GRANDPA JOBS

My father told me a story. In fact, I should say he tells me a story, because, I’m still going to hear it maybe 20 times more before I’m off his grip. Perhaps he doesn’t remember he has told me before, but I’m going to tell you now, condensed, and hope that I do not forget I have told you before, like my father.

He told of me of his father, my grandfather. He told me my granddad was a man very much blessed with foresight. My granddad (of blessed memory or however Moslems revere their dead) was a Moslem. We hail from Ikere-Ekiti, but his ancestors were the Oyos, famed Ajala travelers, especially because of the rampant internecine wars of old, which was why they were in Ikere in the first place. Because of the Oyo nature to scatter all over, they devised some sort of recognition technique – famed, spectacularly ugly and disfiguring tribal marks called the “Abaja” – not very
different from the concentration camp tattoos the Nazis inflicted on the Jews, except that this was self-inflicted and much less hidden. You must have seen the Abaja: four very large vertical and four very large horizontal marks, reciprocated on both cheeks. Then, of course, it was a thing of pride, an annual celebration of facial mutilation! Up until my father’s time, it was considered idiocy not to get your own offspring thus tattooed. This was the first action of incredible foresight showed by Ol’ Grandpa, where my dad was concerned. He refused to let his only male kid be mutilated, even though his six sisters had gone through the process. Call him a male chauvinist pig or on the other hand, sit and think that he might have come to the realization that such an ugly practice may go out of fashion in the future too late. Today, he has been vindicated as a visionary of sorts, as it would be hard for a cicatrized male or female to find a partner and that’s after going through your earlier years being asked questions such as, did you fight a lion? My granddad recognized trends that Twitter would need complex algorithms to figure out these days. I’m most thankful because I can’t bear to think of looking in the mirror everyday to see that horror show, apologies to any youngster still bearing them today.

Soon after, it was time to send the budding youngster to school. I told you Grandpa was a Moslem, but he elected not to send his ward to makaranta – Arabic for school – and every bit as ridiculous a school as the name sounds, a school no better than the common Ile-Kehu’s of today. Apologies again. Instead, he elected to send young Gani to St. Joseph’s Primary School, a Christian missionary school operated by those strange white-skinned fellas who came to civilize, or so they say. “Sacrilege!”, The cry went up. You have betrayed your own again! True, the young Moslem had to abide strictly by the Christian rules guiding St. Joseph’s, but today again, young Gani (quite advanced in age these days) is the beneficiary of a carefully crafted and administered educational background. The “makaranta-ed” fellas are distinctly worse off today. At least, that’s what he tells me, and he’s still a Moslem, an Alhaji for that matter. Strike Two for Ol’ Grandpa.

What’s the point in this history lesson, you ask? Well, you must have noticed I hid Twitter somewhere in all that nonsense I wrote above. A popular feature of Twitter is the “what’s trending” feature. It is important that – one, as a young person, and two, as an entrepreneur or businessperson – you recognize trends in business, consumption patterns, demand and supply chain economics, social media and all such components of successful enterprise these days. You can utilize whatever is in vogue to appeal more to your would-be customer base e.g advertising on Twitter or Facebook, and you hardly have to pay a dime. When you recognize trends, you can predict the market to a certain degree, or even buck trend. It’s what consistently sets Steve Jobs apart from his peers, and that includes the more “successful” Bill Gates. If these were my grandpa’s days and he had more “advantageous geographical surroundings”, perhaps he would be Steve Jobs and I would be his grandson. You know that means I wouldn’t have to work so hard.