Twin souls linked by a broken bridge I feel you like that itch I can't reach Far from reality I am But you are my reality Though next to me you are I still find it hard to breathe you in A single thought of you makes my mind go wild And everyday I dey mad over you But we have to go easy Cos we can't run town Ultimately you're just like me Secretly loving yourself Unlikely to believe myself I slip into the maze I built myself Lost for words I face my reality You But in my world I am a lone soul Coveted by the wholesomeness She built me a bridge of disappointment Linking only to the future One laced with ropes of things we didn't do today Yet in my soul I feel you Like the person I will never become Alas wholely A single soul in this craze I will become.
By special request...
He said being bipolar was a gift
One he could never completely make use of...
He says,
When he's on one surface and he finally finds his purpose
and it is one beautiful thing to do, just before execution,
The other surface comes to life
And he has to start the journey all over again.
He says it is beautiful because
He can't be held responsible for anything since no one is totally sure of what is in charge
But the biggest pain is,...
Even he doesn't know who is in charge sometimes.
He says,
But the beauty of it all is that my bipolarity is a gift of a new beginning at every switch.
And Bipolarity is just a word you all feel comfortable with, but is that my state of mind?
I guess you'll never know
********★★★★*******
All personal info with held.
After our conversation he didn't remember telling me all these.
Or so he said😓
But he is the most lively soul I know...
Life is a gift. 😊
World Poverty Has Plummeted—But Will It Ever Disappear?
Few will deny 2017 was a rough year. But believe it or not, we’re still living in the best time ever to be alive, and the world as a whole is better off than it has been at any other time in human history.
People are living longer. They’re living healthier, more educated, and freer from religious and political constraints.
But perhaps most crucially, the percentage of humans living in extreme poverty—defined by the World Bank as subsisting on less than $1.90 per day—has plummeted in the past 30 years.
In 1990 the UN set a goal to cut the world’s poverty rate in half by 2015, and we reached it five years early, in 2010; over a billion people escaped extreme poverty in just 20 years. That’s a remarkable and unprecedented shift.
But more than ten percent of the world’s population is still extremely poor. How do we get that down to zero? And is it even possible to do so? Examining the factors that helped cut poverty in the past few decades, signs point to more development roadblocks than superhighways in the years to come.
The drop in poverty from the 1980s to present was driven by just two countries: China and India. The statistics for China are especially mind-blowing: In 1981, a staggering 88 percent of Chinese were extremely poor, but by 2013 that figure had dropped, incredibly, to just 2 percent. India’s figures, though not as drastic, are still impressive: In about the same period of time, the poor population declined from 54 to 21 percent.
Sub-Saharan Africa, by comparison, had a 54 percent poor population in 1990, down to 41 percent in 2013. Not only is the decline much smaller than China or India’s, but due to massive population growth in Africa, the absolute number of poor people actually rose by 113 million.
What’s behind these development discrepancies? Is it possible to take what China did right and replicate it in Africa? Not to mention, will China and India’s positive trend continue, or is it in danger of backpedaling?
The Chinese Miracle
For 86 percent of its people to escape poverty in 32 years, China has to have done a lot of things right, had some amazing strokes of luck, or both. We know there was a massive manufacturing influx due to the country’s plentiful cheap labor and increasingly global supply chains, but this alone wouldn’t have yielded the same outcome just anywhere. China got a leg up thanks to three main drivers (each of which came with its own corresponding drawback).
Political Structure
It’s widely agreed these days that democracy’s the way to go, system-of-government wise. But had China been a democracy, it likely wouldn’t have grown as much or as fast as its authoritarian government enabled it to. When making decisions and implementing reforms, there was no need to appease disgruntled voters or negotiate between parties. The government also owned all the country’s land, which made launching new infrastructure projects like roads or bridges relatively fast and barrier-free.
While the government did well on the economic growth and development front, though, it lagged far behind Western nations in crucial areas like human rights and the environment.
Population Control
Even if a country’s GDP grows consistently, it’s not going to benefit the average citizen much if the population is growing even faster. The Chinese government introduced its one-child policy in 1979, and over the next 20 years the fertility rate dropped from 2.7 births per woman to 1.4. This resulted in the Chinese population growing 38 percent between 1980-2013. Compare that to India’s 84 percent in the same time period, or Sub-Saharan Africa’s whopping 147 percent.
The one-child policy exacerbated a preference for boys over girls that led to baby girls being discarded, and a dramatic modern-day gender imbalance. But fewer mouths to feed means more food per mouth, more wealth per capita, and more people escaping extreme poverty.
Demographics
High birth rates before the one-child policy meant the opening of China’s economy coincided perfectly with a huge working-age population. Children and the elderly can’t pick up and move to cities to work in factories, but people in their 20s to 40s can. According to the Financial Times, China’s urban migration was the biggest human exodus in history—and it couldn’t have happened with a population skewed towards youth or old age.
All the people who were of working age at the beginning of this century, though, aren’t anymore; they’re aging, and the country’s birth rate hasn’t been high enough to replace them. The end of the Chinese miracle is fast approaching, along with a rising dependency ratio and a host of other challenges related to a majority elderly population.
But Also
The economic reforms China implemented starting in the late 1970s and its massive investment in education certainly contributed to its drop in poverty, too.
However, it’s important to note that while millions in China have risen out of extreme poverty, millions more are still relatively poor. Drastic income inequality has also arisen between urban and rural areas.
Replication Complication
The working-age population in China is on the decline, and Africa has the highest birth rates in the world. Could the next wave of industrialization happen in Africa and catalyze another miracle like China’s? If so, the world’s remaining 10.7 percent extreme poverty would certainly decline.
Replicating China’s success, though, will be difficult on multiple fronts, if not impossible. Africans have already begun to leave rural areas in favor of cities, with an annual urban growth rate of almost 4 percent (as compared to the global average of 1.84 percent)—but those cities aren’t equipped to keep up with the influx of new residents. Basic services like healthcare and public transit are lacking, as is infrastructure.
The Chinese government was able to overcome these limitations fairly quickly. But Sub-Saharan Africa is made up of 46 different countries with 46 different governments, many of which are mired in corruption or even classified as fragile or failed states.
Perhaps the starkest contrast with China, though, is Africa’s population growth. As mentioned above, the region’s population has grown more than anywhere else on Earth—and it’s not showing signs of slowing, with a fertility rate of 4.92 in 2015, more than double the global average. The UN’s medium forecast puts Africa’s 2050 population at 2.5 billion, a number that would strain resources even in an economy dramatically stronger than the continent’s current ones.
A Helping Hand
An African Miracle, then, may not be in the cards. But that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. Leaders in African nations can learn from China’s successes and its failures—for example, in place of a one-child policy, African countries should pour resources into family planning and education for women. They should invest in infrastructure now, when the working-age population is plentiful, to begin positioning the continent as the world’s next industrial powerhouse.
Where will the money for these investments come from, though?
Foreign aid is the first answer that jumps to mind. But as Princeton economics and international affairs professor Angus Deaton points out in his book The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality, truly sustainable development can actually be stymied by foreign aid. When the conditions for development are present, he believes, aid is not required. When these conditions don’t exist, aid can end up perpetuating poor countries’ challenges.
The conditions for development existed in China thirty years ago, and many of them exist in Africa today. But to capitalize on those conditions, the continent will need help navigating the challenges China was able to overcome largely on its own.
And guess who’s helping? Besides investing heavily in infrastructure projects across Africa, China is running political training programs for African leaders, teaching them the tactics it used to spur development. China has also given tens of thousands of scholarships to African students, and now hosts more of them at its universities than the US or the UK do.
Whether China’s activity is more philanthropic or self-interested is up for debate—but luckily, the two motivators aren’t mutually exclusive. If China can duplicate its success in Africa by helping lift its people out of poverty, making returns on its investments in the process, it’s unlikely anyone will complain.
Click the follow button and share Like our facebook page: Mercirick Blog Follow on Instagram: Mercirickblog Connect on Twitter: Mercirickblog Yours truly Mercy A. Patrick
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Life of a Monday
After every six he is born again
Bringing so much weight of glam and torture
He believes without him there's not sketch of a future
Hearing these words its monday again
With dull and tiring tones
Gave his stomach a huge churn
With no reason as to why his appearing is dreaded..
But sometimes he is a she
Scared to breathe
Fully aware that there are still dead trees in the midst of the green, but
Sh was the start of the green
It just made no sense how so many would dislike the feel of a new beginning.
Yet every man is free
But still every man fears in his freedom
Still afraid to do what is right
Afraid to love what they have
So afraid to feel the wind of change
Yet unphased by it all change has now become a routine
One so familiar that it lives sometimes as us
Unable to discern why she has to be so dreaded by many
From how she felt hyped to be appearing
She just lives on like it doesn't matter if the world hates or not.
O poor Monday.
The innocence of motherhood...
On the face of a newborn
Lies an eternity of peace
An abyss of love
A flatline of hope
No one can describe it in words
Or express it in the cheeriest of songs
But the innocence of motherhood
Is on the face of her newborn.
Yesterday the 27th of May 2018 the Catholic faithful around the world celebrated the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.
The Most Holy Trinity in its most simple term is the mystery of the three person in one God, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Col 2:9. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form
1Jn 5:7-8. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
The miracle of the most holy trinity.
A handful of people saw something rather mysterious in the sky the early evening of yesterday, some called it the dividing of the sun while others saw it as just another beautiful splash of sunset glory.
But a look at these pictures will tell you what a few others have called The Trinity of The Sun.
All from three completely different areas in the city of Abuja.
Some said they saw three suns, I saw it too, but a miraculous revelation or not,
I say let the believers believe.
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I left you a note on the bed telling you how sorry I was
For chasing your happiness first
For forgetting what dreams were made of
For loosing myself in your deceitful embrace
For letting me love the lonely part of you
And more sorry for not being sorry at all
I left you a note telling you just how much I loved to hate me
Telling you my truth I buried inside of me
I kept my beauty in the cupboard just Bellow your shoes
Together we washed my sanity in the dishwasher
Now my mind is a clean slate and I can think again
I left you a note reminding you of how you lived inside of me
How you touched my soul and made us whole
How you always taught me to never let go
How you were my mirror and you built my ego
And I remember now, how you told me skills can be unlearned
I left you a note cos am leaving home
Am leaving my demons behind
You told me no love lost then no love found
So am loosing you to find me
I am leaving my reflection in the mirror you built me
I am leaving the sanity we forged in the drain
But I will always love the lonely part of me
Cos that was the only place you never dared to tread
I've got my bags packed
Cos am leaving home.
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Yours truly Mercy A. Patrick
Here we are waiting for the next strike so we can condemn the act
It all started from one farm to one household, then to one settlement
Now we are watching, waiting, but...
First came the flood
And food was gone
Now comes another one
With the crops covered in blood
First they said don't go out alone
Then the farms became a death zone
We then avoided the zones
So they brought the slaughter to our homes
For how long
The power has been shifted
From the strong to the strong
And we know not who the strong is no more
They took our young
Washed themselves in the elder's blood
Our innocence made us wrong
So in our sleep our lives were robbed
It is the emergence of a strange religion
Every activist becomes a religious
Offering blood to strange gods
But the unfortunate blood was ours
gods among men
Playing god on the innocent
But who in fact is innocent
When we all have blood in our veins
Vex! vex! We vehemently protest
We burn tires and are taken for arrest
We take arms but they ain't our best
Our cry is the juice that gives their lost souls some rest
But,... Who are the THEY?
Who are the men with faces called faceless
Who are THEY that have made our virtues less
Who are THEY that made gods men
Who are the THEY
You've just got to realize that there's no best way to console people, you just have to be there until they forget the pain n focus on how annoying your presence is, that there is consolation
That is all that is left of Benue.
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This is a part of a bigger piece only the fragile one Just thought of giving my faithful readers a sneakpeek...
We may choose to turn a blind eye to the things that affect us the most
But at every point and in every respect
No matter the perspective
We are always stuck at the end of the beginning of something
... And my spirit left me to an abandoned oasis
Soaring with scattered memories
Only they were not of me
More so, I remember me
Not for the things I once believed in
But for the me I never believed in.
They said I was weak
not to be trusted with responsibilities
They blew ashes on me
Bellowing on the fight I would not give
Abandoning the recklessness of my bloodline
They called me disabled
But I am only on a refusal to their kind
I simply would not cling to their style
Nonetheless I was able to do stuffs
Just not in the pariah they pride on
They called me the invisible
But I became the invincible
And in that state I survived, I grew
And when the storm came
I was invincible to the force
I survive cos I was only the fragile one...
Arise! Arise!
What next,
The brutality of camp was well enough
Waking me up from my discomforted tough
The wee hours not wee enough
Until the cold struck with a contagious cough
Now thrown to a village with no coverage
Irrelevant activities placed as leverage
Even the mighty shops here lack common beverage
Then voices from up high say be strong and show courage
Service to the fatherland
But even our fathers don’t know these lands
Stranded by anthems and threatening bands
We just play cool, make friends and hold hands
The factors are growing fatter
And the reasons don’t matter
They say the youths of this nation matter
But their thoughts are covered by bread like butter
Commanded by a single beagle
Uniform men expect us to wiggle Squat they would say, you feeble
Putting us like 2000 threads through a single needle
These were the words gathered from the new flock
They came out of camp looking like they were forced
Eyes red, teary like kids being flogged
One said Mecirick I can’t stay like the place was cursed
But the truth lies within us
Though we cannot change laws
But we can change us
We just need to stand united under one course
The choice to make do with what we have
To accept what we can’t change
But change what we can
And make our new environment at least a house
There is no home away from home
Just a house to keep you relatively whole
Get busy and keep your mind in tone
Because sometimes the fatherland is not a land you know…
If only we knew the fights of freedom from old
We would bring back the lost hopes
We would restore the basis of service code
By making the fatherland,
no matter where a home.
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Since I came to Atisbo I felt the
environment and everything in it was in love with me in disguise.
Especially the insects.
Since I arrived atisbo in August I've been biten by all types of insects,
even those without mandible.
I've been beaten by bees (for the first time in my life),
ants, mosquitoes, grasshoppers and butterflies...
Don't be surprised.
In this kind of environment anything can be wild.
Maybe my fair IGBO skin was so shiny to them like a 0 karat gold.
But what happened last night that triggered me to share this
was that I was biten by a spider.
How did it happen?
...
After yesterday's work at my PPA
I went to the coppers lodge,
where I stay for now.
I ate, took my bath,
spent the cool evening discussing with my co-kopas.
At exactly 10:00pm, I felt tired for the day
and decided to end the day with a wonderful night rest.
As I laid my head on my pillow to sleep,
I was approaching dream land when I felt a stimuli somewhere on my back.
I stood up immediately as the pain was extra ordinary.
I Immediately grabbed my phone,
as the torch light I bought from kopa Rasheed Abu-twins
was still on the wall socket.
I noticed something moving out of my bed.
The size was bigger than normal as I suspected it to be a cockroach.
The shape too I noticed and I couldn't describe.
Immediately 2 voices came spoke to me.
One said GUY GO SLEEP, and the other said GUY KILL IT.
With the last strength in me, I stood my igbo butt lazily,
grabbed my Wonderful torch light ( Abu twins)
to hunt the creepy creature.
The search for the unknown organism made me scatter my room
and it looked like the battle field of Iwo Jima.
I finally found it hiding in my curtain.
When I saw this spider, at first another voice spoke to me Guy you are dead meat
At that I immediately remembered all I used to watch about spiders on NatGeoWild.
Immediately I bought data with my Mobile App,
started researching on spiders as if I was about to defend a project on it today.
I couldn't ascertain if the spider that bit me was poisonous or not.
Immediately I started praying.
If you had seen me yesterday you would think I just graduated from the school of theology.
I drop all my free thinker's philosophy and ran to God.
I said to my self well, maybe it was my destiny I would die this way.
I woke kopa Musa up, told him what happened.
I also assumed him to be my attorney for the night,
with words of mouth I read my will to him,
telling him that my Mobile phone goes to my younger brother if I shouldn't wake up the next morning.
Gloriously I woke up this morning.
I really thank God.
All this got me thinking,
If I had carefully checked my bed before lying down,
I wouldn't have had a horrible night or any course to blame God or destiny.
Most things that happen to us are caused by us.
Citing another example, By rumors
If only that Lagos kopa was not walking on the road with headphones on
she may be alive today.
we should learn how to live carefully.
Before any action, think carefully about the outcomes and dangers too.
Always examine your bed and pillow properly before you lay down.
Not just spiders, snakes may be there too..
Three years ago a spider killed a family of 7 in Imo state,
as they heated water for eba not knowing there was spider in the kettle.
Take care of your property, and directly care for yourself.
Piece by Ugo Manuel
Connect with him on
Facebook: Ugo Manuel
Email: Ishiguzougochukwu@gmail.com
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Yours truly Mercy A. Patrick.
Grace, give us grace to live o lord
All we need is your grace
My heart is heavy
My knees are weak
The tears pouring out
My strength wearing out
We fall then we rise
Constant battles we fight
Words of mighty men
Fall on deaf ears
Lasting for all eternity are the million moments just after the fall
But the moments before rising
Those are the longest and toughest
We had to at some point make conscious decisions
And uncomfortable ones too to keep us from the crowd
But what we did not realize was that
The crowd balls down to our crowd
And our crowd could be just one person
The things we have fallen short of today are;
Indept learning, the bliss of personal conviction
And proper time management
Constantly beating ourselves to the fact that
We should have known better
Well, yes matter of factly
We should have known better
We should have said no when the crowd said yes
We should have taken an extra coat with us that cold night
We should have taken the chance when we had it
We should have
We should have known better
But now its all said and done
And we didn't know any better
We had no clue as to how
Though we heard the voices in our head
We simply chose to ignore
We fell for the tricks of free Cake and coke
Now we have lost the taste of fine wine
Didn't you hear stories of the finess of old wine
Did your batteries fail when the speakers came on
Did you forget the role you had in tomorrow
I guess youth was highly overrated
Just a messed up phase to get degraded
To fill an empty ego and leave rationale deflated
Now alcohol takes the best of us
Because we have fallen and settled in dust
If you can control your cup
Your cup don't control you
And if you can lead the pack
The world will follow you
Forget the trending things they only last a while
Follow your heart but listen to your mind
Those two will last with you forever
When you pray feel your words
And when you receive
Remember when you once prayed
For life is only but a small pitch
And we all players after one ball
With a goal to be remembered.
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Yours truly Mercy Patrick.
Mercy Patrick is a multipotentialite, skilled photographer, creative writer and spoken word poet.Outside the professional scene, Mercy Patrick is a song writer, idealist, resource person with unconventional methods for youths struggling with their personalities, a rapper, story teller and a rusty acoustics player. Learn More →
Mercy Patrick is a multipotentialite, skilled photographer, creative writer and spoken word poet.Outside the professional scene, Mercy Patrick is a song writer, idealist, resource person with unconventional methods for youths struggling with their personalities, a rapper, story teller and a rusty acoustics player. 
