Nigeria’s "Special Assistants": How Nigerian Politicians Turn Loyalty into Government Jobs and Taxpayers into Cash Cows

 

Nigeria is being looted by job titles: While millions starve, Nigerian politicians manufacture thousands of special assistant positions, turning taxpayers into unwilling sponsors of political loyalty.

I have always wondered why Nigerian politicians need so many special assistants, senior special assistants, special advisers, personal assistants, media assistants, and whatever other assistants they can invent. What exactly are these people assisting? Who is advising whom? And how many advisers does a governor need before somebody advises him to fix a broken road?

In Nigeria, politics has always been a strange business. Win an election, move into Government House, and suddenly everybody who helped you campaign needs a government appointment. The fellow who printed your campaign posters wants to become Special Assistant on Public Enlightenment. The man who organized political rallies wants to become Senior Special Assistant on Grassroots Mobilization. The woman who defended you on Facebook wants to become Special Adviser on Digital Communication. Even the fellow who carried your umbrella during campaign rallies might begin dreaming of becoming Special Assistant on Weather Affairs.

I’m not exaggerating those job titles; they are a reality in Nigeria. And  that is precisely what makes the situation ridiculous. Nigerian politics has become a dirty game where greed, stupidity, and shamelessness compete for first place.

I can almost imagine the conversation inside Government House.

"Your Excellency, we have appointed 500 special assistants."

"Only 500? What happened to the people who supported us during the election?"

"Sir, there are another 2,000 waiting."

"Then appoint them. We must bring government closer to the people."

And just like that, another political employment program is born. Not necessarily for unemployed graduates, struggling nurses, qualified engineers, or experienced teachers. It is for people who know the right politician, attended the right campaign meetings, and shouted the right slogans.

The official explanation is always beautiful. Grassroots development. Community engagement. Inclusive governance. Political participation. But I want to know something much simpler.

What exactly are Nigerians getting for their money?

I have no problem with a governor hiring qualified advisers. Running a state requires serious economic, legal, security, and administrative knowledge. A competent adviser can prevent an expensive mistake. A good policy expert can help improve public services. But when appointments begin to resemble a political wedding reception where every guest must receive a souvenir, I become suspicious.

A government is not supposed to be a reward ceremony for campaign workers.

Yet that is what political patronage threatens to turn it into.

Consider what happened in Edo State in August 2026. Governor Monday Okpebholo approved 4,800 special assistant positions, allocating 25 to each of the state's 192 wards. According to reports by Channels Television and The Punch, the governor presented the initiative as a way to strengthen grassroots governance and recognize the contributions of All Progressives Congress members to the party's electoral victory.

I read that figure again. 4,800.

Not 48. Not 480. A staggering 4,800 special assistant positions.

I would love to attend the first meeting where all 4,800 assistants introduce themselves.

"Good morning, Your Excellency. I am Special Assistant Number 2,341."

"Excellent. What is your responsibility?"

"Sir, I am still waiting for my assignment."

"Wonderful. Please consult Special Assistant Number 1,762."

I can laugh at this imaginary exchange, but the underlying question is serious. What measurable public services will these appointments deliver? How much will they cost? Who will supervise them? And what happens when political loyalty becomes more important than professional competence?

The Edo announcement is particularly revealing because the governor openly connected the appointments to the APC's electoral victory. That does not prove every appointee is unqualified. But it raises a legitimate question about whether government positions are being distributed according to public needs or party obligations.

This is not simply an Edo problem. It is a Nigerian political tradition.

In September 2023, Kano State Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf swore in 45 special advisers. He said the appointments reflected merit, dedication, loyalty, and commitment. Later that month, The Punch, a Nigerian newspaper, reported another 94 senior special assistant appointments. By June 2026, Kano's government was still announcing appointments, promotions, and reorganizations of advisory positions.

I find the word "loyalty" particularly interesting.

Loyalty to whom?

The constitution? The public? The governor? Or the political machinery that brought him into office?

There is a difference, and it matters.

A civil servant should serve the institution. A political campaign worker serves the candidate. When the government begins treating those responsibilities as interchangeable, public administration risks becoming an extension of the ruling party.

Then comes the financial question.

Nigeria's National Bureau of Statistics reported in 2022 that 133 million Nigerians, representing 63% of the population, were multidimensionally poor. That meant widespread deprivation involving basic needs such as education, healthcare, housing, sanitation, and living standards.

National Bureau of Statistics

Imagine that.

Millions struggling with basic necessities while political leaders debate how many additional assistants they should appoint. I picture a mother sitting in a public hospital, waiting for medical attention. The equipment is inadequate. The nurses are overwhelmed. Her child needs treatment. Meanwhile, somewhere in Government House, officials are discussing another round of political appointments.

"Your Excellency, the hospital needs equipment."

"Noted."

"The schools need teachers."

"Noted."

"The roads need repairs."

"Noted."

"Our campaign supporters need appointments."

"Approved!"

That conversation is fictional, but the contrast is real. Governments operate under limited budgets. Every naira committed to administration deserves scrutiny because it cannot simultaneously be spent on another public priority.

I am not claiming that eliminating special assistants would automatically repair every hospital or road in Nigeria. Public finance is more complicated than that. But I am arguing that political appointments should have clear responsibilities, transparent costs, and measurable results.

In July 2024, President Bola Tinubu signed legislation raising Nigeria's national minimum wage from ₦30,000 ($23.50) to ₦70,000 monthly. The increase followed intense negotiations amid rising living costs.

Now consider the irony. Ordinary workers must fight for wages that can barely keep pace with economic hardship, while political appointments can multiply through executive decisions.

I want to know how much these advisory offices cost when salaries, allowances, vehicles, travel, office space, and administrative support are included. I also want to know what the public receives in return.

Those figures should be published, not hidden behind ceremonial announcements and political speeches.

There is another problem: duplication.

Nigeria already has ministries, departments, agencies, permanent secretaries, commissioners, and professional civil servants. Yet governors can appoint additional advisers covering areas that existing institutions already handle.

Who is responsible when their duties overlap?

Suppose the Commissioner for Education recommends a policy, but the Special Adviser on Education disagrees. Then the Senior Special Assistant on Educational Development introduces another proposal. Before long, everybody has advice, nobody has responsibility, and the school still has no textbooks.

I can imagine a governor asking his advisers why a project has stalled.

"Your Excellency, we are awaiting the committee's recommendation."

"Which committee?"

"The committee established by the Special Adviser."

"And what happened to the ministry?"

"Sir, the ministry is awaiting advice from the committee."

This is how bureaucracy can become a traffic jam with official letterheads.

Of course, not every adviser is useless. Some provide expertise that government genuinely needs. The problem arises when appointments expand faster than clearly defined responsibilities and public accountability.

The Punch reported in August 2024 that governors across several Nigerian states had collectively appointed thousands of aides after taking office in 2023. The report also raised concerns about rising public debt and the cost of governance.

I see a troubling contradiction here. Politicians repeatedly tell Nigerians to endure economic hardship, accept difficult reforms, and make sacrifices for the country's future. Yet the same political system continues to create opportunities for large entourages.

Sacrifice, apparently, is a wonderful national policy until it reaches Government House.

The poor must tighten their belts. The political class must expand its wardrobe.

The unemployed graduate must be patient. The loyal campaign organizer must be accommodated.

The market woman must understand economic reality. The political establishment must understand political loyalty.

And when ordinary Nigerians complain, somebody will probably appoint a Special Assistant on Public Complaints.

What troubles me most is the message this sends to young people. Instead of teaching them that professional competence, entrepreneurship, education, and productive work create opportunities, political patronage can teach them that access to power is the fastest route to government employment.

Why spend years building expertise when political connections may offer a quicker appointment?

That is a dangerous lesson for any developing economy.

I believe Nigeria needs advisers who can solve problems, not titles that merely decorate political friendships. If a governor appoints 4,800 assistants, the public should be able to examine 4,800 clearly defined responsibilities, the total cost of those appointments, and evidence that the positions improve services. Otherwise, the exercise risks looking less like administrative reform and more like a political reward program financed through public office.

And that brings me to the question I cannot escape.

What is the purpose of government?

Is it to provide security, healthcare, education, infrastructure, and economic opportunity? Or is it to distribute appointments among people who helped politicians win elections?

I know which answer I expect from a politician standing before television cameras. I am more interested in what the budget reveals.

Because speeches are cheap. Political loyalty is expensive. And Nigerian taxpayers eventually receive the bill.

Nigeria does not need a government where everybody has an assistant, every assistant needs an adviser, and every adviser requires another assistant to explain what the first assistant was supposed to do.

It needs public institutions that work.

Until then, I suspect the political appointment business will remain attractive. Elections will come. Campaigns will end. Victories will be celebrated. Supporters will demand recognition.

And somewhere inside Government House, another official may whisper the most expensive question in Nigerian politics:

"Your Excellency, what shall we do with all these loyal supporters?"

I already know the familiar answer.

"Find them something special."

And the average Nigerian taxpayers, who was never invited to the celebration, will be expected to pay for the souvenirs.

 

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Curves and Coffins — When the Beauty Upgrade Becomes the Final Bill

 

When beauty becomes an arms race, your body becomes collateral: bigger parts, mounting bills, fading freedom—and sometimes a final photograph. In plain terms, bigger breasts, bigger buttocks, bigger penises: the bill grows, judgment shrinks, and the promised glow-up can become a funeral nobody advertised.

I open my phone, and the market is trading flesh again. Bigger breasts. Bigger buttocks. Bigger penises. Everybody is upgrading the equipment. Nobody mentions upgrading the judgment. Apparently, character now comes free with the packaging, like the instruction booklet nobody reads.

The sales pitch is slick. “Become your best self.” Translation: become dissatisfied with the self you brought here. Then pay somebody to correct the dissatisfaction somebody else taught you. I watch insecurity walk into the room wearing dirty shoes and walk out wearing a white coat. Suddenly, it has credentials.

I can almost hear the imaginary consultation.

“What needs improving?”

“My confidence.”

“Excellent. Which body part should we invoice?”

That is the trick I want dragged into daylight. A person asks to feel valuable. The marketplace answers with measurements. It cannot sell dignity by the milliliter. It can sell filler. So filler becomes the solution.

I refuse to pretend this circus concerns women alone. Men have joined the queue, clutching their wallets and their wounded pride. Masculinity, apparently, now needs a measuring tape and a payment plan. The penis has been promoted from body part to chief executive. The brain remains an unpaid intern.

I understand the hunger beneath the performance. Rejection hurts. Mockery hurts. A cruel partner can make an ordinary body feel like defective merchandise. I am not laughing at that pain. I am laughing at the merchants who inspect the wound, calculate the profit, and call the transaction empowerment.

My suspicion is not just a grumpy reaction to Instagram. A study by Candice Walker, Eva Krumhuber, Steven Dayan, and Adrian Furnham examined 118 women aged 18–29. Participants viewed cosmetic-enhancement images or travel images. The overall difference in desire for surgery was only marginally significant, but frequent social-media users exposed to enhancement images showed greater desire for cosmetic procedures. That is evidence of influence, not proof that every scrolling thumb ends in an operating theatre.

Still, I recognize the machinery. Show me an edited body repeatedly. Sell it as ordinary. Let me compare it with my unedited reflection. Then introduce the discount. The advertisement manufactures the emergency and arrives carrying its own ambulance.

“Love yourself,” the imaginary billboard says.

“Certainly,” I answer. “Why does loving myself require financing?”

Nobody answers. The next photograph loads.

When I return to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, I find a wider language of beauty. Ekwefi is attractive, but her identity does not stop at her silhouette. Ezinma brings intelligence, affection, perception, and stubborn strength. Okonkwo’s standing rests on achievement, labour, and reputation.

I do not mistake Umuofia for paradise. Okonkwo’s fear of weakness drives violence and disaster. His wish that Ezinma were male exposes prejudice, not enlightenment. But Achebe gives me people whose bodies belong to larger lives. Today’s feed can reduce the larger life to a caption beneath the body.

Then I meet Sidi in Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel. Her published photographs amplify her pride and change her bargaining position. Baroka and Lakunle pursue her within a struggle over desire, power, and status. I see an old warning: an image can become a throne before its owner understands the kingdom.

I will not blame Instagram for inventing vanity. Vanity had ancestors, witnesses, and respectable addresses long before smartphones arrived. What the screen supplies is relentless distribution. I can now carry the village photographer, the village gossip, and the village beauty contest in my pocket.

The bill, however, is not always paid in money.

Igho Ubiribo, a British-Nigerian businessman and social-media influencer,  was 43 when he died in Bangkok on March 6, 2026, after a penile-filler procedure. Reports citing his London inquest linked his death to a pulmonary embolism following hyaluronic-acid injection. A man entered a clinic alive. His family received a death that no photograph could reverse.

I cannot honestly tell you he did it for likes. An inquest establishes medical findings, not every private motive. I will not recruit a dead man into an argument he cannot answer. His death is evidence of a procedure’s potentially catastrophic consequences. The wider culture supplies my question: why do we keep presenting enlargement as a casual lifestyle upgrade?

America’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified 93 cosmetic-surgery-associated deaths among American citizens in the Dominican Republic between 2009 and 2022. Detailed records were available for 24 deaths during 2019–2020. All 24 patients underwent liposuction; 22 had gluteal fat transfer, 14 had abdominal surgery, and 11 had breast augmentation or reduction. Multiple procedures were common.

I need those figures read correctly. They describe people who died, not the percentage of all patients who die. The CDC lacked reliable totals for Americans undergoing surgery there, so it could not calculate the death rate. I do not need to inflate the evidence. The evidence already contains funerals.

Nor will I pretend every surgeon is a butcher. Responsible professional groups have pushed for safer techniques. A 2022 joint statement supported ultrasound requirements during gluteal fat grafting to help ensure fat is delivered in the proper anatomical layer. Safety requires training, safeguards, and accountability. It cannot be supplied by a reassuring caption.

I support surgery that repairs a cleft lip, restores damaged tissue, or helps someone rebuild life after injury. I also recognize that adults can make informed cosmetic choices. My objection begins when choice is squeezed through a commercial grinder that turns normal variation into shame.

The moral ambiguity is ugly. A patient may genuinely feel better afterward. A clinic may genuinely provide careful treatment. An influencer may sincerely celebrate the result. Yet the surrounding business can still depend on convincing the next viewer that happiness requires another alteration. Satisfaction is bad for repeat sales. Meanwhile, intelligence has terrible lighting. Patience cannot be injected. Loyalty looks unimpressive in a close-up. I have never seen a clinic advertise, “We increased his honesty by 40%.” There is no dramatic before-and-after photograph for becoming less selfish. So these improvements struggle for airtime.

I am tired of watching worth audition in underwear while character waits outside security. A larger backside cannot apologize for cruelty. Enlarged breasts cannot raise a neglected child. A larger penis cannot turn a dishonest man into a dependable husband. Anatomy is being asked to perform jobs it never applied for. The cruelest joke is that the audience never stays satisfied. Today’s celebrated shape becomes tomorrow’s outdated model. The customer returns. The bill grows. The applause moves elsewhere. I watch the supposed finish line slide backward with every swipe, and I wonder who is actually becoming free.

I want beauty released from this hostage situation. Let attraction exist without making survival negotiable. Let confidence grow without a sales representative whispering that the body is unfinished. Let a person enter a room carrying something besides expensive contours.

My final measurement is simple. If the upgrade leaves me poorer, frightened, dependent on strangers’ approval, or medically endangered, I must question what improved. Bigger is not automatically better. Sometimes the body gets enlarged while the person’s freedom gets smaller. And the marketplace calls that progress.

 

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Holy Trips, Empty Plates: Nigeria’s Government Buys the Rich Pilgrimage Tickets While the Poor Skip Meals.

 

Nigeria’s government bankrolls pilgrimages while poor Nigerians go 

hungry. Corrupt officials return with full pockets. Taxpayers return to 

empty plates.

 

“Medicine?” the nurse asked.

“No funds.”

“Pilgrimage?”

“Pack your bags.”

In Abuja, the suitcase gets fed. The patient gets a prayer. The school 

roof caves in. The official flies out. He returns with shopping bags, 

swollen pockets, and a sermon about sacrifice.

The ordinary Nigerians and its taxpayer has already sacrificed 

breakfast, blood, and the money for his child’s antibiotics.

“Have faith,” the politician says.

Fine. Let believers buy their tickets. Let investigators check the pockets.

Attention, Nigerian government: Public money needs a paper trail, not 

a prayer shawl.

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Diesel for Blood: Russian Diesel, American Votes, and Ukraine's Fight for Survival

Ukraine Is Being Sold! America Gets Diesel. Russia Gets Dollars. Ukraine Gets Death! When political survival matters more than human survival, even an ally becomes expendable.

What a beautiful business deal. Moscow pockets the cash. Washington chases votes. Kyiv watches its defenses weaken. Somewhere, a Ukrainian family hears another air-raid siren. Somewhere else, a campaign adviser checks fuel prices and smiles.

The White House calls it energy diplomacy. The Kremlin calls it good business. And Ukraine? It discovers that in modern geopolitics, even survival has a price tag. Apparently, 2.2 million barrels of diesel can buy something far more valuable than fuel: American silence.

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The Passcode Pirates: How Phone Thieves Steal Your Money, Identity, and Life

 

Criminals no longer need to rob your house or bank. One stolen smartphone and an exposed passcode could give them your money, identity, and entire life. You spent decades building your wealth and protecting your identity. A smartphone thief could steal both in minutes while customer service sends him your recovery code.

I have always found it amusing that modern civilization can send robots to Mars, develop artificial intelligence, and perform surgery with machines, yet still struggle to protect a person's bank account when somebody steals a smartphone. We have built a world where people can buy groceries, transfer thousands of dollars, unlock their front doors, and store their most intimate memories on a device small enough to fit inside a trouser pocket. Then we act surprised when criminals discover that stealing the device can be more profitable than robbing a bank. What a brilliant arrangement. The banks have spent centuries building vaults, hiring armed guards, and installing security cameras. Now, under the glorious banner of technological progress, we have helped move the keys to our financial lives into our pockets. And the pickpockets couldn't be happier.

I call them the Passcode Pirates. They don't need a ship, a sword, or an eye patch. They need a crowded bar, a distracted customer, and a clear view of somebody entering a passcode. Their treasure isn't buried on a tropical island. It sits inside banking applications, digital wallets, email accounts, and cloud storage. Their victims don't necessarily lose gold coins. They lose savings, personal information, access to their accounts, and sometimes memories that no amount of money can replace. The pirates of old had to chase merchant ships across the Atlantic. These modern criminals can sometimes do their damage before the victim finishes explaining the robbery to the police.

The criminal business model is almost insulting in its simplicity. A thief watches a customer unlock a phone. He remembers the passcode. He steals the device. If the phone's security settings and account protections are weak enough, he may gain access to sensitive information or use account-recovery procedures to seize greater control. I can imagine the thief's conversation with an accomplice.

"Did you get the phone?"

"Yes."

"Did you get the passcode?"

"Yes."

"Excellent. Let's see what else we bought."

The victim thinks the criminal stole a telephone. The criminal hopes he has stolen the keys to an entire life.

And this isn't some imaginary crime invented to frighten people into buying security software. In February 2023, The Wall Street Journal journalists Joanna Stern and Nicole Nguyen investigated cases in which criminals observed iPhone passcodes before stealing the devices. Their reporting described victims who lost access to Apple accounts and suffered financial losses after thieves exploited the combination of physical possession and knowledge of the passcode. One victim reportedly lost control of her Apple account within three minutes. I find that astonishing. A person can spend 20 years building financial stability, yet a criminal exploiting the wrong security weakness may cause enormous damage in less time than it takes to order lunch.

The investigation exposed an uncomfortable truth about modern security. A passcode that was supposed to protect the phone could, under certain conditions, help an attacker defeat protections on accounts connected to that phone. And once the attacker controlled the account, the legitimate owner could find it painfully difficult to regain access. Imagine buying a house, paying the mortgage for 20 years, and discovering that a burglar who stole the front-door key could persuade the security company to recognize him as the new owner. The real owner arrives with the deed, tax records, and identification, only to hear that the system cannot verify his identity. Ridiculous? Certainly. But some victims of smartphone account takeovers have faced a digital version of that nightmare.

In December 2023, The Wall Street Journal interviewed a convicted iPhone thief who described how criminals exploited stolen phones and passcodes. According to the reporting, he had made more than $300,000 through his criminal activities and could collect more than $20,000 during a profitable weekend. I wonder how many honest workers earning modest salaries would find those figures comforting. A schoolteacher spends the weekend grading assignments. A nurse works another exhausting shift. A delivery driver battles traffic to pay the rent. Meanwhile, a criminal watches somebody enter a passcode, steals a phone, and treats the resulting account access like a private cash machine.

I can imagine him explaining his occupation at a dinner party.

"What business are you in?"

"Financial services."

"Really? Investment banking?"

"Not exactly. I specialize in involuntary withdrawals."

At least traditional bank robbers had the decency to admit they were robbing banks.

And London has its own version of this ugly business. According to Metropolitan Police figures, London recorded 81,439 phone theft and robbery offenses in 2024 and 71,867 in 2025. Those figures do not mean every stolen phone led to financial fraud or identity theft. Many were stolen for their resale value. But the sheer volume reveals why criminals see smartphones as attractive targets. A stolen handset can be valuable merchandise, a potential gateway to sensitive accounts, or both.

The criminal economy can extend far beyond the person who snatches the device. In September 2026, London's Metropolitan Police announced that three men had received prison sentences totaling 25 years following an investigation into an international stolen-phone trafficking network. Detectives linked the operation to as many as 40,000 stolen phones shipped from Britain to China during 2024 and 2025. I find the scale remarkable. A phone disappears from somebody's hand on a London street. It moves through criminal intermediaries. Eventually, it may become merchandise thousands of miles away. The street thief gets his share. The middleman gets his cut. The overseas buyer gets the hardware. And the victim gets a police report and a customer-service telephone number.

That's globalization with a criminal record.

But the most outrageous part of this story isn't the international trafficking. It is the absurd relationship between smartphone theft and customer service. We have created systems that sometimes require people to prove their identity through the very devices that have been stolen. A victim attempts to access an account from another computer. The company sends a verification code to the missing phone. The victim cannot retrieve the code. The system refuses access. The criminal may already be using the device, while the rightful owner is treated like a suspicious stranger.

I can hear the conversation.

"My phone was stolen."

"I'm sorry to hear that. We've sent a security code to your phone."

"But the thief has my phone."

"Please enter the code to continue."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"For your protection, we cannot proceed without verification."

For whose protection? The thief's?

Of course, many companies provide backup recovery methods, and a stolen phone does not automatically give a criminal access to verification messages. Strong authentication, device locks, and account protections can prevent that. But where recovery procedures depend too heavily on a single device, the design becomes a cruel joke. The victim needs access to recover the account. The account requires access to the stolen device. The customer-service system keeps repeating the same instructions. Meanwhile, the person who actually possesses the phone may have an advantage the legitimate owner no longer enjoys.

I would love to know which genius decided that sending a recovery code to a stolen device should sometimes be the centerpiece of an account-recovery process. It reminds me of a fire department telling a homeowner that the emergency exit instructions are posted inside the burning house.

The human cost becomes even clearer in the case of Terry Allen, whose iPhone 13 Pro was stolen in New York in August 2022. According to an April 2023 investigation by The Wall Street Journal, the criminals obtained control of his Apple account's 28-digit recovery key, leaving him struggling to regain access. His account held precious photographs, including pictures of his young nephew. After months of calls and letters to Apple, he eventually reached a representative willing to ask additional verification questions and help address the problem. I wonder how many people would remain polite after spending months begging a technology company to recognize them as the rightful owners of their own memories.

This is where smartphone theft becomes something more disturbing than ordinary property crime. Money can sometimes be recovered. A stolen credit card can be canceled. A bank may reverse unauthorized transactions after investigating them. But photographs of a deceased parent, private family videos, years of correspondence, and personal records can become irreplaceable losses when an account is permanently compromised and no independent backup exists. I find it grotesque that people can spend decades building collections of memories, only to discover that access to them depends on an authentication system that a criminal has managed to hijack.

The historical irony is impossible to miss. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for his telephone. The original idea was revolutionary but straightforward: transmit speech over distance. Nobody was proposing that a telephone should also contain a person's bank accounts, medical appointments, family photographs, identification documents, and professional correspondence. By the time Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, the telephone had begun its transformation into a portable computer. Over the following years, mobile banking, cloud storage, digital payments, and identity verification helped turn that computer into something much more powerful. I admire the engineering. What I question is the wisdom of concentrating so many essential functions in one object and then pretending that losing it is merely an inconvenience.

We used to keep our valuables in different places. Cash in a wallet. Important documents in a filing cabinet. Photographs in albums. Savings in bank accounts. House keys on a key ring. The arrangement wasn't perfect, but a criminal usually needed separate opportunities to steal separate things. Today, smartphones bring many of those functions together. A properly secured phone can protect them effectively, but a compromised phone may expose several at once. We have confused the convenience of centralization with the safety of separation. I don't know who first decided that putting every valuable possession behind the same digital door was a brilliant idea. But I suspect the Passcode Pirates would nominate that person for an award.

Apple deserves credit for responding to the documented threat. In January 2024, the company released iOS 17.3 with Stolen Device Protection, a feature designed to make stolen passcodes less useful to criminals. When enabled, it requires biometric authentication for certain sensitive actions and imposes security delays on some important account changes. Users can also choose settings that apply stronger safeguards even in familiar locations. These are meaningful improvements, not cosmetic gestures.

But I still find the sequence revealing. Criminals exploit a weakness. Victims lose money and account access. Journalists expose the problem. Public pressure grows. The company introduces stronger protection. Then consumers are expected to learn another set of security settings. I recognize that no security system can anticipate every criminal method. Nevertheless, I find it difficult to applaud an industry for solving a problem without also asking why the weakness was allowed to cause so much damage.

The banks are not innocent spectators in this drama, either. Financial institutions have powerful fraud-detection systems, transaction limits, and authentication requirements. Yet criminals continue searching for ways around them, especially when they can exploit a customer's authenticated device. I can imagine the argument inside a bank's boardroom.

"We must make banking easier."

"How easy?"

"Customers should transfer money in seconds."

"What about criminals?"

"We have security procedures."

"And if the criminal controls the customer's phone?"

"That's a complicated issue."

Complicated indeed. Particularly for the customer whose money has disappeared.

And I refuse to let consumers escape criticism altogether. We have become addicted to convenience. People complain when an application asks them to verify their identity. They complain when a bank delays a suspicious transaction. They complain when a password must be changed. Yet the same people expect absolute protection when a thief gets hold of their devices. We demand security without inconvenience, freedom without risk, and instant access without consequences. I understand the desire. I simply don't believe the world works that way.

The criminals certainly understand the contradiction. They exploit the gaps between human behavior and technological safeguards. A person enters a passcode while standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers. Another leaves sensitive notifications visible on a locked screen. Someone else stores important recovery information without maintaining an independent copy. None of these mistakes justifies theft. The criminal remains responsible for the crime. But criminals have never needed their victims to deserve punishment. They need opportunities. And opportunities are exactly what careless habits and weak security designs provide.

What makes this particularly sinister is the speed of the damage. Traditional identity theft often involved stolen documents, fraudulent applications, and lengthy attempts to impersonate someone. Modern account takeover can move faster when a criminal already controls a trusted device and enough authentication information. A password gets changed. A recovery method is replaced. An email account becomes inaccessible. Financial accounts may be targeted next. Not every criminal succeeds, and not every stolen phone is vulnerable. But the documented cases demonstrate how quickly an ordinary theft can become a struggle over digital ownership.

I also find it revealing that society has developed elaborate language to make these failures sound less frightening. We call them account takeovers, authentication compromises, credential exposure, and unauthorized access incidents. Those terms may be technically accurate. But to an ordinary victim, the meaning is simpler. Somebody stole the phone, got into the accounts, took the money, or locked the owner out. I see no reason to dress robbery in a business suit and call it a cybersecurity event when the consequences are painfully real.

The Passcode Pirates are not technological magicians. They are criminals exploiting the weaknesses of a civilization that has become dependent on portable electronics. Some operate alone. Others belong to organized networks. Some want the resale value of the hardware. Others want the information or financial opportunities connected to the device. The methods vary, but the underlying attraction is obvious. A smartphone is expensive, easy to carry, and potentially connected to assets worth far more than the phone itself.

I believe the most dangerous mistake is assuming that a passcode alone makes such a device secure. Strong passwords, biometric authentication, independent recovery methods, protected financial applications, and separate backups all matter. So does keeping the device's operating system updated and enabling available theft protections. None guarantees immunity. But layered security makes it harder for criminals to turn possession of a phone into control of a person's accounts. The goal isn't to make theft impossible. It is to prevent 1 successful theft from opening every door.

And the companies designing these systems should make that protection easier to understand and use. Security shouldn't depend on customers discovering obscure settings after a newspaper publishes another horror story. Account recovery should offer secure alternatives when a device is missing, without giving criminals an easy route to impersonate the owner. Banks should treat unusual account changes and suspicious transfers as serious warning signs. Technology companies should recognize that a device used to store money, identity information, and personal memories requires stronger safeguards than an ordinary consumer gadget.

I find it absurd that we have reached a point where losing a smartphone can trigger panic about bank balances, family photographs, email accounts, and personal identity. A telephone was supposed to help people communicate. Somehow, we turned it into a portable headquarters for our entire existence. We made it indispensable. We made it convenient. We made it valuable. And then we created a criminal incentive to steal it.

The Passcode Pirates didn't invent that arrangement. They simply recognized its weaknesses.

And perhaps that is the most uncomfortable truth of all. The criminals have learned to see smartphones for what they really are: collections of valuable information and potential access rights disguised as everyday electronics. Meanwhile, millions of legitimate owners still think of them primarily as devices for taking photographs, watching videos, and sending messages.

I can imagine a modern phone thief standing before a judge.

"Why did you steal the victim's phone?"

"Because it was valuable."

"The phone itself?"

"No, Your Honor. Everything connected to it."

That answer would be chilling because it would expose the economic logic behind the crime.

We have made smartphones so central to daily life that the loss of 1 device can become a financial emergency, a privacy crisis, and a fight to recover personal memories. The technology industry calls this digital transformation. Criminals call it opportunity. Victims call it a nightmare.

And somewhere, after a phone has been stolen and an account has been compromised, a customer-service system may still be sending a recovery code to the missing device.

I can almost hear the thief laughing.

"Thank you for choosing our security service. Your identity is very important to us."

The tragedy is that, in the wrong hands, it really is.

 

Separate from today’s article, I recently published more titles in my

 Brief Book Series for readers interested in a deeper, standalone idea.

 You can read them here on Amazon, Walmart, Google Play, and

 Barnes & Noble bookstore.

 

 

Love Before Smartphones: When Romance Had a Heart, Dating Had a Face, and Heartbreak Didn't Need Wi-Fi

 

Love is dying, and nobody cares! Smartphones have turned romance into a ruthless marketplace where genuine affection is disappearing, relationships are disposable, and heartbreak is just another notification.

I remember a world when falling in love required something more than a smartphone, a flattering photograph, and a thumb trained to swipe right. A world when a man had to find the courage to approach a woman, look her in the eyes, and risk making a complete fool of himself. A world when a woman could spend an entire evening wondering whether the man she met at a party would call. No text messages. No Instagram stalking. No little green dot announcing that somebody was online but deliberately ignoring her. Just hope, uncertainty, and the occasional cruel silence of a telephone that refused to ring.

That world wasn't perfect. Far from it. Men lied. Women cheated. Hearts broke. Marriages collapsed. Some people played games so dirty that even today's professional dating-app manipulators would applaud. But something was different. Romance had a physical presence. Love had to leave the house. And rejection usually came from an actual human being, not from a profile that suddenly disappeared into the digital wilderness.

Today, one can meet somebody in Baltimore, flirt with somebody in Boston, and arrange a date with somebody in Los Angeles without leaving their living room. Technology calls that progress. I call it convenience. And convenience, as I have learned, is not necessarily the same thing as happiness.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, a man who wanted to meet a woman had to go somewhere. A church social. A college dance. A neighborhood barbecue. A friend's birthday party. A nightclub where the music was loud, the drinks were overpriced, and the competition was fierce. He couldn't hide behind 15 carefully edited photographs and a biography written to make him sound like a cross between Denzel Washington and Warren Buffett.

He had to show up.

And showing up was dangerous.

Imagine yourself standing across a crowded room, staring at a woman who has caught your attention. She is laughing with her friends. You are rehearsing an opening line that sounds brilliant in your head but ridiculous the moment it leaves your mouth.

"Excuse me. Have we met before?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Very sure."

Well, there went your brilliant strategy.

But that was dating.  You had to recover, improvise, and possibly walk away with your  pride bleeding all over the dance floor. Nobody could delete the conversation. Nobody could blame a technical glitch. Rejection was immediate, personal, and sometimes spectacularly embarrassing.

Yet there was something strangely beautiful about that risk. You weren't evaluating a human being through a screen. You were watching her smile, hearing her laugh, noticing how she treated the bartender, and discovering whether your personalities could survive an actual conversation.

And if the two of you liked each other, something extraordinary happened.

You exchanged telephone numbers.

Not social media handles. Not Snapchat usernames. Actual telephone numbers, sometimes scribbled on napkins, matchbooks, or the backs of grocery receipts.

That little piece of paper could become the beginning of a marriage. Or the beginning of a disaster.

Either way, it mattered.

Then came the telephone ritual. You would stare at the number, wondering whether to call immediately or wait until tomorrow. Calling too soon might make you look desperate. Waiting too long might make you look uninterested. Nobody had written the rules, but everybody seemed terrified of breaking them.

And when you finally called, you faced another problem.

Her father might answer.

"Hello?"

"Good evening, sir. May I speak with Linda?"

"Who's calling?"

"Joseph."

"Joseph who?"

Suddenly, a simple telephone call had turned into a congressional hearing.

If Linda wasn't home, you might leave a message. Or you might hang up and try again. If she didn't return your call, you had no way of knowing whether she was busy, uninterested, or simply unaware that you had called.

Today, people call that uncertainty emotional torture. Back then – when I was still a single college student, we called it “Booth” or “Tuesday”.

But waiting also created anticipation. A telephone ringing at 8:30 p.m. could make my heart jump. Hearing the voice I had been hoping to hear could rescue an otherwise miserable day.

Now, I am happily married to a wonderful woman now, and those things don't bother me anymore. But for young people these days, their smartphones can vibrate 40 times while they are eating dinner, and not a single notification has anything to do with somebody who genuinely loves them.

That's technological progress for you. We have conquered distance and somehow made genuine attention harder to find.

And then there were love letters.

My goodness. Love letters.

Before romantic feelings became disposable digital messages, people sometimes put their emotions on paper. They bought stationery. They chose their words. They crossed out embarrassing sentences. They started over. They folded the finished letter, placed it inside an envelope, and trusted the postal service with their emotional survival.

Imagine writing, "I have missed you every day since we last met," knowing that the person receiving those words might keep them for 30 years.

A text message can disappear beneath 200 other messages before lunchtime. A handwritten letter can survive inside a shoebox long after the relationship itself has died.

And that is what fascinates me. The physical evidence of love.

The faded ink. The familiar handwriting. The perfume that once lingered on the paper. The envelope with the old address. The photograph tucked between the pages. Even the embarrassing spelling mistakes became part of the memory.

Of course, a beautiful letter didn't prove that its writer was faithful. During my days at the university in Nigeria, I knew many  talented liars who  could produce poetry worthy of Shakespeare while secretly dating three other people. Human dishonesty did not begin with the invention of Tinder.

But writing a letter demanded deliberate effort. I couldn't send a heart emoji and pretend I had expressed the deepest feelings of my soul. I had to find the words.

And sometimes, finding those words forced me to discover what I actually felt.

And then came the first date.

I remember when a date meant going somewhere together and actually paying attention to each other. Dinner at a neighborhood restaurant. A movie at the local theater. A walk through the park. An afternoon at the beach. Sometimes the man paid. Sometimes the woman insisted on splitting the bill. Sometimes both people were broke, and romance had to survive on ice cream and good conversation.

The important thing was that we were there.

Together.

Not sitting across from each other while secretly checking whether somebody more attractive had appeared on Tinder.

And the first kiss? That was a different kind of suspense.

You could spend an entire evening wondering whether she wanted you to kiss her. You might walk her to her front door, say goodnight, and stand there like an idiot while your mind argued with itself.

"Should I kiss her?"

"Don't be stupid."

"But she's smiling."

"Maybe she's just being polite."

Then she might lean closer. Or step back. Either way, you had to pay attention to the person standing in front of you. You had to understand that attraction wasn't permission and that a kiss meant something only when both people wanted it.

Sometimes that first kiss was magical. Sometimes it was awkward enough to deserve its own police report. But it was real. No filters. No retakes. No audience waiting to judge the performance.

And nobody had to post photographic evidence afterward.

Now, I don't want to pretend that the old days were some romantic paradise. That would be nonsense.

From what I have learned through reading various novels and watching movies, courtship in the 1950s often came with suffocating social rules. Women faced pressure to marry young, remain sexually respectable, and accept behavior from men that would be considered unacceptable today. Interracial couples faced discrimination, threats, and laws that restricted their freedom to marry. It wasn't until the Supreme Court's landmark 1967 decision in Loving v. Virginia that bans on interracial marriage were struck down nationwide.

That wasn't romance. That was society interfering with people's right to love.

And for many gay and lesbian Americans, openly pursuing a relationship could threaten their jobs, families, and personal safety. The past wasn't equally beautiful for everybody.

I also know that a woman who met a man through friends or family wasn't automatically safe from abuse, manipulation, or betrayal. Sometimes those same social networks pressured her to remain in a miserable relationship because divorce was considered shameful.

So no, I don't want to turn the clock backward and resurrect every ugly custom that came with it.

But I do want to recover something we seem to have misplaced.

The human connection.

And the statistics show just how dramatically our methods of finding love have changed.

In 2019, Stanford sociologist Michael Rosenfeld and his colleagues reported that approximately 39% of heterosexual couples in their 2017 survey had met online, compared with 22% in 2009. Their research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that online dating had overtaken meeting through friends as the most common way heterosexual couples found partners.

 

Think about that.

For generations, friends, relatives, neighbors, churches, schools, and workplaces helped bring couples together. Then the internet arrived, and within a relatively short period, computer algorithms began replacing the people who once played matchmaker.

I'm not saying that meeting through friends guaranteed a happy marriage. It didn't. But there was often a social connection between the people involved. Somebody knew somebody. A mutual friend could offer an introduction. A couple might belong to the same community.

Now you can fall in love with somebody whose friends you have never met, whose family you know nothing about, and whose entire identity consists of photographs, messages, and a biography that may have been written by artificial intelligence.

What could possibly go wrong?

Plenty, apparently.

A 2023 Pew Research Center report found that 30% of American adults had used a dating site or app. Among adults younger than 30, that figure reached 53%. The same research found that 48% of online dating users had experienced at least 1 of 4 unwanted behaviors, including unsolicited sexual messages or images, unwanted continued contact, offensive name-calling, or physical threats.

That's not exactly the romantic revolution you was promised.

Imagine telling somebody in 1985 that future generations would carry powerful computers in their pockets, use those computers to search for romantic partners, and then complain that strangers kept sending them disgusting photographs.

They would probably ask whether humanity had lost its mind.

And I wouldn't know how to answer.

But here's where the story gets complicated. Pew also found that 53% of online dating users described their experiences as positive, while 46% described them as negative. Furthermore, 42% of American adults believed online dating had made finding a long-term partner easier, compared with 22% who believed it had made the process harder.

So I cannot claim that dating apps have destroyed love. The evidence doesn't support that sweeping accusation.

People are finding spouses through these platforms. Real marriages are beginning with digital conversations. People who might never have crossed paths are discovering each other.

That's wonderful.

But I still have a serious problem with the culture surrounding modern romance.

We've turned dating into shopping.

Today you can open an app, examine somebody's face, height, education, occupation, hobbies, and political preferences, and reject that person in seconds. You don't have to hear their voice. You don't have to discover their sense of humor. You don't have to learn whether they're kind to strangers or loyal to friends.

A photograph becomes the product. A biography becomes the advertisement. And the human being behind both becomes another item in an endless catalog.

Swipe.

Reject.

Swipe.

Maybe.

Swipe.

Next.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if my parents' generation had approached courtship with that same mentality. How many marriages would never have happened because somebody wasn't photogenic enough? How many wonderful conversations would never have started because somebody was 2 inches shorter than the desired height?

And how many people would have rejected the love of their lives because the algorithm decided they weren't a suitable match?

The cruel irony is that having more choices doesn't necessarily make choosing easier.

Pew's 2023 findings showed that 37% of American adults believed dating platforms offered too many choices, while 43% believed they offered about the right amount.

I can understand that frustration.

When I was younger, meeting somebody attractive at a party could feel like a rare opportunity. I might spend the next week thinking about that person. I might make a genuine effort to get to know her. But if I believe that 500 other potential partners are waiting on my phone, why should I work through an awkward conversation with the person sitting across from me?

Why bother learning patience?

Why tolerate imperfections?

Why invest in a relationship when the next attractive face is just one swipe away?

Of course, that attitude existed before smartphones. Some people have always treated romantic partners as disposable. Technology didn't invent selfishness.

It simply gave selfish people more efficient equipment.

And nowhere is that more obvious than in modern heartbreak.

Before smartphones, a breakup could be devastating. You might lose sleep, stop eating properly, or spend hours listening to sad songs. You might avoid the restaurant where you  had your first date. You might stare at photographs and wonder what went wrong.

But eventually, distance could help.

If you didn't see your former girlfriend, you could begin rebuilding my life.

Today, a breakup can follow you everywhere.

You can wake up, open Instagram, and discover that the woman who broke your heart has posted photographs with somebody else. You can watch her vacation videos. You can read comments from strangers congratulating her on finding happiness.

And if you foolish enough, you can spend the next 3 hours investigating the new boyfriend's photographs like an unpaid FBI agent.

That's not healing.

That's emotional self-torture with unlimited data.

Then there's the modern habit of ghosting.

I find it remarkable that people who can communicate instantly with practically anybody on Earth sometimes cannot summon the courage to say, "I'm sorry, but I don't want to continue this relationship."

Instead, they disappear.

Messages go unanswered. Calls are ignored. Profiles become inaccessible. The rejected person is left wondering whether the relationship ended, whether something terrible happened, or whether the other person simply lost interest.

And yes, people disappeared before smartphones. A man could promise to call and never call again. A woman could move away without leaving a forwarding address. Silence has always been capable of cruelty.

But digital communication has made disappearing from an ordinary conversation absurdly easy.

One minute, somebody is sending affectionate messages.

The next minute, nothing.

Not even the courtesy of goodbye.

Still, the heartbreak I remember from the old days had its own peculiar soundtrack.

I think about songs like Careless Whisper, released in 1984, and End of the Road, released in 1992. Those songs captured something painfully familiar: regret, betrayal, longing, and the desperate wish to recover a love that had already slipped away.

I could sit in my bedroom with the radio playing, convinced that the singer somehow knew every miserable detail of my personal life.

Then another song would come on.

Maybe I Will Always Love You, which Whitney Houston turned into a worldwide phenomenon in 1992.

And suddenly, the heartbreak felt cinematic.

Then I wasn't simply a rejected young man sitting alone in a room. I was the tragic hero of a romantic drama nobody had purchased tickets to see.

Ridiculous?

Absolutely.

But that's what music could do.

And that's what memories still do.

A particular song can take me back to a particular street, a particular summer, or a particular woman whose name I haven't spoken in 30 years.

The relationship may be gone. The telephone number may be forgotten. The restaurant may have closed. But the opening notes of that song can bring everything back.

The laughter.

The argument.

The kiss.

The goodbye.

And sometimes, the regret.

That's another thing I miss about love before smartphones. Not because people loved more deeply, but because so many memories were tied to places, sounds, objects, and moments that couldn't be replayed endlessly on a screen.

I remember the excitement of seeing somebody unexpectedly. The nervous anticipation before a date. The long conversations that continued until the restaurant staff began stacking chairs. The handwritten birthday cards. The photographs developed at a local shop, when I couldn't immediately inspect every picture and demand another pose.

I remember the strange courage required to tell somebody, face to face, that I loved her.

And I remember how frightening those words could be.

"I love you."

A silence.

Then the question that could destroy an entire evening.

"Do you really mean that?"

There was no emoji capable of rescuing me.

I had to answer.

And my answer had to survive the look in her eyes.

Perhaps that's what troubles me most about modern romance. We've developed astonishing tools for communication, but those tools cannot do the emotional work for us. A smartphone can deliver a message in seconds. It cannot make the message sincere. An algorithm can introduce two strangers. It cannot teach them loyalty. A dating app can arrange a meeting. It cannot manufacture tenderness.

And a thousand online admirers cannot replace the comfort of one person who genuinely cares whether I make it home safely.

I don't believe the solution is to abandon technology. That would be foolish. I appreciate being able to call somebody across the country without paying the outrageous long-distance charges that once punished romantic relationships. I appreciate video calls. I appreciate the possibility of meeting somebody outside my immediate neighborhood or social circle.

But I refuse to confuse technological convenience with emotional progress.

Love still requires the same uncomfortable things it required in 1975, 1985, and 1995.

Honesty. Courage. Patience. Respect. Sacrifice. The willingness to apologize when you are wrong. The maturity to hear an answer you don't like. The discipline to remain faithful when temptation appears.

None of those qualities can be downloaded.

And none comes with a premium subscription.

So when I think about love before smartphones, I'm not mourning the absence of Tinder, Instagram, or WhatsApp. I'm mourning the gradual disappearance of ordinary romantic experiences that once demanded our full attention.

The nervous telephone call.

The letter that took days to arrive.

The first date without a glowing screen on the table.

The first kiss that belonged to the couple rather than an online audience.

The heartbreak that didn't arrive with constant photographic updates.

And the beautiful uncertainty of meeting somebody without already knowing 50 details about their life.

I know that the old world had its liars, cheaters, cowards, and heartbreakers. I know that nostalgia can make yesterday look better than it really was. And I know that some of the happiest couples alive today first met through a dating app.

Good for them.

But I also know this: when I see two people sitting across from each other in a restaurant, both staring at their phones, I cannot help wondering whether we've confused being connected with being together.

We have more ways to say hello than any generation in history.

Yet we still struggle to say what matters.

"I miss you."

"I'm sorry."

"I was wrong."

"I want to see you."

"I love you."

Maybe the greatest romantic revolution of our time won't come from another dating app, another algorithm, or another smartphone with a better camera.

Maybe it will begin when somebody puts the damn phone down, looks the person they love straight in the eyes, and starts a real conversation.

Because love was never supposed to be a competition for likes, followers, matches, and notifications.

It was supposed to be a connection between human beings.

And if I have learned anything from the forgotten world of courtship, first kisses, love letters, and broken hearts, it is this: before smartphones, we sometimes waited days to hear from the person we loved. Today, we can reach that person in seconds. But what good is reaching somebody instantly if we've forgotten how to touch their heart?

 

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