Grandiose Parlor

Obama talks to Allafrica. Some interesting quotes from the interesting interview:

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Take a look at Nicollo Machiavelli’s assertion, and tell me I’m wrong:

It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things; for the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order; this lukewarmness arising partly from the incredulity of mankind who does not truly believe in anything new until they actually have experience of it.

Do you wonder why things don’t work in Nigeria…

Former Minister of Internal Affairs in the Second Republic, Dr. Ibrahim Tahir. “It’s no big deal having no home and squatting with friends”:

“I am not in a hurry to become the owner of a big castle which nobody will be able to maintain when I die, and which will become a hotel. Many people are building homes in Nigeria today which will become hotels. All the big homes in London, Kensington, everywhere, were homes of grand people who lived in grand style. Today they are club houses. I pity an ex-governor who has an enormous palace in Bauchi and even bigger ones in Kano. He has a huge one in Kaduna, two massive ones in Lagos and two or three or four in Abuja. You wonder who will pay the electricity bills and the water rates in the next ten years when Nigeria’s energy bill is going to be very high.”