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

I am currently sitting on the second row of the New great hall of the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital with some great students of that college. Actually, sitting with me in the hall are scores of college of medicine and dentistry students looking all radiant in conservative coloured suits and blue shirts and blouses.

YBC is the name of the group that put together the symposium that is holding currently in the hall. I actually was dragged to the symposium by a dear friend, Christian Love who had been asked to come and speak on a topic “Working Class Heroes”. I really don’t remember ever being on the premises of this great hospital complex but am I glad to be here.

I love being in the midst of excited and energetic students if for nothing at all, to feel their energy, vibrancy and youth. Don’t mind me. I’m very much a youth and an energetic one at that. 

And for your information, YBC means Year Book Class. This I guess indicates the final year students in the college of medicine and surgery and dentistry.

The Hall wasn’t neglected in its decoration as drapes of different shades of blue and some pink hung as a back-drop in the front of the hall and decorations of royal blue with pink ribbons hanging from the stage.

The list of guest speakers at the symposium is quite impressive. From the Chairman to the other speakers, I caught names like Tonye Cole, MD of Sahara Oil and Gas, Mrs Craig from Poise Nigeria, an eminent professor and a very intelligent doctor, both female I might add.

As at the time of writing this article, the symposium/year book launch, the latter of which I just learnt about a few minutes ago is in full swing. In fact, launching of the year book is going on currently.

Anyway, why am I writing this post. As I sit down enjoying the excitement and energy of this gathering, I can’t help but wonder, 5 years from now. How many of these doctors would be engaged in upholding the health industry in this country. They will swear an oath in a few weeks to come but how many of them would die to keep that oath. The keynote speaker said in her presentation that the number of medical doctors practicing in the United States of America alone were 21,000 in 1995.

Part of the theme of the symposium is “The Solution to Brain Drain”. How many of these new doctors would not agree to allow their brains be drained? How many would not be satisfied with 3rd class and 4th class citizenry in countries that would accomodate them only because they need Taxi drivers, barbers, security men, soldiers, assistants and other non professional workforce.

My passion and love for this country causes pain to rise in my heart and burden to rest on my soul when I ponder what these graduands are moving into the working-class world to experience. Would they be depressed and discouraged by the harsh realities of a non-caring system. Would they be caught between observing and standing by the values of their profession in Nigeria and bowing to the prevalent corruption, selfishess and greed that currently exists in the society?

I really can’t answer these questions but I know that the fire is re-kindled in my spirit to do all I can and all I must to ensure that those who become doctors a few years from now will not have the same challenges and dilemma that these ones currently have.

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 was told about this song few days ago and I’ve been listening to it relentlessly. It was rendered by John Legend at the Democratic National Convention for the recent Presidential Elections. It inspires me per time. It motivates me and sets me on fire.

I haven’t been able to write post for the past few days not because of lack of desire or lack of content but because of a heaviness a just couldn’t lift. I have been reading “Long walk to freedom” by Nelson Mandela and I regularly get goose pimples as I read and discover the way destiny unfolded for him. He didn’t plan to become the president of South Africa but his beliefs about how africans were treated against how they should be treated drove him to fight for equality between white and black in South Africa and ended in his becoming president of the Nation.

Mandela was the son of a chief and was being groomed to become a high chief in his native land. In fact, the reason education was important for him then was because as a respected adviser to the regent which was his career path, he needed to be educated so he could contribute from an enlightened perspective to the matters of council.

Education exposed him to the reality of racism and unfair governance in his country and sucked him deeper and deeper into the fight for liberation. One way or another, he gave up his rights as a chief in the making, as the ward of a regent and even as a lawyer to fight for the emancipation of his people.

He could no longer wake and sleep in peace knowing that with every turn of the day africans (the original owners of the land) were living as slaves in their own country in bondage to the white man. He suffered for his beliefs. His family paid for his beliefs. He eventually went to prison for his fight against enslavement and spent almost 3 decades behind bars.

He was ready to die to see South Africa free of Apartheid. He wouldn’t live free if his people were not free. He saw the that the future was now (while he was alive). He was willing to sacrifice his present even though he was aware of the past so he could secure the future.

He is now the most influential man alive and the future of native South Africans is secure.

Nigerians!!! Let’s wake up to the present so we can face the future and deliver it. The future was yesterday and we are already late, John Legend sang. Are you out there? Can you hear me? If you can, let’s join our hands together and set our faces toward the future while we employ our present with the benefit of our past to DELIVER THE FUTURE for Nigeria.

The country is far, very far from its destination and slavery, slavery by our own is holding forte. We need to be ready to break free from form this bondage. We need to become informed followers so we can elect responsible leaders. We need to become impossible to enslave any longer. We need to become difficult to rule but easy to govern.

IF YOU ARE OUT THERE…….

The inauguration of the 44th and 1st black president of the United States of America was realised on the 20th of January, this year. With regards to America’s standing as the leader of the free world, it was imperative that most countries that had foreign missions in America would have been represented at the inauguration one way or another. To buttress this, invitations were sent to such countries to have their delegates ably represented at the event. Nigeria, by default also got an invitation. We are the most populous black nation and the fifth largest seller of crude oil to the U.S. It would have been quite surprising if we weren’t invited.

As if that was not honour enough, I learn’t that some state governors decided to go and witness history being made live. One can only hope that they were not just fascinated about Obama’s glory but that they would have critically observed his story and will take actionable steps to implement positive change in their various states.

Anyway, the governors are not my concern. Everyone has a free will to take 1 or 2 days off to be part of history. What I read concerning our foreign delegation is what irks me. President Barack Obama who was sworn in on that day has since started work in earnest. Signing in documents into law, meeting with members of staff of the white house and his cabinet, dealing with the shutting of Guantanamo bay, addressing the way forward in Afghanistan and so on. Our own foreign mission representatives headed by Ojo Madueke are yet to return from the United States.

I really am not angry at them after thinking through deeply. Afterall, you can’t acheive history like that in Nigeria and just let it go so unceremoniously. Firstly, since the gods have finally accepted our prayers, they must be duely appeased with all sorts of sacrifices and festivities. Also, God almighty needs to be given the praise for allowing it to happen, so we need to give him loads of praise and worship with a few popular bands (about 2o) declaring these praises for a few days. Also, since of course, the president would have become president on the platform of a particular party, that party would have to host the president to a high profile success party with the party executives in attendance where the monies spent earlier on other celebrations are re-spent and a lot more noise made through the media, musicians and so on. And because the president is from some local area in the country, then his community must host him to another party where the traditional ruler and high chiefs of his local community can congratulate him in person and where ordinary citizens from the area can catch a live glimpse of their “brother” who has just become president.

Unfortunately, all these didn’t happen in the U.S. though our foreign mission must have booked for about 2 weeks in their hotels not expecting that all will be over so soon. It may be also that I’m wrong. Possibly, the foreign mission delegates might just have thought to themselves,

“since we are already in America, even though on official assignment that has elapsed, can we just convert

sometime into vacation. After all, estacode that we collected must not be returned. We must spend it

by every means possible even if we have to stay back in America for 1 month or is there any other country

that is swearing in their president or rebel leader that we can visit officially?”

I really don’t know which it is but I appeal to our representatives to please return home ASAP. Thank you for representing us. It’s time for you to come and earn your keep and add value to your country by serving to the best of your ability. America is that way because people made it so. Come back and make your country so………Deliver the future if you can, and please resign if you wouldn’t.

A few minutes ago I saw President Obama (doesn’t it feel good to call him that) escort ex-president George Bush to the “Mobile One” helicopter and went back to the steps of the white house to wave at him as he was flown off the white house premises. That was the activity that culminated the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States of America. A few minutes before then the president had been sworn in at the Capitol Hill and had given a land mark inauguration speech.
I saw the camera view change time and time again from the crowd at the Capitol Hill to crowds in Memphis, Tennessee, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and so on. Even in the National Museum was gathered a crowd to watch on screen the inauguration process. Crowds gathered in the streets of New York to participate in this uncommon but popular mark of history. I was moved to tears especially during his speech not only because it occurred to me that he was setting in clear terms the direction for the price of oil subsequently with statements like “We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories”, but also because I felt, if we ever have any inauguration or swearing in of a president that has as many people in the country participating in watching the process, then whoever that person is must be the right person this nation needs to rule it.
I have a dream that one day, crowds of people will gather to see Nigeria swear in a true president that is deserving of the office.
Regardless of how much emotion one feels at the fulfillment of such a seemingly far fetched goal, we must understand as Nigerians that loads of preparation and strategy must have gone into the process. Even George Bush never really knew anything about Obama until about two years ago and could never have had a bad dream in which Obama was running for president on the ticket of the Democrats not to talk of becoming the President he would hand over to. He was watching out for Hilary Clinton.
We as forward looking Nigerians, Nigerians who want to see a new Nigeria, Nigerians who desire a procession like that we just witnessed today; Nigerians who want to have leaders whose quotes generations after them would stand with pride and declare; Nigerians whose children and grandchildren would learn about in their primary and secondary schools with pleasure and a sense or awe; Nigerians, whose definition of leadership would be service and progress to humanity and the society; NIGERIANS WHO WILL DELIVER THE FUTURE.
Fellow Nigerians, interestingly the 2 verses of our National Anthem define how responsibility should be divided. Verse 1 points to our responsibility and verse 2 points to God’s responsibility. If we do our responsibility FIRST, we can then pray and trust God to do His part.
So then,
ARISE!!! O compatriots, NIGERIA’s call OBEY
to SERVE our father land, with LOVE and STRENGTH and FAITH
the labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain
to SERVE with HEART and MIGHT,
one nation bound in freedom, peace and unity

O God of Creation, DIRECT our noble cause
GUIDE our leaders right, our youths the truth TO KNOW
in love and honestyTO GROW, and living JUST and TRUE
great lofty heights ATTAIN, to BUILD a nation where peace and justice SHALL REIGN.

God bless you and God bless Nigeria