These GSM Boys are robbing us blind

I used to work for one of the big 4 GSM companies in Nigeria and cannot help but wonder when things deteriorated this much. Generally, the top 4 guys (MTN, Airtel, Glo and Etisalat) are decent when it comes to business practices, but pressure and greed make people do things. Be the judge at the end of this and tell me if the operators are greedy thieves, complacent thieves or criminal accomplice (thieves). My options are limited to these.

In this current issue, there have been several, my old man noticed some amount is being deducted per hour on his phone, an Airtel line. Naturally I get contacted as the first line support for everything telco in the family and I called 111. The agent confirmed the deduction for a service (group-chat or group-on chat or whatever from Elseji in this case). Dear God, who needs another ridiculous chat service when WhatsApp is free? Anyway, the choice should be yours right?

Wrong. No one opted into this service and they could not see any subscription or they (customer care agent of operator) would have pointed it out. I asked for a refund and they refused. That's not the first time. Basically, the way the cookie crumbles is this:

One of the VAS partners steal from you, shares with the telco and you get a "We're sorry" from the agent.That apparently is the way business is done in these hard economic times. 

Thinking about it now, it's the third time in recent memory and it's so funny that the last time I complained, the service was deactivated and a refund request refused despite not subscribing to the service in the first place. Less than a fortnight after that, another service was stealing from the same line and then another...

In case you're wondering why this behavior is rampant, remember, people respond to incentives. I'll break it down.

A VAS (Value Added Services) company steals from a subscriber i.e. you. Let's assume it's for N10/day and it happened to take 2 days before it's deactivated. You complain, they stop. The Telco refuses to refund because, "We don't refund anymore" despite the fact you did not subscribe. They make N20 from you. Not much right?

As at March 2015, NCC puts the number of subscribers on Airtel GSM network at 149 million.

See where I'm going yet? Let's say they steal from 1.5m people, a paltry 1% of active subscribers across all telcos, let's see:

N20 X 1,500,000 = N30m in just 2 days!

Just when you're recovering, they steal from another set of subscribers, a sample of another 1% to keep the complaint threshold low and do this several times a month. Since there are 15 days in a month for this grossly underestimated figures, we're have something like:

 N30m X 15 = N450m every month!

The VAS company meets it's revenue target and smiles to the bank. Of course they share spoils with the telco whom usually charges 60% to 75% of loot. Let's say VAS company makes 40%:

40% of N450m = N180m

A few people complain, some give up trying to call customer care, many on the long queue in a shop.

A paragraph for the impact: Mama switches her phone to another operator, Papa keeps his phone off mostly and for the first time in years is considering another provider. Somewhere in the operation of the companies, a finance person makes a payout, a marketing guy gets a good grade and a fat bonus, another one is kicked out for not doing well with customer retention, the war between customer care and marketing festers, the telco sees VAS revenue jump, albeit temporarily and customer base seems to be stalling. And yes, I get to complain online again.

So what can the telcos do? 
First, they need to make refunds to show sincerity. A shortcode (*902#) was provided which we all hastily dialed with the hope it'll end the woes but apparently it was a sham.

The regulators? 
In the USA, they have the National Do Not Disturb (DND) registry; once your number is in it and you say DND, no telemarketer or any of these scums dare disturb you, not even for the damned adverts. NCC, you're dropping the ball please. A centralized DND is the solution.

The customers? 
Let's complain more. I saw this on Nairaland so this is widespread. Oh by the way, *902# does not seem to work in this case.


I have nothing against value added services and who know I may run one soon, I do have everything against unethical business practices.

Jumia and Co: CAVEAT EMPTOR

Executive summary, after all the world likes twitter:

1. If you are shopping on Jumia on 12-12 or one of those funky sales splash things, make sure you choose pay-on-delivery.
2. If you are going to buy from Jumia (I fear the other retailers may not be too different), BUYERS BEWARE and consider item 3.
3. Check your order emails, if it says somewhere something like, "Please note that we will not accept returns for orders placed...". They mean unconditionally. It's the same as NO TESTING.
4. Now you know. We still love shopping, but we can be wiser about it.

The holiday season is here and Jumia will be doing something (great?). Holiday goodies that makes your eyes pop. This is the current one but you can expect more before the year runs out.

STOP...

This beautiful image, from Jacobs Injury Law says it all. Shortly I'll be making references to some of what they had to say on buyer's safety online and boy they do have a lot to say.

As for the discerning, you guessed right, there is a story behind this and until I filed a complaint, I did not realize it had something to do with special sales, BLACK FRIDAY in this case.

The story, abridged

I purchased a Transcend memory card for my camera on Jumia, turned out I made the purchase on the 27th of November, yes, Black Friday. It arrived well after Black Friday but first week of December which is decent by our current standards but alas, it was no Transcend, it was a defective SanDisk, meant for a phone but with a jacket (an adapter) to make it fit in a camera. I had since tried to make a return and the unpleasant response I got initiated this warning to my friends and my friends' friends and my friends' friends' friends... you get the drift.

You bought it on Black Friday, we don't accept returns on Black Fridays...

The morale of the story is that seasonal shopping, like BLACK FRIDAY and 12:12 are special days that suppliers ship bad stock to customers, with the incentive that it cannot be returned, and we know that humans respond to incentives.

Hmm, who knows what other days there won't be returns. It turned out that somewhere in the order verification email that I got the clause was inserted that there won't be returns. If only my interesting eyes had seen that I was buying a "No testing" item from one of the companies that revolutionized online retail in Nigeria, that same "No testing" that you will expect to get from... let me not mention those markets, boys dey provoke now.

But remember, it was not even the product I purchased.

As clearly stated by Jacobs Injury Law... 

The concept of “buyer beware” is premised upon the idea that when two persons enter into an agreement, they both have enough information to evaluate the transaction.

The site goes on to say:

Immunizing businesses from civil justice does nothing to help the safety of the community.  In fact, it does the opposite.  It lets businesses commit harmful acts in secret, hurt the community, and tell them tough patooties.

But Buyers Beware is our most commoditized avenue to protect ourselves as consumers, so I'll rub it in, best as I can and hopefully this tiny voice in a corner of the internet reaches out and protects someone.

Have a CAVEAT EMPTOR holiday shopping.

The Corporate Affairs Commission: Another parastatal in dire need of overhauling? Part II

The story in Part I finally comes to a close.

5 months and 8 days, that's how long it takes to file a change of director, open an account in a bank (that one that has been around forever), complete the search and your account is activated. Along the way you also have to throw tantrum or it may take longer. Let's break it down.

1. You are naive like me, so you have a qualified company secretary but he does not understand that things don't just work in Nigeria, you have to "grease-the-wheel". So you file, 3 weeks before CAC in Yaba (Yaba is notorious for bad customer service) asks you to write a petition. Another petition in 3 weeks then you realize you're wasting time. 2 months down the line and you decide this is going nowhere, file a new set of documents, this time in Abuja.

2. You get a lot of traction in Abuja, correct a paper or two and 2 months later your papers are out. You submit at the private ministry (the bank). It happens to be at the end of the month so no one does anything, after all, your money will contribute to the monthly performance review (MPR) for that month. Then they try to make your money count towards the following month's MPR because they know you are pissed and will try to move everything to another bank.

By this time, you've spent 4.5 months trying to open an account, no thanks mostly to the CAC.

3. Your banker lies to you; actually they want the search to be fully updated on all CAC channels (apparently the channels are clogged) and this will happen in about 2 weeks. However you're made to wait 4 weeks and by this time your banker is not replying your emails. You go bunkers and escalate and threaten. It's already 5 months so you copy the bank's complaints unit, and put cpd@cbn.gov.ng and contact@cpc.gov.ng, both Consumer Protection units external to the bank. The following day, your account becomes active. It's a few days to MPR but your money is finally "spendable". It has lost value to devaluation and operational losses including costs of borrowings but finally you have the money! 

Five months and 8 days! 

The Corporate Affairs Commission: Another parastatal in dire need of overhauling?

The protagonist of this story is the Corporate Affairs Commission (hereafter called CAC); the story was born on the 19th of May 2015, it is a real live story and still unfolding. It has become my civic duty to share this story since other channels have proven abortive.

An overview for the skimmers

On the 19th of May 2015, my tech startup submitted a change of director request at the Yaba Lagos office of the CAC. The intent of course is to change the director structure of the company since some people have moved on and new people have come on board, just like every other thing in life.
Today, 17th August 2015 is the third month anniversary of submitting the fully vetted documents at CAC for a process we were assured will take a maximum of three weeks. We have been to the same office at least 10 times, written a complaint letter and yet another petition. The verbal response we have gotten, just so no one is committed, is that they cannot find our file.
If you are tempted to say, “It’s just to change directors right? Business can still go on can’t it?” Well, it’s like this. So we have been on a project for “that very big old blue bank” for a few months. To mitigate some past issues we decided to focus and prioritize their project and worked at it dedicated for a few months. In another article, I will be writing on why startups may want to avoid the big enterprises, but again that is for another day.
To cut the long story short, our “benefactor bank” insisted that this time around they will only pay into an account domiciled at their bank and can no longer give us a bank check to pay into our other bank accounts, which has been the practice erstwhile. Some directors in our startup have moved on and yes we were already re-documenting and yes we did protest about how it was not a good time. Despite the protests, we had to comply and expedite, especially since, “We have a new CEO from retail, he won’t allow payment to another bank account” and “It’s regulatory” or “It’s a compliance issue”. The most important reason, unsaid, however was, “Dude, just do it. We’re big and when we say toad, you jump”.
Like a rational company, we swung into action, faster this time, and submitted the necessary papers to CAC Yaba, Lagos office. Now you know half of the whole story.

So, kinni big deal?

Our account is frozen!
The bank opened our new account, paid us and froze the account. The account is frozen so stiffly that we cannot even hedge our exposure to de-valuation of the fund because they won’t even allow us to invest the money in government treasury bills in the same bank. Can you just imagine working for months, finally getting a bank alert but unable to shout “Godwin” because the fund is untouchable? The bank has conducted searches, but it returns the previous director structure. It seems CAC’s computer system shows the old company structure but they cannot locate the physical files to update it or something along these lines. Bottom line, we have not received one, not one response in any form from the CAC and that is why it seems I’m saying a lot of “seems” here.
Not everyone understands how this affects small businesses
As you hopefully know, cash-flow is the single most important thing that can keep any startup or any business for that matter alive, not even profit as many people think. The impact on our operations includes projects that cannot be actualized; salaries delayed but paid anyway not to mention a rising debt profile.
Try to imagine a project that should be adding to the bottom line but cannot be done but salary has to be paid anyway. By the time the issue is resolved, the money that should fund projects are instead used to offset debts.

The CAC Office, a detour

If you have been to any public sector office for any transaction, you’ll feel my pain. I remember one old NEPA office where a lady said I cannot give here anything with my left hand when my right hand was healing from a burn because, “It’s disrespectful”. My wife cited an incidence when her office called NAFDAC to lodge a complaint and a cold voice at the other end said, “I said good morning…” Do you remember how you are inclined to be extremely nice when you visit government offices because you know the slightest offense may keep you waiting for hours for no just cause (don’t get me wrong, I’m an advocate of being respectful to workers and others generally but you know what I mean).
On the other hand you will also relish the joy of speaking to the agent of a private bank or telco; recollect how they genuinely attempt to resolve your issue in a timely manner, how they strive to retain you as a customer and how you nag them despite all their efforts. That is the reward of service management, a topic that cannot be accommodated in this epistle.
Well, the CAC office is not different from that public sector office that you remember too well but discussing this will take us away from the today’s drama. Do you know it take hours to get attention at the CAC even when you can see no one is being attended to? Do you know a helpline exist but not very helpful? Do you know you can submit complaint letters and you are never contacted? Do you know you can write petitions and it goes down the drain? Do you know they lack service management? No ticketing system so no one can look at ageing requests and take appropriate actions?

So CAC can’t find the file? A theory

Some years ago, CAC relocated from Lagos to Abuja along with many other federal parastatals. After I spoke with several people while trying to resolve this impasse, there were suggestions that files may have been scattered, wrongly catalogued or stored in dusty rooms.
I find this inexcusable however; how will the CAC carry out its mandate as custodian of company and allied matters? How do we move from an agrarian society to a service society without mining the world’s latest most valuable raw material i.e. data? How do we then fight terrorism if every source of tangible data cannot contribute meaningful information to the pool? Has it suddenly become understandable how Honorable Abike Dabiri-Erewa’s name was wrongfully quoted as one of those accumulating bad debts in banks?
If they will allow it then I’ll bring volunteers from my 12-man team from Lagos to Abuja to search for the missing file.

So, why are you on social media?

If you have received your salary in the past 3 months I haven’t, and painfully not because I’m a sluggard who refused to work.  If you have wards in schools you already know school fees will be paid in September. Beside, a drowning man knows no straw. So if this is an accommodating medium where others have failed, I’ll cling to it. After all, no one is trying to pull down a PDP or APC government, just canvassing for better service management in the public sector.
And yes, we have written twice to the CAC; one a complaint letter submitted over 6 weeks ago at the same Yaba office and the second a petition to the registrar general, Mr. Bello Mahmud on the same day. None of these letters have commanded a response from the CAC even though it has full contact details including phone numbers.
I also got a scare; a friend told me it took him two years to resolve a similar issue. Another colleague spent nine weeks in an expedited attempt to register a company; CAC claims today that it 24 hours to register a company in Nigeria, apparently it takes three months plus to service them.

A note about our mentality, because culture matters to the wellbeing of a nation

As much as I empathize with our brothers in public service in many ways, from the need for an improved healthcare system to higher standard of living but dare I say it’s not all moonlight and roses in the private sector? The next time you carry a placard you must also consider if you have contributed your good to the national portfolio, if you were “on time” to work for the better part of last month, if you discharged your duty faithfully in your place of work, if you indulge in the fact that you are backed by a union and lose your sense of faithfulness in your call-to-service of the nation.
And it baffled me when a good number of people simply asked the same question in various ways, “Who is handling this document for you?  Does this person know what needs to be done?” I beg to say its impunity when you must know your “way around” before getting the most mundane task done at a government office.

Closing

If you have read up to this point you are probably a very concerned Nigerian and not here because of my eloquence for I make no such claim. If on the other hand you work for the CAC and you are concerned, you should be because I speak the truth and the truth may still be able to find strong benefactors in high places.
If you wish to represent me in this matter, I’ll appreciate it because it has been a traumatic experience. If it is arbitration, I welcome it in the interest of the nation. Above all, I’m an advocate of change; a change for the better that is.
I am Kehinde, I run Evince.
@kehindeadewusi

The saga ends, 5 months down the line. Part II

RME and FL Studio: My first cut

I finally got my studio equipment setup and was able to take my first recording!
My setup consists of the following equipment:

1. An RME Fireface UFX Audio Interface 
2. A CAD Audio E100S Condenser Mic
3. A laptop
4. 25ft balanced cable from Shure
5. Some more connectors
6. FL Studio

Getting used to the TotalMix software that shipped with the RME was, intimidating at first glance but I adjusted after some time (been looking at this unit for 3 days but decided today is the day). I opened FL studio today and their documentation was gracefully good enough and after minutes of toiling I recorded a sample.wav file.

The next big this is the project file setup in FL studio; this is one major piece of work that must be understood fully so as not to create file nightmares. I'll be posting my file system setup when I'm all convinced I have a winning formula.

EMBA 17: PAN African University, Lagos Business School

Yesterday (A few hours ago) marked my 1st day at LBS and the common threat is "You just sold your soul  for 2 years". It is estimated every participant will dedicate at least 18 hours a week (oh yes, besides the time spent attending lectures) to consuming and dissecting case study materials. If I though I had my hands full it just became an understatement. Attendance and class participation takes about 30% of every course grade, meaning introverts are about to loose their talents for keeping to themselves. Friday classes are usually from 12noon while Saturday classes are from 9am till 3pm so imagine all the wedding ceremonies and birthday parties missed! It was said of a guy whose wife parked all his course materials and set them ablaze.

EMBA 17 Class of 2012, about 70 man strong

I've decided to make this a very practical year:, even more practical than the case study method adopted here. Apply whatever I learn using Evince Systems as guinea pig. My hope is to make the period more tolerable doing this but today is just day 2 and I'm already running late reviewing pre-course materials for Analysis of Business Problems.

Yesterday we had a tour of the facilities and it was slightly amazing what the eyes could see in a building I had hitherto considered tiny: a library, a rather large amphi-teatre and a number of lecture halls and facilities some donated by the big names in telecommunications and conglomerates in Nigeria  Oh Yes I see a nice looking football pitch so I won't miss mobile FC at Unilag that much and not too far from this is a bar to replace the lost calories. Friday 20th will linger in my memories for a while.

The football pitch, beyond the last fence.

Impressive amphitheater, knitted somewhere in the building

I won't be the only one not forgetting Friday 20th January 2012 for a while, this day, Eneche Akogwu was shot dead in Kano. Eneche, a Channels TV correspondent was interviewing eye witnesses in Kano after a series of coordinated bombings. It was reported one of them drew a gun and shot him dead.
The bombings had since been claimed by the radical Islamic sect Boko-Haram. This bombing has been reported the most lethal till date with more than 100 people reported dead.

Kodearena is back

After 5 years! (covers face in shame) and kodearena is born into fire nation. The next and biggest code jam and software developer conference in Nigeria. Kodearena disappeared in 2006 but we still believe kodearena can save Nigeria.

As usual, we advocate diverse programming languages. kodearena.com in 2006 was developed with django but 2011 will be asp.net mvc. The concept has changed slightly and we don't have a theme yet so I guess this is the best time for you to get on-board.

Kodearena.com has been renewed and set to auto-renew. The project for the website will soon be available on git. Watch this space for more developments.

Things have been happening

Yesterday, I felt a very strong urge to return to my blog after such a long time. I'm a very different man as I speak.

Amarachi Omoniinioluwa Adewusi is born! [18th March 2010]

In case you didn't get it, I now have a daughter, wow!

Yesterday, I watched as another woman of virtue was sworn in by a majority of the senate for a second tenure as minister (Dr Mrs Dora Akunyili). Despite the beef by some members of the senate (one of them said she cooks for Turai, kai) the majority had better judgement, returning a glimmer of hope in the senate.

Lastly yesterday saw the result of determination overtake overconfidence: Arsenal drew 2 - 2 away at Barca in the champions league. FYI, I ain't no gunner!

Life is getting better, I've been happy for such a long time, God help me.

www2.ng.zain.com

My team, this time Ope Adeoye, Akosa Onyebuchi, Ademola Adedeji and Kehinde Adewusi :) have been working on project x. It's not secret and x=www2.ng.zain.com.

It will end up being the replacement for www.ng.zain.com, hopefully we don't get to change name before it goes live.

Things to expect from www2?

• Live chat with a few dedicated chat agent
• Self service for our customers. Subscribers will be able to register with their mobile phones. Registered subscribers will be able to log calls which was previously available only through 111. Sim swap requests, illegible cards etc.
• Interesting search. Product information will of course be available online.
• Electronic bills
• Yellow pages and a host of other features.

To catch an early preview, visit http://www2.ng.zain.com. The current site is still available while www2 is being perfected into a v1 compliant website.

Zain Strikes

Yesterday we lost weight at Zain by about 300 employees, now ex. Last week, about 450 were transferred to ITS "So that anything that is not core to the business can be outsourced".

We've been expecting something like this for the past four months but the reality left a lugubrious cloud hanging overhead yesterday. Marketing, Finance, Service Desk appears to be among those affected.

More info soon.

Einstein on God

http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/#url=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.flickr.com%252Fphotos%252Fcallrw%252F3310109127%252F

Zain Millionaire Promo

We've had a lot to do this year despite the fact that the world is experiencing modern day farmine otherwise known as economic recession. Anyway, So much for farmine, Zain is going to make some millionaires come February 14.

That is what the application we've (I, Ope Adeoye, Seyi Sodiya and Akosa) been building looks like. Ope has beautifully crafted the site in asp.net 3.5 mvc framework (what's that?), Akosa, now fondly called Zain Presentation foundation came up with that UI while I and Seyi did the bulk of the database programming and testing.

Ha! those thieves are out again to give money to their loved ones!

You don't get it do you? Promos are either done transparently around here or not at all. The data goes through 3 layers of integrity check before it's rolled out to the press. Zain revenue assurance unit starts the process of pulling the usage data from call data. The data is double checked by prepaid and post paid billing units before it's rolled out.

At rolling out, TC-QA or other external verification outfits are invited for quality and integrity checks among others. On the days of the draws, pressmen are invited to witness the drawing process and "men of the IRS", yes, that is what I like to call our internal audit are unleashed on poor "us" the whole time. I think they get promoted by the number of discrepancies they catch or what it their motivation?

Well, you get fired if anything goes wrong (I think?) and I don't think Festus Kiyamo will defend a scumbag :). By the way, I hear balls shrink when that dude writes organizations, you might want to try him out. The last time he (Festus) was on air he was yabbing the Nigerian police for parading a got as an armed robbery suspect. The robber it appeared magically turned into a goat to avoid arrest.

Back to Zain Naija talk your way to millions, to qualify: you need to have recharged up to N700 for the regular users and for postpaid folks, you must have used N700 worth of airtime. Naturally, the more you use the higher your chances of winning.

Zain will make 25 millionaires in 4 weeks and 100 people will go home with N100, 000 cash prizes.

Think the Naira is worthless, wait till people start winning and you will see the numbers of entries soar! Today we generated about 114, 000 tickets. I'll let you know when the figures climb.

Universal Studios Orlando

Planning a vacation? I'll recommend Universal studios. Unfortunately words cannot express what I have witnessed. I did capture some moments in pictures here.
I re-lived Jurasic park and took a tour where the movie was made, the gate still opens beautifully with the same voice welcoming us to the un-civilization-before-man. The jeep that was attacked by the dinosaurs remain at a spot with one of those tyrex overlooking it, still ready to strike. The very interesting parts of the movie are still alive, the dinosaurs still tried to attack us :) and a final plunge down to safety got adrenaline pumping.
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At another spot, we were swept off into space by Dr. Doom and this remains our most intriguing experience because it was unexpected: we had strapped ourselves into seats and a slow ascent started, we were suddenly swept up into space and man, did I think death? It was worse when we were released from a height. I don't even want to talk about the incredible hulk crawler because I'm not looking forward to it ever again, ever ever.
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The coolest, imagine being loaded into an episode of spider man. You board a light aircraft and spider man suddenly lands on your craft with a thud and warns you to get back to the office but he gets attacked before he is done. You suffer attacks from a flame throwing being and the temperature in the cabin starts to heat up alarmingly. A blow from some monsters makes you duck and the cabin shudders terribly and spider man is back to the rescue. He attacks some sea monster and you get a spray of water. A monster with a megadrill lands on your cabin, tries to drill through and everything vibrates. The you start to ascend amidst the city's skyscrapers, the aircraft gets attacked by some really vicious offenders and start to plunge down with alarming speed and spider man rescues the whole craft by spinning a web.
It's indeed the best part.
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Before we left, we had the chance to watch a limited version of Shrek and Donkey where Lord Farquaad's ghost came back to steal Princess Fiona. "You died in the first part" donkey remind's Lord Farquaad. It's a 4-D version where you see flames and stuff coming in your direction and donkey sneezing in your face. I must mention Spider man felt more 4D than Shrek though.
We got to snap pictures with hell boy and Ope got a chance to slap him on the head. Chucky was in the house too.

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View all pictures here on picasa.

Chuck Berry

Apparently there have been "stars" way back before we were born. I watched this short clip on TV and the internet. Really got me inspired to see the way men have faced challenges in the past and set standards.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Here, Mos Def plays Chuck Berry, now I'm looking forward to the main movie "Cadillac Records". Awards up for grabs I guess. Movie also features Beyonce as Etta James.

Orlando, Florida

Thursday 27: 10-15am Lagos local - 10:30pm Thursday (Orlando local time)

Got into town Thursday night with Ope Adeoye. It was a very tiring ride on Delta, 12 hrs 42 mins, direct flight from Lagos to Atlanta. The ride however from Atlanta to Orlando International took 5mins (I slept for the 1.5hrs and that's how long it felt). I succumbed to the lure of duty free and got a Titinium plated Skagen and a new reading glass to replace the two broken items I carry around at the moment, damaging my "keep it low" resolve on this trip, we're really trying to manage our very low budget for 12 days.

Touchdown was great and we started feeling the Naira-meets-dollars saga immediately. We paid $50 for a ride to the Marriot villages Hotel in a long cab, the journey was less that 25 minutes! I can't forget that's N6, 000 Naija money, plus I got a N1,000 ride for a longer distance same day in Lagos.



At the hotel next, it's $140 (forget the .99cents that is ever present in UK and US) for the night and we're definitely shopping for something not 4.5 star in the morning.

The next set of issues to be breasted includes getting a SIM and adapters for the laptops. You won't dare roam or you'll accumulate bills in the range of N10k in 2 days. As for the adapters, remember the Yankee 120volts issues? luckily the HP machines nowadays support both voltages but the pins we have can't fit the walls, so we quickly use up the remaining battery life on my system, Naija NEPA don show Ope and I was lucky to have an inverter.

The rooms are however very cosy and sleep up for grabs.

Friday 3am - Friday 11pm

Got a smaller hotel today, just for the weekend and would probably be back at the Marriot Monday for the business of software :). Took a walk to Orlando premium outlets and only got a KODAK easyshare camera, now Naija police are going to get popular from my newly acquired Paparazzi skills. Black friday sales are slated for this weekend so we're taking our time not to overshop. Everybody is waiting for the weekend sales to get a great deal.


Ope got a phone, a net 10 for $30 and we bought a call card for $10. Now you can't call Naija directly from an At&T Net 10 without a call card, but beware of those cards. The one we got lasted less than 4minutes, approx 2 minutes talking to family, approx 2 minutes phone ringing without response burned out the credits. Horrible. Now we've given friends the line and we only get in-bound calls, unless it's a life threatening situation.



Saturday 4am

Notice I've been getting up really early, either my system is still running Naija time or I'm renewed by the scenery. Orlando is beautiful, day and night. We missed the opening of the weekend sales, slept off early but maybe it's not such a bad thing. The news have it that a Walmart attendant was trampled to death because of the teaming crowd waiting to start the sales weekend and the outlet (in New York) had to be closed for hours. A woman reported she was injured in the rush but waited till she finished shopping before going to the police!

So much for the yanks, we're getting ready for breakfast now.

FW: Is this democracy? Harry Arogundade

To: Kehinde Adewusi
Subject: [Mi Mantra] FW: Is this democracy?

Let him be remembered as the "Rear Admiral" who ordered his "Men" to beat up a lady on the streets of Lagos.
May his barbaric acts linger in our memories.


View Video here


From: Ope Adeoye
Sent: 06 November 2008 10:20 AM
To: IT Application Development
Subject: Is this democracy?

Let us immortalise the name 'Harry Arogundade' such that when anyone googles for him they'd only get results that show him for who he is even when we have all passed on.

Simply contribute to the 'noise' on the internet... Facebook, Digg, Nairaland, Blogs, Nigeria Village Square, Punch...

Please pass this on...

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Zain Search Trends

Google has enough good stuff for web entrepreneurs really, I did a quick comparison of search volumes for Zain, MTN, Glo, Etisalat and got the chart above, not good for Zain really (they put bread on the table now). Zain is in marine blue and the blue topping that chart is actually MTN. It's not because Zain changed name too, the red line is Celtel so I figure the company's web presence is kind of low.
Glo is in yellow so I wonder what's going on here, anyway you got the gist, here is the live link.
Enjoy the trends you can, I compare my old name "kehinde adewusi" to "keni adewusi", google to yahoo and fried eggs to scrambled eggs.
You bring it on and let's see what's going on out there, remember to separate you keys with commas.

Dubai's very best

There!, my little nieces dancing away in the middle east. These little girls dance at the slightest sound of music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMIAJJbv-Ko

Postcard from Lagos: The 7 Wonders of Nigeria - Part 1 - Okada

Postcard from Lagos: The 7 Wonders of Nigeria - Part 1 - Okada