₦airaland Forum

Portharcourt: Visiting the Garden City

By: Deji Yesufu

It is no longer news that I visited Rivers State, Portharcourt, to be specific this past week. There were two reasons to be excited about visiting Portharcourt. First, I had lived in Portharcourt as a child and was looking forward to seeing what the city had become. The second was the joys of finally being recognized in a formal sense by a local church, a reformed Baptist Church, and being ordained into ministry. The man who ordained me is Pastor Aniekan Ekpo. He is the Pastor of Christ’s Reformed Baptist Church, also called The Reformed Tabernacle, situated at Rumoadara, in the heart of Portharcourt city. Pastor Ani, as we love to call him, trained as a pastor at the London Metropolitan Tabernacle (the Church C. H. Spurgeon pastored in the latter half of the 19th century). Pastor Ani was trained and commissioned into ministry by Dr. Peter Masters, the current minister at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Pastor Ani had been a minister with Qua Iboe churches, an evangelical Church, with roots in Akwa Ibom State. Pastor Ani eventually left Qua Iboe and commenced a full fledged reformed ministry in Portharcourt. It can be argued that Pastor Ani is the first Nigerian to begin a reformed work in this country. I am genuinely blessed to have been commissioned into ministry by this man.

The last time I travelled the Benin expressway was in 2018 when I went to Enugu to market my book Victor Banjo. The whole region of South-East and South-south Nigeria was the theatre in which the Nigerian civil war was prosecuted and as a civil war historian, driving through the city, the story of war comes alive. Benin reminded me of the botched Midwest invasion by the Liberation Army which Victor Banjo led. The failure of that mission was the reason the government of Biafra executed Banjo and three others on September 24, 1967. Portharcourt, on the other hand, reminds me of the third Marine Commando led by Col. Benjamin Adekunle and his supporting officers of Majors Alabi-Isama and Akinrinade. Alabi-Isama tells the story of how Portharcourt was taken in 1968 by the Nigerian army and it became a springboard with which the army captured Owerri and other key Biafran strongholds – ending the war. I was delighted to see Hotel Presidential still regale at the centre of Portharcourt. This was the edifice that housed the Nigerian army after they took over the city from the Biafrans.


As a minister of the gospel, the first thing I recognize when entering a city is the people. Portharcourt is a densely populated city of about 3.5 million people. It is the capital city of Rivers State. The present governor, Nyesom Wike, has committed quite a lot of resources to building infrastructures – in fact I was still in the city on the day the President elect, Bola Tinubu, visited the city. Wike’s plea that Tinubu’s government should refund the state monies used to build federal roads fell on Tinubu’s deaf ears. Governor Wike had joined forces with Bola Tinubu to ensure that Rivers State was captured by the All Progressive Congress and they succeeded at it. In fact everywhere I went to in Portharcourt and I asked people about the just concluded elections, you could read the deep resentment against the governor. People told me they were mostly first time voters; they got their PVCs and voted massively for Peter Obi of the Labor Party. The word, however, on the streets was that Wike and his boys stole the people’s mandate. They allegedly walked into INEC coalition centres and rewrote the results. It is one reason why the BVAS failing to upload to the IREV was a major mishap in the just concluded elections. Proof that the state government knows people are still angry with them is seen in the fact that INEC state office is still being guarded by security forces three months after elections were concluded. The main road that passes through INEC Portharcourt is still shut down, with soldiers stationed there.


My stay in Portharcour was not all about mourning Wike. I had the wonderful opportunity of visiting the city centre, somewhere around a government reserved area. I went to fellowship with Crystal Vine Community Church, led by Pastor Nonso Ubajekwe, on their Wednesday midweek servjce. I am friends with a number of folks in the church on Facebook. So Maple Tammy Dapa (of mapemond.com) got a Bolt driver to bring me from Rumoadara to the city centre. The ten kilometre journey allowed me to see the glamour of Portharcourt. On Friday, a day before I left the city, Deacon Ken Maobi and his wife had me at their home for dinner. Summing up my experience at Portharcourt in a splendid way.

My thoughts on Portharcourt is my deduction on every part of Nigeria. Portharcourt is a city that houses the obscenely wealthy and the most heart wrenching poor in the same space. This is not a safe way to live because the moment the poor are left with nothing to eat, they will turn on the rich. The answer many proffer is to japa – join the mass exodus of middle class professionals leaving Nigeria. The question then is: where does a Christian minister like me leave to? How do I stand before God in eternity and tell him I left my country of primary assignment because there was famine in the land? Christian ministers should not only proffer solution to spiritual problems, we can also suggest ways at ameliorating our social issues. Beginning with government: we must have people in power that will serve the common men. Then we must have young people who will commit to building this country regardless of the allure of japa. Finally, all of us can commit to doing the right thing within our space of influence. As this wind of positive influence widens out, things will get better in this country.


Portharcourt is a city of great potential – like most parts of Nigeria. We can get the best out of that city and out of this country.

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/portharcourt-visiting-the-garden-city/

Kobojunkie:
1. Can I ask what that has to do with this discourse? I mean what does that have to do with any of what has been said so far? Does it remove in some way from what is in fact stated of God in scripture?

Kobojunkie:
1. By holistically, you mean through the delusional goggles of religion which causes you to add your very own private thoughts to the mouth of God Himself, right?

2. God never said anything about offering redemption to humanity as He instead insists that what He offers applies only to those of the blood of Jacob. So where exactly does this religious narrative of yours come from as it does not align with that written in scripture.

3. Again, there is no scriptural evidence for this claim that God, after the death of Jesus Christ, extended His plan for redemption to all of mankind, particularly since Jesus Christ's instructions to His followers after His death was that they go and do exactly all He had taught to them --- before His death--- to those in the world, meaning they were to go only to the Lost sheep of Israel scattered all over the world by God.

4. The one and only country of interest to God is His Israel, that is established throughout all of scripture. Every other external claim is born of religion.

Kobojunkie:
Here's a little bit of what is in fact written in scripture you made several references to.
A: He identifies Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob alone.

B. God announced that His only inheritance in the land of men is the people of Israel.

C. Jesus Christ proclaimed that He was sent only to the Lost sheep of Israel this as He also sent His followers only to the people of Israel.

So, given Scriptural detail on His identity, I took the liberty of making changes to the concluding paragraphs to give you an idea of your error.
Does the above still make sense to you?

Kobojunkie:
This writeup serves as evidence of the damage religion has done to otherwise intelligent minds in Nigeria.

doggedfighter:
Mr Bamgbose , well done ooo

Nice advert.

ecolime:
Mr Bamgbose, is that you?

tplayer:
And third class is underrated, abi.

Second-Class Upper is Overrated in Nigeria

By: Deji Yesufu

A young man I work with on the mission field is trusting God to get a job. We all know that to get a job in Nigeria is only akin to finding a needle in a haystack; only second to Moses’ dividing the red sea. It is pretty difficult and even more difficult in an economy like today’s. So I reached out to an acquaintance and asked if my friend could be helped at their organisation. He said “…o yes, he can be taken in as a graduate trainee”. Except that the young man must have nothing short of a “2-1”. That information drew out an avalanche of nostalgia in me. The almighty “2-1”; the unatenable second class upper has again returned to hunt me.

My days at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, was a lifetime. I entered school at the age of 17. I left the university when I was 25. I literally grew up in school. I did a five year course; I had an extra semester – which culminated in an extra year; and ASUU strike gave me the remaining years in school. For a long time, my mates and I held the record of the most years spent in a Nigerian university. Besides the long years in school, there was also the pursuit of a good grade. I mostly hovered around a third class grade. But in my final three years, I found a secret to getting good grades (studying past questions) and this propelled me into a comfortable “2-2”. But all the talk among my mates was that if you don’t have “2-1” you will not be invited for tests with companies that offered good jobs. I remembered how some of my friends nearly killed themselves getting “2-1”. At the long run, everyone got a grade and we left school to face real life.

Now, this is my summation of what real life is. Grades, particularly those obtained from Nigerian universities, are the worst form of accessing the academic capabilities of students and graduates. Ideally grades should tell you which student is better than the other. But the problem is that the way and manner many of our students get their grades leave them worse than they were when they entered school. My point is that many Nigerian universities do not train their students to be experts in their fields. They train them mostly to pass examinations. So that after a year study, a student knows mostly the theory in his training and not the substance. And the pursuit of grades makes this worse: students cram; they pay their teachers for grades; they cheat; and in some extreme cases sleep with lecturers to get grades. So, you get a graduate with a “2-1” who knows practically nothing in his field of study. In the other realm, you have students with third class who are walking encyclopaedias of the course they read.

Recently I concluded a Master Degree course with a foreign University. It was as if I had never been to school. I left the school with a walking knowledge of my course of study. Funny enough, the school did not test us in the traditional manner we examine students here. All our examinations were “open book”. We were required to even quote our sources, etc. Now I understand that this will work better in the humanities than in the sciences. But my point is that the aim of examining the student was never for getting grades but whether or not we understood our subject of study. I left that school with a hunger to read all my textbooks all over again. I see my teachers when I’m on my field of practice. I see their warning, their advice, etc. Not for once did we study to pass because there was no need for such. And this malaise with Nigerian schools is not just in Engineering alone. I see it also even in the manner our medical doctors are trained and tested. You often get the impression that the aim of examining students is for them to get grades and not for them to have an understanding of their field of study.

It had been 22 years since I left the university. A few years ago, one of my classmates created a WhatsApp group where we all meet to interact. I can tell you for free that most of the guys that had passes and third class are the ones doing well among us. Our first classers and “2-1”ers are either lectures in universities or at best consultants with institutions. It is the third classers that are the business men and the professionals on the field. And I am talking of a class of an average of one hundred electrical engineers. I met one of us at a burial recently, who had graduated with a third class. You could tell he was being very modest as he curtailed how well he was doing in life so as not to shame the rest of us. I can tell anyone for free: Nigerian university grade systems are the worst ways to evaluate the capabilities of individuals that leave our schools.

My friend is still trusting God for a job and I have told him not to worry himself too much; it will come. His “2-2” is a silent humbler that will prepare him for the right employer. He will do better in life than teaching in a university or working as one beggarly consultant somewhere.

My questions are:
1. if someone had chosen or should choose christian / christian ticket, will there be peace?

2. Does the God of Nigerian Christians answer their prayers concerning leadership at all?

3. How have the Nigerian Christians benefited from the outgoing leadership of this country?

Steep:
Who is this one?

Soloknight:
Please where is the venue of the meeting

Dailyparrot:
I have to create this thread after reading through the topic on front page asking for jobs/professions that will make you not to marry someone.

So, I'm talking to this Unizik student that's studying medical radiography. Everything was going well. She even told me that she has told her mother about me and all. We met on Facebook and she's already asking to see me in person.

Until the day she found out that I use my car for Uber/Bolt business, everything changed. This girl stopped talking to me.

She has never been to Lagos and does not know how Uber works. She was asking how much I earn in a day, and that hope the Uber is not like their normal school cab that charge 100 naira per person, bla bla bla.

Well, I just don't want to let her know my net worth. I don't do Uber full time. I work on Fiverr and because sales dropped there, I decided to use Uber to make up for the income. I also do academic research for foreign students. Etc. I am into a lot of stuffs that fetch me nothing less than 400k a month so I don't think I should be regarded poor.

My house in the East is at roofing level. I am almost completing the payment of 4.5 million for a land I'm purchasing at Mowe, I own my car plus another Sienna I bought when Fiverr was booming.

I have a masters degree. So, should a girl reject me because I use my car to drive on Uber?

I am just laughing at her ignorance. The other time, we were talking and I jokingly asked her why she's putting on make up, and she was like, so she can find better suitors.

I thence assume I am not a better suitor because to her, I'm poor. This is someone earning 8k per month in the school that she was teaching during ASUU strike.

I wonder why women are impatient when it comes to taking decisions and that's why most of them regret later.

I am supposing being a medical student makes this girl think she deserves someone better than just a cab driver.

LOL.

Wiseandtrue:
Another concocted lies! Deji Yesufu, it's in the news how this regime is committing different crimes and blaming it on IPOBs! Go and educate yaself!

Dialogue Buhari tell you say him want dialogue How many people have intervened, did he listen

Person wey want dialogue dey call a part of country he preside 5% and dot

We are talking about a "president" that kills protesters here!

So abeg! Keep your advise for Buhari because if he truly want dialogue, he knows how to go about it!

gidgiddy:
Nigerians are the only people on earth who pray for peace to come, while sitting on top of a mountain of injustice

That doesnt happen in the real world

Nigeria is 6th most terrorised country in the world for a reason. Rather than asking what is propelling young people to take up arms against government, you are asking and praying to come from where?


From a country built on injustice, unfairness and corruption?

This is not a matter of IPOB, this is a matter of Nigeria

I love peace but Im a realistic person who knows that the Nigeria of today cannot bring peace

dontrulee:
You're a making a good choice but it will be difficult Sha.

Medical doctors hardly have time for themselves not to talk of having time for family, perhaps in the UK, it may be better.
But here are a few challenges you may have:
1. Most medical doctors have a fixed way of doing things, this may eventually show in their homes and if their spouse is not understanding, it may lead to issues.

2. If you marry a medical doctor, the way she thinks will definitely be different from the way you think. This will lead to a clash of personalities. Not to talk of female medical doctors that feel they're on top of the world and everyone is beneath them, however some are very humble and have good character.

3. You can be well assured that you and your children will be taken care of health wise but they may not have luxury of time to spend with you and your children and time is needed to build emotional attraction and love in a family. Think well.


4. Most medical personnel are boring to be with, they think of medicine almost all the time. Can you cope if your partner is one of such persons??

In summary, weigh the benefits and the risks and choose, in my own personal opinion it will be good if you marry her but there will definitely be some little frictions trying to understand each other's misunderstanding!