !" ( Messenger ! Bring me the file!"
Reinforced : "Such 'bribery' is standard in academic and other institutions in da name of inspiring excellence." ( By any means necessary)
Start bribing people to be given marks to pass exams , start peddling pussy, ass and gnash for higher marks , the price that should be paid for being awarded prizes, maybe even be supplied with the exam question papers in advance….
The bribe-givers and bribe-takers could start quoting Adepoju as their Bible !
Why not follow it up with "The impossible we do immediately, miracles take a little longer" and some slick Nigerian Highlife lyric : " this thing you like so, it belongs to me, pay your money, pay as you go into"
Just kidding! But that your opening statement taken out of context - i.e. minus the argument with which you follow up that statement, the statement as an isolated quote opens itself up to all kinds of ( possible) negative interpretations. Otherwise, all the points made including the over-the-board exaggerations about Newton, are well taken. Ai understand you, well well.
"Such enablements are fundamental to the global intellectual dominance of Europe and its US cultural outpost." ( Toyin Adepoju)
There again the bribe could be deemed to have taken a more euphemistic camouflage face even ennobled - the bribes described as " ennoblements" , sorry, "enablements". Enablements indeed, the kinds of enablements, incentives and inducements that help perpetuate and maintain the brain- drain game…but let's not go down that path for now…
We are talking about this young man Ayodele Dada – an excellent role model specimen of student : being honoured. So what did they give him - a certificate ? That's Ok. Of course he would appreciate cheque for a million dollars a lot better ( come see him smiling all the way to the bank, come see other students burning the midnight lamp just to follow in his footsteps, cheque in hand and smiling all the way to that bank…
Ask yourself this: How many members of any of our constituent legislatures - parliament, house of assembly, senate etc. are themselves straight A students? About money, many of them know that one of the fastest trajectories from rags to riches is through getting into politics - as they know so well, a very self-rewarding and enabling profession and therefore in this particular case their sermon about the dangers ( in that order , their order) of money, wine and women…
I have always admired Baruch Spinoza - those were his times and today, if I were in the relevant house of assembly, representatives, senate, ministry, embassy, institution, I would like to encourage people to dig deep where they are standing (otherwise we are merely dilettantes, jack ass of everything and master of nothing ) if I were in the relevant etc. I should deem it fit to provide a stipend to Toyin Adepoju to help facilitate his stupendous efforts in research on African art, religion, eclecticisms, cross-cultural esoterica etc. and the highlighting of his own original contributions, insights into novel ways of seeing things ( that's contributions to knowledge) and I would certainly fund relevant exhibitions, get-together conferences of the likeminded organising and funding exhibitions etc., that make Nigeria a talking point, more of such cultural exchange and interface from which deeper understanding between peoples and systems arise. In my view, such efforts should be rewarded , enabled….
(PS. Once upon a time I was interested in Senufo masks ( headquartered in the Ivory Coast) they fetched a pretty dollar; you could get in touch with a very old buddy from Ghana days: George Nelson Preston , although I don't know to what extent he could be knee- deep in the esoterics that could inhere in them . I thought that Poro was a word exclusively connected with Sierra Leone – and talking about African Art ( for years I lived at the epicentre of Freetown at number 37 Westmoreland Street ( now Siaka Stevens Street) opposite the Cotton Tree and the Sierra Leone Museum, during which time I was certainly the most frequent visitor and admirer and student of the Nomoli housed there…
Cornelius
On Friday, 25 March 2016 19:11:17 UTC+1, Oluwatoyin Adepoju wrote:Such enablements are fundamental to the global intellectual dominance of Europe and its US cultural outpost.Hefty cash prizes are given to enable scholars and students engage in specific research, specific academic programs, or anything whatsoever they choose.If bribery can encourage a person to be a first class student, then bribery should be employed.Such 'bribery' is standard in academic and other institutions in the name of inspiring excellence.Scholarship and the making of money are often mutually exclusive.Scholarship, whether in the humanities or the sciences, often requires long hours, at times years or even a lifetime of work, and even at its completion, there might be no direct material reward to anybody from that work.Isaac Newton's example is instructive, a lifelong bachelor who interacted as little as possible with others for many years as he gestated his most productive creations, a level of concentration that might not have possible if not for the comfort provided by his professorship at Cambridge, having started school there as a poor student who worked as a servant to other students, if I remember well, creations which had no financial value at the time of development, but which today, in terms of the laws of motion and his work on gravity, are central to space exploration and all work in mechanics, to the best of my knowledge.It took Immanuel Kant ten years to build his mature philosophical system, publishing practically nothing during that period, and the resulting texts demanding the most diligent attention to comprehend, but that work is a cornerstone of modern Western thought, its disciplinary expressions and the institutions that cultivate those disciplines, a level of focus made possible by the terms of Kant's professorship at Konigsberg.Harvard has a scholarship meant to free selected students do anything they want within a one year period. The list of names of these students over the years, such as T.S.Eliot, is a listing of some of the most illustrious names in Western cultural history.The huge global cultural and economic impact generated by Western scholarship and research within and beyond academia more than justifies the monies poured into these establishments, although more needs to be done, with so much of the US's budget, for example, going into arms.For stellar academic and research performance, you need serious money.A solid academic library alone is not cheap anywhere in the world, and even the best endowed libraries might not have all the strategic literature you need.Continents like Europe and North America will always attract top intellectual and other creative figures because of their academic and other research resources, their liberal cultures and efficient services, and this attraction will feed into funding for universities and research centres, into money spent by students, scholars, scientists and tourists on the local economy- housing, food, transport etc, these being the least of possibilities, along with the direct effect of scientific, technological and artistic initiatives. .Its important to beware of distractions but I have never seen such a pedestrian advice as that given by lawmakers of a nation to a stellar student while telling him 'we have no money to give you'.thankstoyinOn 25 March 2016 at 16:55, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:If that's the full story then the ogas should be indicted and arraigned before the Aziz and charged with cruelty, for advising such an excellent student about money and not giving him any. But for a surety they must have assured him of funding/ a scholarship/ stipendium/ grant for anything that he would like to do in the future , as that is surely the point of having such prize giving and honours ceremonies , to encourage and reward excellence, not mediocrity. To give tangible rewards not just stiff moral sermons about wine and women and how money corrupts and can corrupt absolutely. In my opinion a hefty cash prize would be a very good incentive for a poor boy ( or even a rich one) to study harder. Perhaps, the members of the house of reps were afraid or were being cautious about rewarding excellence by awarding cash prizes lest such prizes be interpreted or equated with the giving of bribes to encourage students – you can bet that there are those who if they only could buy a degree or two with some extra money at their disposal
N.B. Even Nobel Prizes are sizeable rewards of cash…
On Thursday, 24 March 2016 20:52:27 UTC+1, Oluwatoyin Adepoju wrote:i hope its not trueso, with all that pomp, all he got was verbal encouragement?is money not vital for most creative developments?why cant they use that as their own guidance instead of the massive moneys they are described as being paid?The reps should have funded him to do anything he wants with his life.im not pleased with the statement 'We don't have money to give you, but what we are going to do is not only intended to inspire you, but to encourage other students.'On 24 March 2016 at 19:05, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <oluwas...@gmail.com> wrote:---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alukoro Agbaye kaka...@gmail.com [Edo_Global] <Edo_G...@yahoogroups.com>
Date: 24 March 2016 at 17:40
Subject: Edo_Global. Beware of money, women and alcohol, Dogara advises UNILAG record-breaking graduate, as Reps honour him (Photos)
To: Edo_G...@yahoogroups.com
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J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
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