I hate school, but I love learning
Albert Einstein once said “All through life, I never allow my education to interfere with my learning”
I’ve learnt the hard way that school shouldn’t be looked at like an institution but as a tool. It completely shifts my paradigm anyway when I try to unlearn what I’ve learnt all through school.
Someone said the 21st century illiterate isn’t one who doesn’t have an education but one who can not learn, unlearn and re-learn.
I can almost not quantify the amount of learning I’ve done in the past 1 year doing Holildays and Cash. I’ve not read as many mails, articles or books based on any one subject as I’ve done on network marketing in the time I’ve been involved with this opportunity.
I’ve learnt from the best, the average and the worst. I’ve learnt how to succeed and how to not fail. I’ve learnt how to sell and how to market and the difference between both. More than anything, I’ve learnt how to dream and how to keep the picture of those dreams in front of me till they become either reality or fantasy(if I don’t achieve them).
Most significant is the fact that I never learnt any of these in the regular academic or school curriculum. It’s what makes me hate school but also makes me fall in love with learning. Most of what you will learn about life and success will be learnt outside school.

Let’s not fool ourselves, things are not likely to suddenly progress and transform you into success or greatness without doing something you didn’t want to, or think you can do before! Don’t read this mail, don’t take action based on what you read, and I can guarantee your life will continue the way it did before you started. Act however, and you may discover that you have untapped potentials for unique achievement and greatness.

The Foolish buy today, the Wise buy tomorrow based on trends!

I can still remember the hot afternoon of June 6, 1997, under the trees in the Alumni centre of the University of Ibadan, I asked my wife to be, the big question about marriage. It took her almost a year to get back to me. Why?? There was nothing much in that guy back then, if you looked at my shoes or rated my clothes, the answer would have been negative and quicker. Thank God however that our lives don’t stay on pause, we progress, and our progress creates a trend. My wife eventually said yes, but she didn’t buy the present, she bought the future. The foolish insist on current face value, the wise think about seasons down the line. The foolish waits to buy the estate when it’s an estate, the wise buy the estate when it’s a bush and then waits. All the wise wants to see, is the trend. What do you have in your hands that is trending towards a greater future? What you are about to hear, you have heard before… but not this way and not at this level.

Would you like an opportunity to get special treatment?

Imagine that there is an ultramodern international supermarket being erected at Tejuosho. An offer is made to the public for anyone who wants to lease a shop space. Not only do you get this shop space, you also get to become a member of the “Tejuosho international market association”. This leased space and membership means three things.

1. Anytime you have anything to sell, you have an opportunity of selling via your shop and advertise to all other members of the association – FREE.

2. Anytime anybody comes to you to ask for any product, you have an insider deal with all the members of the association to buy at distributor prices and if you want, to resell.

3. The Tejuosho space owners are willing to reward you for telling your friends about the ultramodern shopping mall and getting them to lease a space.

The good thing is, even though your foundational product is the leased space, you have a unique privilege of being able to sell anything else on offer in the shopping mall. Imagine that you sell beverages, and someone approaches you to buy phones, all you need do, is ask them to wait, while your girl… fetches the mobile phone and sells to you at the price you would have gotten it upstairs… but this time, you make a margin.

All your life, you can enjoy an opportunity to buy everything at distributor’s price, and you can determine to be anybody’s distributor.

This shop… is the new face of Holidays and Cash in Nigeria… the trend is real, and today we have over 100 shop spaces filled with goods, and over 18,000 members of the association enjoying all the 3 benefits.

For Real??

Oh yes, for real! You can ask any of the distributors you know to log into the company’s website with their unique passwords, and you’ll see that the estate is beginning to evolve from the bush.

It is fast becoming a solutions city, a growing domain where whatever it is your want or need can be found. We are fast becoming an enlightened company of special elects, our motto is empowering others, our values are L.I.F.E – Love, Integrity, Future Orientation and Excellence and our vision is to have distributors in every family in Nigeria by 2020 and be strategically positioned to replenish the earth and have dominion.

Even becoming more solid…

Is the fact that as distributors of the same international organization, we are getting to for a cooperative together to strengthen the asset base of each other, give our members access to loans for their dreams and creating investment options. We are also taking giant strides of building mini estates branded in our name, and our company is setting out to acquire property and build structures that will last forever… God willing. We are investing in people development, in values entrenchment and in carrying everybody in the team to a desired future.

We are not where we want to be… but we are far from where we were almost 2yrs ago. The network is getting bigger and richer, and only your friend can bring you in. You don’t want to be left out and be in the company of those in the world buying everything at retail prices

Our name could be misleading… and is going to be changed. Only those who can see the future may buy. Let me know if this is it for you!

Kind Regards

Very many years ago, when Africa was simply geographical statistics to Europe; when the land was divided and passed from on european Nation to the next as gifts regardless of the diversity of those who lived in that geographical region, the church stood alone as a body that had a singular role of developing and building the region.

Missionaries from different parts of the developed world stormed the then jungles of Africa bringing with them a message of salvation through Jesus Christ and education as an essential tool for development.

In times when the colonial masters and native government of the African people couldn’t be bothered about the responsibility of education, rather, they were encumbered with acts of milking the land dry of its rich resources and making gains by that, selfless missions started schools to educate Africans and teach them how to read and write.

So focused where these missions, that they shouldered funding almost completely, getting no funds from the colonial masters or the native leaders in the building of the school structures or payment of the teachers who actually doubled as missionaries then.

With time, the schools moved from single class schools to multiple class schools. Curricula were drawn up and very soon, africans started competing on almost level grounds with European students all around the world.

Teaching the African man to read was the first step in the direction of his liberation and that responsibility was taken on by the church.

Now, there are schools everywhere in an african country like Nigeria. Government has gotten involved though on a paralytic level in education. The church has shirked its responsibility and is focused on making profit especially now that churches have millions of naira come in by way of offerings, tithes and other giving vehicles or projects from the upwardly mobile professionals and middle class citizens who must attend church because religion is a culture.

The church now is involved in financial blessing seminars and faith conventions featuring night vigils with prayer requests of financial abundance and prosperity at the expense of National development.

Church members have grown a thick skin against the deep poverty that is eating the land and have turned their face away from other members who are in church to come in contact with their “angel” (who will probably provide their next meal). Loads of young lads and ladies have no one to pay for their education and are stuck as a result at secondary school education and forced to go do manual labour. Some are even jobless

Yet, in most churches in the land, the congregation gathers, enjoy worship with scintillating music and dancing, listen to the word, pray and go home while the Nation regresses in illiteracy and bondage. Pastors now live a “larger than life” life especially in an environment where “God gives the power to get wealth”. A large percentage of them can not give proper account of the monies that they spend as they have an unhindered access to the church account and spend at will.

The church is sleeping is why a Nation’s government is killing innocent citizens in the niger delta and not much noise is being made about it. After all, the vice president dines with the leadership of the church associations regularly and they wouldn’t want to corrupt the goodwill that is between them till date. 

Loads of youths have dreams to be successful in the arts (music, graphic arts, dancing etc) and even sports but lack an enabling environment and a platform to launch and the doors of the church are locked from monday during the day to friday during the day with so sort of empowerment going on. 

How long shall this neglect and wickedness continue. If this nation, Nigeria must develop, the church must take it’s rightful place again in taking responsibility for the building of this nation academically, spiritually, financially and even politically.

Our values are flawed because the church is sleeping. LET THE CHURCH ARISE AND LET THE ENEMIES OF NIGERIA BE SCATTERED.

I want to say congrats to the former president for eventually getting a university degree. It’s just a pity that he got it at a time after he had ruled the country twice. Perharps, had he gotten it earlier, the country may have benefited from his experience in a higher institution. Albeit, I don’t think the receipt of a degree by a former president should have caused such inconvenience and suffering to the people of the state. The roads were blocked completely at major points in Victoria Island, Lagos on Wednesday, January 7, 2009 simply because Obasanjo was getting a Bachelor’s degree. What would happen when he got a Doctorate or if he became a professor. Bill Clinton became a visiting professor after his tenure as president of the United States of America and the Secret Service didn’t harass anybody either on or off the campus.

I really don’t understand why our leaders can’t bring themselves to be humble and empathize with the people. Why is power so intoxicating in Africa? Several hundreds or even thousands of road users had to go through near stand still traffic for hours just because a former president was receiving a Bachelors’ degree. It’s more amazing that the degree is in Theology which has one of its cardinal doctrines as Humility and Tolerance. I hope the former president would be able to practice what he has studied and may soon begin to preach. The article below was culled from The Punch.

The National Open University of Nigeria on Wednesday celebrated its maiden convocation with former President Olusegun Obasanjo refusing to speak to the press after collecting a certificate from the institution.

The former president, popularly called ‘Student Obasanjo’ by staff and students of the open university received his certificate from the institution’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Olagbemiro Jegede, amidst ovation from one of his predecessor Alhaji Shehu Shagari.

Present were the Vice-President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, the Senate President, Mr. David Mark and the Director-General, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Mr. Koichiro Matsuura.

However, journalists, who had hoped that Obasanjo would grant them an interview on his stay in the university after the convocation, were disappointed as he refused all entreaties to answer even their congratulatory messages.

As soon as he walked out of the venue, journalists moved to his side, to comment, but rather than answer them, he walked up to Koichiro whom he had a little discussion with.

Though his security aides were civil, pleading with the press that they should give him some chance to discuss with the UNESCO boss, the former president who looked tired, jumped into his waiting sports utility vehicle.

Before he entered the black vehicle, he struggled to remove the academic gown, but when he could not, he called one of his aides to help him.

He hopped into the car after exchanging pleasantries with some of the dignitaries including the Sokoto State Governor, Alhaji Aliyu Wammako and Chief Obafemi Olopade and left the venue.

Her daughter, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello and his former Special Assistant on Media, Dr. Doyin Okupe, were some of the people that accompanied the former president to the convocation.

Earlier, while presenting his convocation speech, the vice-chancellor, had described Obasanjo as a hardworking student.

“As a student, Obasanjo vigorously pursued his studies on full time basis…He is a shinning example of how seriously a student should take his learning. Like everybody, he sat for all the examinations using anonymous matriculation numbers, and by our internal quality control and security-proof control measures, his papers were marked by different tutors located in some of our study centres including Damaturu, Minna and Yenagoa,” he said.

Jegede explained that nobody had a foreknowledge of the former president’s marks until all students’ marks were assembled and presented to the university senate for approval.

In his remarks, President Umaru Yar’Adua, who was represented by his deputy, expressed the Federal Government’s continued support for the open distance learning university.

According to him, education is a top priority in the seven-point agenda of the administration and as such, government will continue to inject funding to the university.

I stumbled on this article by Nigeria’s former president, Olusegun Obasanjo on Barack Obama’s presidential victory while going through the Nigerian news online. I was quite impressed with the structure and delivery of his thoughts and even his thought pattern. Nevertheless, I would say though that I felt quite resentful knowing that such a knowledgeable man has had the opportunity to give hope and change to Nigeria twice in different generations and has successfully disappointed the majority of his countrymen while in service and in his succession plans and choices. I couldn’t help saying to myself, “if knowing wasn’t the problem, then why was doing impossible”.

Maybe I’m naive, maybe I don’t know the fine details. Maybe I’ll never know them. And maybe I really don’t care to know them. If Obama can make and change history, why didn’t he? or bringing it back home, why aren’t I? or why aren’t you? I’ll leave you with these questions as you read through the article and enjoy words a one-time leader of the most populous Nation in Africa wrote about another African who’s about to lead the world. I will react to different sections later.

Obama’s election and the needed change, by Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigerian President, 1999 – 2007), Thursday, November 6, 2008

LET me begin this article by congratulating President-Elect Senator Barack Obama for his well-deserved victory in the just concluded US Presidential Election of 2008. Senator Obama’s victory brought with it a new, refreshing and exciting taste in our mouths. Apart from doing himself and his family proud, he has also done his nation proud by crossing a Rubicon that was considered impassable almost inconceivable at least in the then immediate future. Senator Obama has not only made history, he is on course to change history.

The feeling of change that Senator Obama engendered through his campaign for the White House represents a significant theme of change we have all aspired and fought for in different areas, regions, cultures and historical times. The desire for change has never been the question nor has it ever been in question. It is the extent, the range, the tone, the quantity, the quantum and the sustenance of change that has always been the question.

So, what change does the young Senator from Illinois, Chicago propose to his countrymen and women what vision is he seeking to bring about? I do not consider myself a political pundit as such, but it is not too difficult to see that developments in the US and recent developments in the world at large have presented a graphic case for a change. The US needs change, Africa needs change, the developed world needs change, and the developing world needs change, we all need change. The American people have voted for a change that they hope their leader can bring about for them and their society through the aspirations and the administration of President-Elect Barrack Obama. The expectations in the US and indeed in the rest of the world are high and understandably so after the eight years of President George W. Bush.

Rooted in the achievements of Senator Obama is a far more significant theme for people aspiring to lead their communities, particularly for young Africans in Africa. It is the aspirations, the determination, the energy, the strategic thinking, planning and execution that Senator Obama and his campaign team have brought into what is being regarded as a movement. Entire generations have been roused and invited to bring about a change that they and the rest of the world desire.

Senator Obama’s unprecedented success is based on a number of factors which are best captured in two-folds – ‘Change and Hope.’ His campaign was predicated on change – the change we need and the change we believe in. The US like the rest of the world needs change, and this formed an anchor on which the Obama Hope cursor hangs. Obama’s election has injected a fresh air of hope, peace, constructive and inspiring leadership into the stale and fouled atmosphere of American international relations, economy, world economy and international financial market. In some ways his election has been described by some analysts as a referendum on George Bush’s eight years of unnecessary and totally avoidable wars and the meltdown economy.

What are the ingredients that are responsible for Senator Obama’s unprecedented success and what changes should we expect?

Let me relate my first and only encounter with Senator Barrack Obama.

In September 2007, during the Black Caucus Convention in Washington DC, I met and chatted with both Senator Hilary Clinton and Senator Barrack Obama separately, albeit briefly. One cannot but be impressed by Senator Obama’s disposition, he was intelligent, quick-witted and smart in his reactions and answers to my few questions. He was also courteous and cultured. He exuded confidence and friendship even though it was our first meeting. I was left in no doubt that if he could become the President of the US, the world may be better for it. At that point I naturally wondered if he could, most especially with the expected discrimination his name and colour might provoke. Nonetheless, I also recalled that when he first contested for political office in Illinois, though his funny name raised questions for him but it did not make him lose the election, he won.

His background was as interesting as his life so far. He was the outcome of a bi-racial relationship, love and marriage between a young African man from Kenya, who voluntarily went to the US in search of the Golden Fleece and he found love in a liberated white young woman.

By birth, he was a citizen of two continents and, by upbringing and education, he became better exposed and a true citizen of the world – a background and situation that shaped his outlook for public service and which made him “a nice guy who should not have desired to go into a dirty and nasty thing like politics” as he wrote in his book, “The Audacity of Hope”. Certain issues never go away from his head; his experience and surroundings – the problem of race, societal division, war, poverty and relations between the sexes. Obama remained in close bond to his mother and grandmother who made him not to feel the adverse impact of his absentee father. The greatest loss he seemed to have felt in life was the loss of his mother and maybe the second was the recent death of his grandmother.

On one hand, he was a product of Ivy League higher educational institutions, the quintessential breeding ground for future leaders in public life globally. He had earlier made history by becoming the first African-American President of the Harvard Law Review. Truly, it takes a village to raise a child and a proper one at that.

On the other hand, Senator Obama’s nature, wit, intellect and intelligence had set him aside and increasing his marketability for wide appeal across the various divides. He is a man of faith and his faith never deserts him.

Obama’s movement which began in the US and which had seen the Senator through to victory in the election has swept all over the world. He out-campaigned, out-strategised, out-funded, and out-debated his Republican rival, Senator John McCain. The crowd drawn by Obama during his visit to Europe was nothing short of a movement and it was simply electrifying. I must express my admiration for the managers and advisers of Senator Obama during the campaign. They were cautious, meticulous, and painstaking; they left nothing to chance. They checked and crosschecked everything and every milieu. A friend of mine and his wife were invited for an Obama event, few hours before the event took place, the organisers phoned my friend to inform him about his background and their findings that he is a lobbyist and that they would appreciate his refusal to attend the event but his wife could still come. My friend accepted it well and concluded “that is the extent to which they go to avoid embarrassment for their candidate.”

The ability of the Obama campaign team to understand the strategic imperative of conscientising and mobilising young people particularly of African American and Latino extraction is a further tribute to the ingenuity of the strategists. Throughout the campaign, Senator Obama was preferred by foreigners everywhere to his rival John McCain and the Republican Party except in Europe, Georgia; Obama’s movement was spearheaded by the fastest growing generation of US electorates (millennia generation) of ages 18-29 years. They carry no baggage of fear, doubt and prejudices of their parents and those before them. They are better educated, more exposed and they know the world better than their forebears. In the same vein, the ability of the campaign managers to facilitate the quick healing of the wounds of the presidential primaries should be a lesson for most political managers across the world, particularly in Africa. Getting Hilary and Bill Clinton to campaign for Senator Obama is a tribute to political maturity and adroitness on both sides. As I look at the whole development, I cannot but marvel at providence in Obama’ journey to the highest political height in the world. The economic crisis with financial meltdown was fortuitous, auspicious and certainly providential. Indeed success in life is substantially preparation and perspiration with a complement of good luck. Obama, sweated for his victory but providence was on hand to give history a gentle push in the right direction. Although the world at large could not cast vote in the US election, globally people know what they expect of America and who among the contestants could deliver what the world expects. America should not completely ignore the interest of the world.

Again, I see this as a growing movement rather than just a political party. Maybe, what Obama’s managers and advisers should address their mind to is how to channel this movement for the good of a world that is crying for change to make the world fairer and more peaceful, equitable, just, cooperative, friendly and brotherly and responsive to the yearnings of the poor, the oppressed and the vulnerable.

The world needs a global movement to work hand-in-hand with the world leaders to raise awareness and to work in tandem with the public and the private sectors to make the world a better and more genial place for every human being on earth. America as the most powerful nation of the world must accept the responsibility of leadership in making the world a better place for humanity.

Obama represents an ability to move from realms of dream to reality. He represents Hope for the global minorities who are being or feel oppressed by the majority. He represents Hope for the women who see a glass ceiling, with the assurance that all glass ceilings can be broken. After all, hope is the only thing we freely give to ourselves and it is the only thing that we are left with when all else has been taken away. Obama pursued his dreams and his hopes relentlessly and diligently. For him, nothing in life is beyond everybody’s reach. This was the driving force, which became his great vision and dream to be what everyone now reckons with in the world – Icon of Hope for a world devoid of racial discrimination, but filled with acceptance of diversity and recognition of differences. Part of his hope and dream is to facilitate the emergence of a post racial America. I believe embedded in that will be a pointer for divided countries to create the needed golden bridges across traditional divides and gaps of tribal bigotry, ethnic chauvinism, religious allegiance and other primordial considerations. It is a signal to us that we can gradually begin the movement towards an Africa that accepts everyone for what and who he or she is.

All the changes mentioned so far are good initiatives for individual countries – rich or poor and for the world as a whole. For me, the mental, psychological and ethical changes that Senator Obama’s election has started to bring about are as important if not more important even in the political, social and economic sense. The Americans have crossed a very important frontier and made history. For the most powerful country to be ruled by a minority, man of “colour” makes colour to recede into insignificance and cease to be regarded as an important consideration in American life. Most nations of the world have a lesson to learn from this historic US election.

The sky should be the limit of all Americans and all citizens of the world no matter the colour of skin, sex, religion, and language because what has happened in America is for a man to be seen for what he is – human and what he is capable of delivering – removes the consideration of minority-majority as a major debate or factor. People should be seen, accepted, judged and placed for what they are and what God has endowed them with. Those who preach the sermon of superiority of Intelligence Quotient or simple intellect based on colour, race, tribe or language must start to review and indeed change their sermon. My joy, as a member of the human race and a citizen of the world, knows no bound that the Obama phenomenon happened in my lifetime. I am confident that Martin Luther King would feel warm in his grave that his dream has eventually come true.

Senator Obama does not have any inferiority complex about his background; he makes it clear that he is an American, a citizen of the world and a member of the human race. He maintained that he would not blame discrimination of any sort, if he had failed to win the election, rather he would blame himself for not putting his ideas and programme across to the electorate properly and adequately. This would make him feel at home anywhere as a member of the human race and he will deal with anybody from any part of the world as he or she should be dealt with – a man or woman who is a member of the human race. That augurs well for the world at large.

His position of going for force of persuasion rather than persuasion of force must sound like sweet music in the ears of those who have agonised in the unilateralism of the use of force under the guise of fighting terrorism by the Bush administration. The change that such a disposition will ultimately bring to the conduct of foreign policy by a President Obama should make the world more peaceful, more cooperating, and more collective in solving the many problems of the world such as the ongoing world economic crisis, international financial market, climate change, HIV/AIDS, high prices of food and poverty. The MDGs, which are seven years away, must be substantially achieved. Talking with adversaries without pre-conditions and substituting the force of diplomacy for the military force will open a new specter of relationship in the world. If the US is at peace with all its adversaries, I believe the world will see a new dawn of peace, stability and cooperation.

The flow-out to Africa as the poorest continent of the world will be that the world led by the US can collectively work together with the rest of the developed world to solve the issue of diseases, corruption, poverty and inadequate infrastructure in Africa. Senator Obama’s name, background and colour which could have easily been liabilities, hard to surmount, may turn out to be some of the factors that will assist in helping him to bring about the changes directly needed at home and those he would have to singularly or collectively initiate across the globe.

Obamanomics, which will have to deal with the economic situation in the US, must bring about changes in taxation policy and tax regime, creation of jobs, curtailing the excessive consumption of every American and on cheap credit provided by the rest of the world. There must be change and internal adjustment to the limited world resources of fossil fuel, pollution of the atmosphere contributing inordinately to climate change.

After putting his economic house in order, President-Elect Obama will have to lead in putting the global economy in order, stock markets must be stabilised and international financial markets must be regulated and monitored. With over three trillion dollars being transacted on a daily basis, the international financial markets have been left too much on their own, hedge funds are very good examples of lack of control and monitoring in the international financial market. Access to health insurance by all Americans and stopping foreclosure on mortgage properties are also two major pillars of Obama’s social change and adjustment.

Africa may not expect President Obama to open the US treasury to them to wipe out their deep-rooted poverty and misery, but they must have the historic joy that a member of the human race, a true brother in the real African sense, presides over the affairs of the most powerful nation of the world and by extension leads the world. This alone has brought great hope for every man and woman all over the world.

Africa can get a catalyst from the rest of the world but Africans will have to continue to be the architect of their own fortune or misfortune. We Africans must gird our loins and draw encouragement and inspiration from the Obama phenomenon.

This is a precursor of more changes brought about by the story of hope that will continue to spread across the globe through which the world will become a true village of harmony, love, peace, equity, caring and sharing. It has begun and it will be unstoppable. Let us see how Obama with his advisers will move on. His team of advisers and collaborators on critical issues of National and World Economy, Climate Change, Energy, conduct of foreign policy including relationship with Europe particularly Russia.

The issue of the Middle East, Asia and the emerging economies and Africa’s poverty including 923 million malnourished people of the world must be heard at work to begin to fulfill the national and global expectations within the shortest time possible. At the same time, the current global financial crisis must not be used as an excuse to divert resources from Africa as it was done at the end of the Cold War. Obama’s advisers and managers must help him to do as good a job in governing as they have done in campaigning. Everyone knows that there is difference in governance and campaigning, the indication today is that Obama has the making of a fine and determined president that will bring the desired change for his nation and the world because he has stayed firm on his hope and dreams.

If Senator Obama knows the changes that we need and has stood solidly in fulfilling his dreams, then there should be no standing to stare and hand wringing. Let him move actively from rhetoric into action. Obama always said “we will do these together” let me give the leadership to inspire doing together nationally and globally. Destiny, vision, hope, good fortune and change, are the driving force for all his actions, reactions and intentions. Let him move expeditiously as the world is eagerly waiting for inspirational leadership from the US, the country whose action and inaction affects the rest of the world.

Although it is usual in the US for an incoming president to be assessed after the first 100 days, President Obama may not be given that luxury with urgent matters in his waiting tray from his first day in office. His nation and the world will start assessing his performance within the first 30 days. I believe that a prudent and wise choice of collaborators and advisers and the creation of team of collaborators and advisers who believe in his message of change and who are ready to swim with him will make the ride less bumpy and more smooth sailing. His first assessment will come from the quality of his team. He has a good stock of them and he can pick from across the political party line, if necessary.

The Obama victory is great evidence of what the American dream, American spirit and American system is all about – certainly of change for good and hope for everybody. The world is welcome to the post racial America with all the hopes and aspirations that it portends for America and the rest of the world particularly the African world.

Very early, saturday morning,  we set out from Lagos for Abeokuta, Ogun State. Our destination was University of Agriculture, Abeokuta. The theme of the seminar was Ideas, Opportunities and Wealth. The hall was almost packed full with students desirous of learning how as students they can leverage on the ideas and opportunities available to them to generate wealth. Of course,  one of the most pressing needs they had was knowing how to source or recognise opportunities around and take advantage of them.

The seminar host/organiser, Mr Olumide Adeleye, a young,  inspiring and entrepreneural student of the university took a session on the 21st century and the relevant ideas and opportunities that exist in this age. So fluent was this speaker that I wondered why he needed external facilitators at all. In my opinion, he did justice to the topic.  Anyway, Deolu Akinyemi (CEO,Generis Solutions) came up next speaking on the same theme but from a different perspective. Deolu highlighted that to take advantage of opportunities, you need to first see those opportunities; for you to see those opportunities, you need to be tuned to them.

“Opportunities pervade our environment all the time. There is no scarcity of opportunities, but you’ll never be aware of them until you are tuned to recognise their presence.” He said.

Man has within his brain an antenna like device that is activated by different interpretations of different things in his environment. This device is called the Recticular Activation System (RAS). The RAS is what is responsible for mental balance because man is said to have access to 60,000 different signals coming into his brain per second. The RAS is what makes it possible for the human brain to filter such signals and messages to particular ones that the man requires or is willing to process immediately. The reason one’s RAS would not pick an opportunity is because he’s not tuned to it, so it’s being filtered out.”

He also let them know of some opportunities that were available at the moment. Opportunities like CV Bank, Forex trading and so on. After Deolu, came up Femi Onagoruwa (former associate editor, StockWatch magazine and presenter on Stocks on 101.5 FM). He spoke on how to maximise the very bearish Nigerian Stock Exchange and how to play in other investment opportunities. I also was invited to speak on how the CV Bank opportunity worked. Interestingly, I met a few people from my past there at the seminar. One was a friend’s younger sister. We used to be in the youth choir together in my former church. She was all grown up now and looking really beautiful and different. Coincidentally, her boyfriend had been looking for a way to get in touch with Deolu Akinyemi and since his babe knew me, he seized the opportunity to become my friend so that I can organise a smooth access to Deolu…Lol. Amazing what networks can do ei? Another was a guy who used to hawk plantain every night at a particular bus terminus not far from where my family used to stay over 10years ago. Every night, himself, his sister and brothers would carry trays loaded with plantain and go and sell them at the bus terminus till the early hours of the morning. I was so glad to see that through all that struggle, poverty and stress, he’d been able to push himself to the university. There’s no telling to what heights he’ll reach and all that had happened in the past would be juicy history.

We left UNAAB at about 5pm, but not before a few of them had signed up to the CV Bank and New Nigeria Club and set out to see my parents who incidentally reside in Abeokuta. You’ll get the rest of the gist later……….

“The only way to say it is “Thank you for the impact you have made in the lives of the people. The testimonies of yesterday, I’m sure, will be said in the next 20 years and you guys will be at the receiving end. Thanks for being a blessing to this generation. I quite appreciate.

And also for the huge cheque dropped, thank you. I know it will get better for AGESS with people like you and people like me ready to bless them with what we have.

I gat to go.”

                  - Toyin Ewuola (AGESS President)   

 Tuesday this week, I was back in my alma mater – Obafemi Awolowo University to speak to the students of Agricultural Engineering department. November, this year will make it 3 years since I left that department. I spent 7 years in that school studying for a 5-yr course. I’ll leave the gist of those 7 yrs for now…but i remember very vividly that just before I left, I opened my mouth and passionately declared

“I’ll be back in 5 years time with proof to show my lecturers and the department as a whole that it’s not what degree you graduate with that matters but what pedigree you graduate with or acquire after graduation.”

I’ll need to take you aback a little to explain to you how that statement came about but I had been invited by the Executive Council of the Agricultural Engineering Students Society to come and present a seminar to the whole department during their departmental week. I was offered this honored privilege along with a colleague who had in school been my closest pal and was also excelling uniquely in his own way.

On gaining admission into OAU, I was offered Agricultural Engineering as against Electronic/Electrical Engineering which was my first choice of course of study. I felt really cheated because I had been told that I’d get my choice of course or get Mechanical Engineering. Now, understand that the last course on my mind was Agric Engineering. I didn’t like it and couldn’t stomach the fact that i’d be tied down for 5 years studying a course I detested. To cut the long story short, I got into Agric Engineering anyway and set out to studying for the 1st year after I had alongside my parents been able to negotiate a sure release from the department with the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology, if I performed beyond a particular grade point average (GPA).

Ofcourse, I surpassed the GPA and even ended the 1st session as the best student in my class but I was not  to be released from the department under different pretexts that ranged from the department not wanting to lose it’s best student and the Dean not admitting that he had committed to letting me go to my desired department. I got really sorry and frustrated and when it seemed like I was going to be spending my 2nd yr in Agric. Engineering, decided to sit for SAT and try to get into Canada. That’s another long story I don’t really want to start in this post but suffice it to say that I performed excellently in the SATs and bettered 93% of those I did the exams with. I had good scholarship scores, but watched to see other friends of mine get scholarships and admissions and travel out with much less scores than I had.

I really had lost interest in OAU at this time and just kept on faffing all around the place. I hardly went for lectures and did my diligence to ensure that I did not perform at all or well in my continuous assessment. Needless of a talisman, you can guess that I performed absolutely woefully that session and decided to wake upt the next. So 300 level as we typically refer to 3rd session was a slow comeback to status quo.  400 level went beautifully and by 500 level, I was sure I’d graduate with my desired GPA. Towards the end of the 2nd semester of my final year, I was told that one of the courses I did in 400 level has been dropped from an A to a B grade. Now, that course had over 10 course units and had the capacity to drop my GPA from one grade level to another.

I tried to solicit the lecturers in the department stating my case passionately about their not letting my hardwork towards the end of my stay in school go to waste. After several passionate appeals and reviews and even staff meetings, they finally decided not to upgrade it to an A. To make matters worse or simpler as the case may be, I had scored in my 1st semester, final year, three 68Bs in 3 different courses. The department was unwilling to upgrade any of these courses as well. I was one of the most popular guys in my set and one of the most respected and friendly with respect to lecturers in the department, but I wasn’t treated particularly well in my own estimation. Hence, I declared with a lot of passion and emotion the statement in quote above.

Amazingly, only 3 years after, I’ve been able to live the words that I proclaimed 3 years earlier as I stood up to speak to over 150 students and lecturers of my former department about how to succeed beyond the four walls of the University. It gave me a feeling of accomplishment and joy knowing I can positively impact a department that negatively motivated me for the challenges outside the university. My lecturers would  probably have been in my success story as supporters, rather, they are there as antagonists whose hurdle I needed to overcome to succeed outside school.

I thank God that he put me in such a position but I challenge you to challenge your challenge currently and declare to it your desire very passionately in a measure of time and see if it is possible or not to change your world with your words.

Two days ago, I crossed another milestone on my career path. Those who have heard me or read me know that I keep on going about consulting this…consulting that…Anyway, I was able to move up my game from HR/Business consulting to Leadership/Organisational Development consulting. How did that happen?

Well…I don’t know if I’ve mentioned in any of my posts that sometime earlier this year, I met one of my mentors in the area of finance and organisational development. I went for a seminar, saw him standing afar off and approached him. I guessed this was my moment of connection and I seized it with fear and excitement. Interestingly, he had been school mates with my father in the University and they had even been members of the same fellowship while there in the university….bla bla bla

Anyway, he had done so well through the years in the area of production and manufacturing and had become an Icon of business in Nigeria. He sits on the boards of several multinational organisations. So, back to my story. I met him by force that day and of course collected his contact. I afterwards had one reason or another to correspond with him and as luck will have it, he also had reason to contact me especially in relation to my father.

Thus, a relationship was started and it has grown quite well. (if you see anyone you had dreamt of meeting, please walk up to them and establish contact…the world only moves for those who move…that might be the step to the . In fact, the relationship has moved to all to different levels – personal (I’ve been to his house thrice; one of which was to have lunch), business (we’ve invested together in the same business ideas), mentor/mentee (I have free access to call and ask him about what his advice is with regards to any area of my life). All these happened in the last 3 months. I feel very favoured because I’ve gotten referrals of CEOs from him and so my network has been expanding immensely.

Why have I been saying all these. Well……it is to inform you that I was privileged once again to sit in as a colleague with my mentor on a consulting session that had to do with Leadership/Organisational Development for a particular company. How did this happen? Well…I noted it on one of our earlier meetings when he mentioned that he’d be doing consulting in that line now and asked 1 or 2 subsequent meetings later, if I could volunteer to help with his work. I indicated my willingness to learn and my belief that learning from the best makes you the best faster than learning to be the best yourself.

He agreed after a thought and added that I might even be able to bring some of my profession to bear in the case at hand. Guys, please learn to volunteer. You never can tell what you’ll learn by making yourself available and useful in the area you have a passion in or in the career direction you want to follow.

First and foremost, I felt so good been introduced as his colleague to the clients at the start of the meeting and even though I was there to listen and observe, I ended up contributing positively as a consultant. Well, of course, it wasn’t that the subject matter was strange to me or completely diverse from my profession, but I had not done such consulting at that level. The meeting lasted about 6 hours ( there was a short tea break after 3 hours) and though I made the mistake of not having breakfast before the meeting, I couldn’t really tell how much time had flown by until I found out that it was 4pm. This was a meeting that started at 10am.

At the end of the consulting session, our clients were mind blown and couldn’t wait for another session. Suddenly in their words, it seemed as if what they thought was dead had come to life. They could see only possibilities. In fact one of them asked if that was really the company they worked for. It was very enlightening.

So, I’ve just crossed another milestone and gone and cut my teeth in organisational/leadership development consulting. HURRAY!!!