Azeez Popoola Adeduntan is no doubt the most noted of all the candidates that contested the last gubernatorial election in Oyo State. He is the only candidate with an intimidating credentials who no doubt is the best among all those who contested the last April poll in Oyo State. The governorship debate held in radio stations in Nigeria presented Dr Azeez Popoola Adeduntan the opportunity to showcase his great potentials even to the admiration of other governorship candidates that contested the last April Poll in Oyo State.

Even the current Governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi became mesmerized in that debate when Adeduntan’s superior arguments intellectually clobbered his own. He approached the debate with dexterity of a man imbued with Solomonic wisdom of proffering myriad of solutions to the problems facing the Pacesetter State.

Azeez Popoola Adeduntan may not be a politician but he made politicians fell off the rooftop when analyzing politics and political discourse. He is vast in politics-so vast that one may tempted to believe that he has been a politician all his life. He is a United States of America trained Vascular Surgeon who has over the years carved a niche for himself in the medical field. With a successful practice in Atlanta Georgia in United States of America; Adeduntan is no doubt one of the most noted of his contemporaries and a rear one for that matter. He is one of the best vascular surgeons in the entire world. And probably the only one in Nigeria. If Nigeria is indeed a country where we celebrate brains; the likes of Dr Azeez Popoola Adeduntan should have been persuaded to come home and turn around our ailing medical sector.

Even before he contested the last April poll in Oyo State, Dr Azeez Popoola Adeduntan has always being a grassroots man whose love for the downtrodden masses has made him a messiah of some sort. Many youths would not have acquired education if not for Adeduntan’s assistance. Many would have become homeless if not for Adeduntan who provided shelter for them. He is one of those who believe in teaching others how to fish rather than giving them fish all the times.

Azeez Popoola Adeduntan has no doubt lived up to the saying of an American physician and writer, Oliver Wendell Homes who said that: “To live is to function, that is all there is in living”. He is indeed a man with a passion and whose desire to impact positive change in our society can be likened to that of a Prophet sent by God. Adeduntan lost the April poll in Oyo State not because he was not popular but because he was surrounded wolves in sheep cloth. He became a victim of orchestrated political intrigues of some politicians and parties in the State who felt threatened by his meteoric and bright chances of winning the gubernatorial election.

Few weeks to that election, his deputy and some other candidates of his party decamped to another party. As if that was not enough, another unpopular and solely beaten candidate of his party in the primaries obtained a kangaroo injunction to prevent him from contesting. The role played by some chieftains of the party equally contributed to the failure of the party to win any elective position. 

With all the betrayals and distractions, Dr Azeez Popoola Adeduntan is unperturbed as he is fully ready for the Oyo 2015 project.

In preparation for Oyo 2015, Dr Azeez Popoola Adeduntan has this to say: “I am not pursuing this goal because it is easy, I’m pursuing it because it is difficult. It is difficult to bring about a change. The party platform I will use is in the hands of Almighty God, but surely not Labor Party, because you cannot fight poverty with Poverty (Chief Awolowo). I wish to reassure all of you, that my foray into politics can never affect my Job as a Consultant Surgeon. The latter is my life”.

Dr Azeez Popoola Adeduntan reminds me of the saying that: “Nature brings for few valiant men but effort and training make plenty of them”. He is a man that has never for once allowed the appurtenance of his wealth to overcome his humility like it is the case with some politicians we have around in the State. 

If there is a man that Oyo State needs for the 2015 project, it is Dr Azeez Popoola Adeduntan, a man with superior scholarship and not inferior scholarship like some others we have in the State. The Pacesetter State needs him, a cerebral man of wisdom who is ready to bring great turn around to Oyo State.

That’s right. Aided by the initial discovery of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) by Anthony Barker in 1985, this new discovery could lead to a lot of possibilities. But how exactly does it work? In testing, one magnetic wave pulsed towards nerve cells in an area of the cortex, disturbing natural activity and allowing for more focus in that area. It is unknown how much this actually strengthens or weakens the cells in the area, especially in repeated stimulation, but this repeating may be the key to learning through TMS. Rats learned faster after being stimulated than the rats that had no stimulation at all.

This could bring about several possibilities of the future. Cures to diseases? Neural recovery or repair? Possible education break-through? Who knows, it sounds as though we are entering the world of the future and anything is possible.

Their own show.

Naturally hundreds signed up, submitting their own clips of their ideas. After eventually falling into the hands of the internet, the votes began to rise for one man. Zach Anner.

Zach suffers from cerebral palsy, and submitted his idea for a travel show. Zach takes his condition in stride, and his show (or at least the clip) is very humorous, and a breath of fresh air.

After rocketing up Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, and with a lot of help from 4chan, Zach took the clear lead.

Suddenly, almost overnight, he fell off the top, beaten by a woman named Dr. Phyllis.

Dr. Phyllis had been trailing Zach, but instead of a complete reset of illegal votes, she gained approximately 300,000 votes in 20 minutes, while Reddit commenters said it was more than 600,000.

If you’d like to see the justification for this, Geekosystem gathered some data from various sources and compiled it. You can view it here, and on the graph below.

Anonymous source: 4chan.org, posted by geekosystem.com

In the last couple of days however, something far more dastardly has happened.

Zach Anner had 6 million votes removed.

Here you can see the clear votes.

And here you can see Oprah’s “Verified winners“.

Zach lost more than 6 million votes with no clear explanation. A removal of multiple clicks? Maybe, although that wouldn’t justify how some people gained numbers after it. Every single high-ranking contestant must have had multiple clicks from the same IP.

This has created some strong opinions on the internet, some calling Oprah out on discrimination.

Some can be viewed here.

Look at the winning audition. This woman will be given a show.

Now look at Zach’s audition.

In your opinion, which would you rather have seen turned into a show?

It’s too late now, nobody can turn back the votes and Oprah has far too much pride to admit the entire thing was a sham. Every side had it’s cheaters, but I, for one, find it hard to believe that people want to watch a show about ‘hope and light’ instead of the real hope and light that radiates from one man, one ‘Operation: Podracer’ and one dream – to own a travel show filled with humor and charm.

1)     Acetylcholine is a chemical transmitter, found in both the Peripheral Nervous System and Central Nervous System, which allows neurons to communicate with each other within humans and other organisms. 

2)     Serotonins are neurotransmitters found in CNS of animals. They are involved in sleep, depression and memory.

3)     Norepinephrine acts as a drug, it will increase blood pressure, trigger physical arousal and affect learning and memory. They are synthesized from dopamine and also function as a neurotransmitter and as a stress hormone.

4)     Dopamine is also a neurotransmitter and hormone associated with movement, attention, learning, and the brain’s pleasure. Insufficient formation and action of dopamine can cause Parkinson’s disease.

5)     GABA (Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid) is a neurotransmitter found in the nervous systems of widely divergent species. GABA helps balance and offset excitatory messages from neurons.

6)     Endorphins are chemicals manufactured by the brain, which are released in response to stress or trauma and used to reduce the perception of pain.

The cerebral cortex is made up of four lobes; the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, and occipital lobe. The cerebral cortex is involved in many complex brain functions including memory, attention, perceptual awareness, “thinking”, language, and consciousness.

1)     The frontal lobe is located at the front of the brain and is associated with reasoning, motor skills, higher lever cognition, and expressive language. At the back of the frontal lobe, near the central sulcus, lies the motor cortex. This area of the brain receives information from various lobes of the brain and utilizes this information to carry out body movements.

2)     The parietal lobe is located in the middle section of the brain and is associated with processing physical sensory information such as pressure, touch, and pain. A portion of the brain known as the somatosensory cortex is located in this lobe and is essential to the processing of the body’s senses.

3)     The temporal lobe is located on the bottom section of the brain. This lobe is the location of the primary auditory cortex, which is important for interpreting sounds and the language we hear.

4)     The occipital lobe is located at the back portion of the brain and is associated with interpreting visual stimuli and information. The primary visual cortex, which receives and interprets information from the retinas of the eyes, is located in the occipital lobe.

The limbic system is a system of functionally related neural structures in the brain that are involved in emotional behavior. Some of the structures of the limbic structures are the Amygdala, Hippocampus, Hypothalamus, and Thalamus.

1)     The amygdala is nuclei involved in emotional responses, hormonal secretions, and memory.

2)     The hippocampus acts as a memory indexer sending memories out to the appropriate part of the cerebral hemisphere for long-term storage and retrieving them when necessary.

3)     The hypothalamus directs a large number of important functions. It’s the structure that wakes you up in the morning, and gets the adrenaline flowing. The hypothalamus is also an important emotional center, controlling the molecules that make you feel exhilarated, angry, or unhappy.

4)     The thalamus are cells that relay sensory signals to and from the spinal cord and the cerebrum.

Insomnia, sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, and narcolepsy are all serious sleep disorders that have harmful health consequences. These disorders are very common and can result from a number of causes like stress, illness, alcohol intake, and medications. People who work at night are at an increased risk of all these problems including emotional and mental problems too. In most cases, the darkness of the night triggers sleepiness. That’s why night shift workers often experience sleep disorders, because they cannot sleep when they start to feel drowsy. Their biological clock tells their body to sleep while they are engaging in work. Depression is also a factor for sleep disorder, where the patient wakes up in the middle of the night and cannot go back to sleep. Chemical changes in the body caused by diseases or medications can also be a result in sleeping difficulties. 

The material I found most challenging in these chapters were to collect and memorize the characteristics and the many different types of neurotransmitters and their functions. I studied most of this portion in the textbook itself. If I needed more information on the subject matter I would refer to the Internet, and mostly pages from Wikipedia.

The brains ability to function and structure is referred to as plasticity. Functional plasticity is the brain’s ability to move functions from damaged to undamaged brain areas. Structural plasticity is the brain’s ability to change its physical structure in response to its environment. One of the research evidences are the comparison of rats raised in bare laboratory cages and the ones who are brought up in enriched environments and groups. The rats that were raised in enriched environments showed significant increases in brain growth that the rats from the impoverished environments. Put into practical applications, studying enrichment studies have had a major force in shaping the nervous systems of animals abroad. This study proves that a mentally, stimulating, and intellectually challenging are associated with enhanced cognitive functioning.

If your imagination had inspired you to chisel out the first stone wheel and roll it down a hill wouldn’t that have excited you?.  Do you agree that the level of excitement you would have felt probably would have fueled your attitude about putting the wheel to work for you in some way?  Sure!

When we let our imaginations soar we solve problems, we write great novels, inspire others and even design great machines.  Our imaginations have made the United States of America the greatest nation on earth.  People don’t risk their lives to leave our country but many do to get into the U.S..

Positive to negative attitudes:  We’re born with positive attitudes.  Our attitudes are shaped by events (falling off chairs, etc when we’re children).  Children think they can do anything until they get hurt.  Our attitudes can be modified by scholastic failures or physical limitations.  And even though we eventually come to grips with the shake-up of our youthful attitudes we still fall prey to the incessant abuse to our adult attitudes.  “You can’t do that.  You’re not intelligent enough to accomplish this.  You’re not old enough to obtain something.  Always tell yourself that you CAN do something!

Imaginative to unimaginative:  Youth surely is the fountain of ideas but age and experience know how to direct the water.  As I said, “imagination and attitude feed off each other”.  If you have grown from the hardships of living life and ignore the criticisms of your family and peers you probably have a good imagination and the attitude of a winner.  A healthy combination of imagination and attitude is that which differentiates the C.E.O. from one of his executives.  With education, experience and attitude you might end up as an executive.  But not without the imagination part. If you have let life beat you down and think others know more about what you can do than you do, then you’re probably a loser.  Sorry, but that’s the way life judges you.

There are a lot of self-help books, tapes and seminars out there to help you if you’ve given up on everything and even mental health experts.  If, however you know that you know that you know you still have the imagination and attitude of a super achiever even if it’s to start your own small business then you owe it to yourself to try.  Try right now!   Take a leap of faith and get out of the kiddy pool.  It’s time to swim with the successful folks of this country.  It’s time to take control of your life and income, too.  Your idea, knowledge or special way of doing something could help many, many people and enrich you at the same time.  Would you want to go to your grave without even trying?  How many great ideas are buried in the cemeteries of our country?