Boost your immunity with Vitamin C and Zinc

Many people across the world are protecting their lives with vitamins and supplements

The Covid-19 pandemic is becoming scarier every passing day. Most people are now taking the Covid-19 protocols more seriously as advised by World Health Organisation (social distancing, hand washing/sanitisation and mask wearing), yet the pandemic keeps escalating. As at Wednesday evening, 92.2 million cases have been recorded worldwide, 50.9 million people recovered while 1.98 million people tragically lost their lives.

It’s time to take extra precautionary measures to keep safe. From interactions with medical personnel and from my personal experience, a daily dosage of Vitamin C (1,000 mg) and Zinc (50 mg) can be a lifesaver before, during and after the infection as it boosts immunity and helps to fight the virus. In addition to the vitamins and supplements, many survived the virus by regularly drinking tea made from turmeric/ginger, garlic, lemon, lime and cinnamon (you can add pineapple peel to lighten the bitter taste).

Whether you want to use it to boost your immunity, overcome pre/post natal stress, weight loss or as food supplement, taking vitamins and supplements has become an essential daily routine. You can order yours from any reputable health store.

#Covid-19, #world health organisation, #vitamins #supplements

The attitude of gratitude

 

Photo Credit: #SpiritualLivingBoulderValley

Great food, great company, convivial conversations. If you are lucky to experience that every now and then, enjoy it to the fullest. 

Truly, life has no duplicate. Be grateful to GOD and the amazing people around you. 

Never miss an opportunity to express your profound gratitude. Gratitude is the emotional debt you pay to reciprocate every act of kindness extended to you. 

You have the power to choose between a solvent life filled with deep gratitude or a life of attitudinal insolvency. 

Often, all it takes is the heartfelt two-word phrase, THAK YOU. A lady evangelist is fond of saying GRATITUDE IS MY #ATTITUDE. 

Gratitude can also be your attitude. Try it and you will be shocked to discover how far it will take you in life.

Don't be discouraged when your act of kindness is rewarded with dismissiveness, ingratitude or downright provocation. Even in the Bible, only one out of ten healed lepers returned to express gratitude to our Lord and Saviour, JESUS CHRIST.

Jettisson those unproductive feelings of entitlement and ingratitude from this very moment if you are a beneficiary of people's kindness. 

Conversely, be kind to everyone around you if you are a benefactor. Never for a moment hold back from being kind to others just because of seeming ingrates you have encountered in life. 

It can be daunting, but nothing is more fulfilling than making the world a better place just by being kind to others.

It starts with me. THANK YOU for your time.

#sharingiscaringplease share your experience about #attitude or #gratitude.

https://youtu.be/b1gtRMLwM1o

Why China's global dominance of aviation is inevitable

Photo credit: COMAC

Fasten your seatbelt and brace up for the disruption of all disruptions in the global aviation industry. 

A hawkish challenger, China's COMAC is gearing up to break the duopoly of incumbent Boeing and Airbus in passenger aircraft manufacturing. It's all part of China's rising influence in the aviation sector as it matches towards a certain inevitability to become the dominant player in the aviation sector.

There are other aircraft manufacturers in the industry such as Embraer, United Aircraft Corporation, Bombardier, Dassault Aviation, Textron, General Dynamics and Spirit AeroSystems but both Boeing and Airbus have dominated the sector for decades in a manner that made their competitors looked like minnows.

In the years ahead, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) will not only enthral the aviation industry and change the competitive landscape into a triopoly but also push to make the C919, CR929 and ARJ21 aircraft series it manufactures the most ordered in the sector. 

Initial dismissive attitude of Boeing and Airbus that C919 was a nonstarter, has undergone reality checks and the tone is becoming more circumspect.

C919 cockpit. Credit: Traveller.com

Currently, Airbus, a European multinational aerospace corporation founded in 1970, with Dutch heritage, is the world's largest airliner manufacturer as it enjoys the largest airliner orders globally. It delivered a record 863 aircraft in 2019. The 2020 figures are still undergoing compilation but there are indications its order for last year eclipsed its previous records.

Though Airbus’ top-of-the-range commercial aircraft, helicopters, military transports, satellites and launch vehicles have held the aviation world in awe for years, it played second-fiddle to Boeing since 2012.

Europe's Airbus upended Boeing’s leadership after the American airliner’s woes with its bestselling MAX jets exacerbated in 2019. It was the worst year for Boeing in three decades, losing orders for 87 commercial airplanes for the first time in that period.

Boeing, an American multinational corporation, was founded in 1916 and it became a gold standard bearer of sort in the manufacturing of airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment and missiles.

The foray of COMAC into the sector has been years in the making. Its C919 gained global attention in May 2017 when it made its first commercial flight but the gestation period seems over and the triopoly era seems set to roll in.

C919 already picked 815 orders from 28 customers in 22 countries made up of largely Chinese airlines. The maiden commercial deliveries for C919 are slated for this year to China Eastern Airlines. COMAC on its official website said, in a post dated July 17, 2020, that its ARJ21-700 aircraft had officially joined the fleets of Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines. Reports said 24 of the series were delivered to the Chinese airlines.

 

That is one of the underlying strategies behind China’s pumping of $45 billion to prop up its own commercial aircraft. China envisaged spending $120 billion annually on commercial aircraft alone. That is about a quarter of the $430 billion spent by airlines worldwide in 2020 according to statista.com. 

China’s combined total spend on 8,090 new passenger aircraft and allied services in the next 20 years is estimated by Boeing to be in the neighbourhood of $2.9 trillion, an amount that is equal to the current size of Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). 

It, therefore, made shrewd immediate and long term sense if Beijing could invest in its own locally manufactured aircraft and keep the bulk of the expenses it must make on aviation in the local economy. It’s also a matter of national pride.

From every parameter, China has the momentum to be the biggest manufacturer of passenger airliner in the world. Not only does it have the population of about 1.4 billion people, it is the world’s second largest economy. 

Its economy has consistently been among the fastest growing in the last decade and it has deliberately developed its C919 to be the preference of airlines. China can flex its economic and political muscles internally and externally to make C919 thrive.

The C919 has larger lavatories than what other airline manufacturers currently offer, meaning that the era of squeezing into small airplane toilet compartments is over and passengers can now enjoy the premium convenience of using a best-in-class lavatory in the air without cramps.

C919 also has bigger space in the aisle, thereby making it easier for the cabin and crew to manoeuvre their trolleys. It’s a space even passengers would love, particularly those who are claustrophobic. 

In a world now redefined by compliance with Covid-19 protocols, adequate space in the air or on the land is a factor everyone will eagerly embrace.

The concept of the big space was also extended to the galley, the arena that serves as the holding bay/kitchenette for the crew to discharge their duties. No longer will the cabin crew need to be bound in a tiny cubicle to prep up before serving passengers.

The biggest attraction to airliners in C919 is the carbon footprint said to be more efficient than Boeing 737 and Airbus’ A320. 

The CFM LEAP-1C engine, which was selected by COMAC as the sole Western engine option for the C919, offers "a 15% reduction in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions versus current engines, and up to a 50% margin on NOx emissions," said Safran to CNN late last year. 

Safran also said the engines will substantially reduce noise in and around the airports where the C919 operates.

America’s GE Aviation and French high-tech aero-engine manufacturer, Safran jointly manufactured the C919 Leap  -1C engines. C919 has the capacity for between 150 and 180 passengers.

Everything is beginning to crystallise for the Chinese aviation sector. China was projected to be the largest aviation market in the world by 2025, it achieved that feat five years earlier, leading the global aviation industry recovery post Covid 19 pandemic. 

China plans to build 200 airports in the next 25 years, it already shows its capabilities with the adroit delivery of the $65 billion Xinjiang International Airport. 

China needs almost 10,000 passenger aircraft in two decades, it has already perfected the strategy to meet its local aircraft demand. 

According to South China Morning Post, Chinese Scientists have successfully tested a revolutionary 12,000MPH hypersonic jet engine that could fly planes or missiles to anywhere in the world within two hours.

China's advanced FC-31 fighter plane is projected to make an appearance in 2021.

China is beginning to look like a future monopolistic player in the aviation sector. Is there a chance that China may in the future become the dominant player in the aviation sector? Many aviation experts may readily concur. What could be at dispute is when or how soon? 

Fraud has no national identity

Photo credit: paymentsjournal.com

I’m yet to see that country anywhere in the world where fraud is an official state policy. Rather, every country frowns at it and makes extant provisions in their statutes to punish fraudulent activities as a deterrent to offenders. Even in situations where some countries’ rogue leaders are kleptomaniac and in dalliance with graft and gluttony, they still maintain a facade of anti-graft crusaders.

I love the expression Americans coined for it. “Do the crime, do the time”. Just like the American society rejects it in its entirety, so do numerous other countries in America, north or south, Asia, Africa, Europe and Antarctica disavowed it. 

Fraud is often down to individual choices, it's not a national badge.

If this preamble has a familiar resonance, why then are individuals from certain countries racially profiled as fraudulent even when they have been squeaky clean all their lives without any dent in their public or private dossiers?

Recently, a young Nigerian-American was travelling to Nigeria when a caucasian security official stopped him at a major US airport. He frisked the traveller exhaustively and delayed him longer than usual to the point that the Blackman missed his flight. His reason: He felt the man was nervous and was probably concealing drugs in his body. Yes, the Blackman was anxious because he was rushing to get to the boarding gate before it closed. He needed empathy, not prejudice.

After what seemed like an eternity, the aviation security official allowed the traveller to go when he could’t find any drug on him as he had suspected. The official went back to his home and lived happily after without any dire consequences for his erroneous judgement call. The nonplussed Blackman, on the other hand, missed his flight and travelled back hundreds of kilometres to his base to rue his losses. Quietly, he wondered that probably he would not have been searched so intensely if he was not black with the double jeopardy of having Nigerian lineage.

Everyday around the world, people are profiled as potential fraudsters largely because of the colour of their skins. It is one aspect of the Martin Luther King dream that has been left unfulfilled.  Fraud has been weaponised and hung on people from certain countries like a national character.  

Even a site like Wikipedia vacuously claimed that advance-fee fraud “is a form of fraud that appears to be a field in which Nigerian entrepreneurs were pioneers and remain prominent.” How do you tar a whole generation of enterprising people with such a brush?

A 2016 America Community Survey estimated that there were 380,785 Americans with Nigerian ancestry, an overwhelming majority of who work conscientiously to contribute enormously towards making America greater. 

Recently, American President-elect, Joe Biden appointed one of them, 39-year-old Adewale Adeyemo as Deputy Treasury Secretary. There are many Adeyemos in virtually every aspect of life in America from the health sector to the academia, digital economy to manufacturing. 

Conversely, there are some fraudsters and minority misfits like Hushpuppi and Fred Ajudua who have helped to sustain the spurious narratives that made eager traducers label Nigerians and blacks as potential fraud kingpins. 

Section 419 of the Nigerian Criminal Code makes fraud a felony punishable with multiple years of imprisonment that could exceed a decade while the country established special anti-graft agencies to fight fraud.

Just as you have Nigerian fraudsters, so you have fraudsters in Ghana, United Kingdom, France, US, Brazil and the rest of the world. Do Nigerians think an average American is a criminal because the American criminal system incarcerated about 2.3 million people in 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,722 juvenile correctional facilities, 3134 local jails, 218 immigration detention facilities and 80 Indian country jails? No. 

As far as an average Nigerian or African is concerned, an average American, Asian, Arab or European is a decent person.  For Africans and black people generally, you are innocent until proven guilty. The reverse seems to hold sway for many Americans or Europeans when dealing with Nigerians or blacks. Every African is guilty until he/she establishes his/her innocence or so it appears. That's burlesque on justice!

It’s a mentality the world needs to shred.  While a country like Nigeria, for instance, needs to strengthen its criminal justice system and introduce further measures to enhance early detection and effective prosecution of fraudulent cases, the world also needs to learn to treat every individual on his/her merit irrespective of race or religion.  

All societies should work collaboratively to annihilate fraud because everyone is a victim. Daily, thousands of Africans also fall prey to internet fraud, some of which are deodorised like legitimate businesses. 

Isn’t it a fraud by other means when someone or an organisation collects people’s data and sell it to advertisers? Is it not a fraud in its crudest form when people make online purchases that never arrived even after paying? Is it not not fraudulent when people who are enticed to subscribe to services to get certain benefits are shortchanged? 

Who tracks those dishonest activities, name and shame culprits and ensure justice is served? It is heart-warming to note that globally, there has been an increased scrutiny to protect people’s data. The world must unite to fight the hydra-headed monster that fraud has become in whatever form. 

Dangote: A broken heart can still say the most terrific things

Netizens were ushered into 2021 with an unexpected post from an American restauranteur and realtor, Bea Lewis who claimed to be an ex-lover of Africa’s richest man and the richest Blackman in the world, Alhaji Aliko Dangote.

The post was more a celebration than a repudiation of the kind of person Dangote is. Even in her heartbrokenness, Bea still found the most uplifting expression to depict the positive impact Dangote made in her life. 

“He changed my perspective on work ethic and patience. Once my mindset changed, the universe gravitated me to people that uplifted me and increased my net worth mentally and financially,” she said in a post on Thursday.

We don’t know the details of what triggered the split-up, neither has Dangote admitted any relationship with the lady but for a lady who is still hurting, saying  Dangote “broke my heart in 1000 pieces” to have told the world the billionaire businessman was of tremendous help to her shows it is still possible for a wealthy man to treat people humanely.

“I dated the richest black man in the world. He broke my heart in 1000 pieces. I learned more from him than any person I’ve ever met. Communicating with a billionaire daily makes you see the world differently,” she wrote.

Listing the life lessons she leant from Dangote, Bea said, “I became more organized and finally am able to step away from the daily kitchen operations. I learned love without strings. Give your best without expectations. Nothing is forever.”

Bea runs a restaurant in Atlanta and she admitted in the post how the Dangote influence got her to diversify her portfolio. “I realized a half a million-dollar restaurant project was a bad investment. I purchased two properties. I started a consistent fitness regime. Became vegan. Obtained a profitable stock portfolio.”

There are countless tales of how rich men shabbily treated their lovers, mischaracterising them as conquests to be humiliated and trampled upon. 

Dangote definitely would have preferred that this kind of story be kept miles away from the public space but it has some positive spin-off for him and he has demonstrated that you could be rich and still treat people you encounter with dignity. To him, lives matter, black lives matter.

And who is is Bea Lewis? She is a 33-year-old lady from the Liberty City, Miami. She is the Founder of Hush Dinner Club in Atlanta, which according to claims on her LinkedIn profile, hosted & coordinated dinner events “for our 1000+ Subscribers at some of the best restaurants in Atlanta, including Bacchanalia, Umi, Yebo, Ink & Elm, Woodfire Grill, Bartaco, and Krog Streets Market's The Luminary, Gypsy Kitchen, Krog Street Market, Private Residences and more.” 

Bea who holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy with Minor in Economics from Georgia State University, dedicates quality time to volunteer services and discovering talents. “We have discovered Chefs on Social Media that have gone on to be featured in Food & Wine Magazine & teach classes at The Preserving Place,” she said on LinkedIn. 

“Our goal is to introduce diners to unique dining experiences with the best Chefs in Atlanta in a social setting, as well as promote up-and-coming Chefs and the Atlanta restaurant industry,” she enthused. 

Bea was a volunteer at High Museum of Art, Atlanta in the past 7 years, promoting arts and culture. She has also been a volunteer for almost 7 years at the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival to support disaster and humanitarian relief. The last humanitarian project she is identified with is the Giving Kitchen which she has been supporting since August 2014 to inspire the Children of Conservation.

Day of reckoning for political class

In Nigeria, it is a season of anomie with an unprecedented fear that the country is drifting towards a failed state (let's hope the drift doesn't metastasise because of the grim implications). 

I, therefore, cannot say how effective Ogun State Governor in Southwest Nigeria, Prince Dr. Dapo Abiodun, has been in governing his state since he got there almost 2 years ago. 

Even in the midst of the mist, it is easy to see his penchant for gratifying public desires. A couple of times when there were public outcries against official actions or misdemeanors by state agents, his government took preemptive strikes that indicated he sided with the people. It's obvious his officials are tracking the social media and taking steps to at least meet public expectations. 

Perhaps Abiodun's government sees the people of the state as strategic stakeholders it must do whatever it takes to satisfy. 

Governance is not rocket science if leaders can do their homework to understand the expectations of the people and their pain points and take proactive measures to give the people what they want. 

That is the kernel of the social contract between a government and the people. With the power of the social media, a government can identify critical issues within a few days, devise effective solutions, iterate and implement. 

That's the counsel to Nigerian leaders: use the enormous power of social media positively to govern better. The proclivity is rather about an inordinate desire to curb the influence of social media, an adventure that may blow up in the faces of its proponents. 

An elected official is in power at the pleasure or discretion of the people. In Nigeria, an entrenched and dubious scheme of sustained electoral fraud has gotten leaders so conceited to believe they can misrule, disingenuously manipulate votes and remain in power to continually oppress, suppress and depress the people. 

Unfortunately for the Nigerian political class, they failed to realise that it all adds up in the final analysis. At some point, the people will take back their power and reallocate it to those they think will serve their best interest.

There were 100 major antigovernment protests in 2020 including the anti-SARS protest in Nigeria, according to Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, resulting in the fall of 30 governments or leaders. Some of the biggest factors that provoked the protests were corruption, electoral fraud and impunity by law enforcement officials. 

It may be one day or one decade from now, but one thing is certain: the day of reckoning is beckoning for the Nigerian political class. It's inevitable.

China's indelible lifting of 850 million people out of poverty in 7 years

China has just taught the world an unforgettable lesson. With compacted political will, it is possible to move 850 million people out of poverty in 7 years. That is more than half the size of Africa's population, more than triple the population of the US  and over one hundred million more than the entire population of Europe. 

This is phenomenal by all standards. When I came to the United States in 2002, I heard the stories of desperate Chinese people who paid between $10,000 and $20,000 (that in itself is a lot) in order to escape poverty and iron-fist rule in their country and travel on the high sea with all the attendant risks, to settle in the US, a land flowing with honey, milk and freedom. Between 2000 and 2009, according to the Migration Policy Institute, 637,400 Chinese born immigrants obtained the US green cards.

All the liberation-seekers could see in their homeland was despair, poverty, limitations and hopelessness.

China, as it seemed or projected, was on the road to perdition until its leaders recalibrated and started taking critical steps towards redemption, internal confidence-building, growth and now dominance. 

The biggest trigger for the Chinese economic turnaround was its decision to open its economy to the world about 41 years ago. It was a smart move as China would later become the supply chain hub for the world's manufacturing.

Initial baby steps turned to giant strides in 2013 when China set a target to eliminate poverty by 2020. This was a decade shorter than the date of 2030 set by the World Bank in April 2013 when the global financial institution announced a new goal to end extreme poverty in a generation. Even that target of having not more than 3% of the world's population living on just $1.90 a day by 2030 is comedic but like they say in leadership, it is better to take an action, no matter how suboptimal, rather than failing to lift a finger.

Today, though over 1.4 billion people live in China, the country has fewer poor people than the US, the world's largest economy with a population of 300 million people and just about a quarter the size of the Chinese population.

Adopting a philosophy of "no state left behind", China mobilised national resources to support all the regions of the country lagging behind in development. It devoted its energy to providing road infrastructure, housing and other amenities in the rural areas.

China stoked the development of tourism in the regions as a vital step towards resuscitating the rural economy. Simultaneously, it also pumped resources into the development of rural agriculture, knowing as a conservative welfarist state that food security is fundamental to sustainable growth.

In ticking the boxes, China also provided universal health insurance coverage for its entire population and started relocating its poorest of the poor from rickety shelters to state-built brand new apartments. 

An emerging global champion in technology, China's broadband coverage extends to over 98% of its rural villages. Whether you are in the Gulin Hills or in Tuvas village in Kanas, Xinjiang, you can be sure of having high-speed internet access.

Learning from its recent bitter trade war with the US, China has now emphasised domestic consumption as a strategic national weapon. With the economic success of China came a rising middle class with a passion for foreign cars and other imported goods. 

Mainland China is now mobililising its citizenry to concentrate on local consumption of goods and services to stimulate the economy as part of the Made-in-China 2025 strategy. Where it fell short, it is quickly ramping up local production. For instance, China used to import tubes from Europe to meet up local demand for vaccines. China swiftly set machinery in motion to address the shortcoming and is now self sufficient in that regard.

Its focus is now fully on the technological space where it has served notice of its intention to stop being a mere imitator to becoming the global leader. It is an intention that is becoming increasingly evident to the world. China is the undisputed leader in 5G technology and is making enormous waves in Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT). 

China has also emerged in 2020 as the largest aviation market in the world. International Air Transport Association (IATA) says China is leading the global aviation industry recovery after the coronavirus pandemic. Though, the first case of new coronavirus was identified in Wuhan, China in December, 2019, China has managed to outsmart the virus.

Beijing has also successfully broken the duopoly of Boeing and Airbus by becoming the third country in the world to have the capacity to produce passenger aircraft in commercial quantity. The Chinese government pumped $45 billion to propel Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) to make the C919 series which now has 815 orders from 28 countries. 

According to an analysis by Boeing, China would need 8,090 new passenger aircraft deliveries and allied services in the next 20 years valued at $2.9 trillion. By smartly investing in the development of its own aircraft and other technologies, China will keep the bulk of that fund in its local economy. That is how to be the next superpower.