Essays In Persuasion

  MA Iliasu . Hard work, they say, is the input of success. The same way reputation has been proved as the measure of competence. Human society doesn't entirely work on speculation, as Maynard Keynes would say, but it greatly gets affected by it. And so, the renditions of social culture have dictated that a well-reputed hard worker would have better chance of earning college degree, securing bank loan, recording a good bank balance and winning woman's hand for marriage than any other person termed the opposite. This what's familiar. And familiarity, to an extent, determines the norm. Therefore this is the norm. Which mainly points to one thing; the society appointing people and any other social institution as the managers of their social image by owing them a debt of consistency upon their actions and inactions; the paying back of which will determine whether their social image is painted in agreed stature or not. Shehu Jaha, the protagonist of the famous satirical Hausa-fo...

MA Iliasu. Man is naturally never adrift of irony. Observation has proved that. And so we live in a world in which people think the leader of global super power, who beforehand, also happens to be a multimillionaire, is dumb because he chat nonsense to the media. We live in a world in which people think the Korean leader is bad and therefore deserves staying in coma because he doesn't fancy smiling in the public. We live in the world in which people think the governor of the state that accommodates the largest commercial city in Africa, who beforehand holds a doctorate degree and has been in power for half his own life, is dumb and stupid because he looks like a perishing doughnut. The same ironic world that thinks the governor of the state that borders the city from south is a genius by hanging his economy, which the economists say is a bicycle that falls when the wheels stop rolling, by the balls. The world in which grown adults think social media hashtags could rescue the oppres...

MA Iliasu. If you read on this blog regularly, you must've gotten tired of reading about Jean Jacques Rousseau's the Stag-Hunter impact, Ibn Khaldoun's Prey-predator dynamic, and surely John Maynard Keynes's paradox of thrift, among others. The three intriguing dimensions are heterogeneously interdependent for the fact that they all help explain the effect of paradox; which has been proved as the constant outcome of collective reaction. This time, I'll attempt an audacious analysis regarding the prospect of successful courtship, being the outcome of collective social relation that exists between two people; man and woman; using the Prisoner's dilemma model - which is another adjacent of paradox. Forgive my over-flogging of the topic. The prisoner's dilemma is a standard example of a game analyzed in game theory that shows why two completely rational individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so. A common beli...

MA Iliasu. Abstract . Sociology, politics, geography, psychology and culture are all functions of economics. As Karl Marx asserts, the mode of production in material life determines the general character and sociopolitical, cultural and economic behaviour of the society, in his revolutionary and prolific dissection of historical materialism. And to whichever provable historical paradigm, scientific framework and philosophical logic, Marx has not been proved wrong. Evidently because the dictates of mode of production has seen to it that all aspects of society have been relied upon it's nature. And marriage, being one of the inherent and ubiquitous bodies of culture and sociology, which is also the further level of courtship, has also been very sensitive to the mode of production. In the past, it was relatively determined by the sociocultural reciprocal altruism, effort, pursuit of experiential derivations, and the glorious feudal solidarity. But in the present, it has been reduced t...

MA Iliasu. Imagine the scene; two nights before a cultural festival, a team of youths - neither of which breathed quarter of a century, gather to go hunting. During the gathering, a consensus was reached, that individually a person can only catch one rabbit. But if the hunt is carried out collectively, three Buffaloes can be captured in two nights at ease. On top of that, it was argued that collective hunting eliminates the chance of any hunter getting harmed by wild animals, for night wandering is presumed to be the culture of the animals at that side of the world. The latter suggestion was all agreed, and the following night the hunters marched to the wild. Upon entering the wild, darkness consumed their hearts. Several hours into the wild and not a single buffalo was on sight. A reason that strikes fear into an aspect of the hunters, enabling them to begin exercising the thoughts of breaking away from the agreement. After all, if they march to the way of rabbits, at least some of th...

MA Iliasu . “ When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.” — Edmund Burke. As an independent arm of government, the legislature is a deliberative body of persons, usually elective, who are empowered to make, change, or repeal the laws of a country or state; the branch of government having the power to make laws, as distinguished from the executive and judicial branches of government. An individual body in the legislature is what's understood to be termed a lawmaker. However, in a democratically-flawed political set up like Nigeria, the legislature face a number of challenges, ranging from fusion of power from it's executive and judiciary counterparts as oppose to separation of power in any ideal set up, accountableness as oppose to accountability, political manipulation as ...

MA Iliasu. In a very enigmatic dissection, economists believe market is different from marketplace. The two concepts have never been the same, only related in the fact that they've been seen together so many times they began being mistaken for each other. Market, economists argue, is an economic concept, associated with any activity that brings buyers and sellers into economic contact; one that usually ends with an agreed deal in place. While marketplace is a geographical concept borrowed to define any place reserved for the exchange of commodities. To expand more clearly , marketing can take place in the absence of marketplace due to the advent of science and modern technology that enable people to trade without meeting face-to-face, and the absence of organized marketplaces a very long time ago. Aerial view of Kantin kwari market. The two concepts however are very relevant to each other, especially during the time when one of them can't do without the other - the medieval and...