Opinion

Zero to HERO: A Noble Transitional Reminder!

Published

1 year ago

April 8, 2023

Eric

By Tolulope A. Adegoke

“I need to reiterate here that, when it comes to this noble task, nothing is impossible! Only change is constant in life. In fact, interest rules (the world) … Everyone can improve at anything and at whatever level, provided that he or she is willing enough to undergo the required processes of development. My point is that your life can experience a revolutionary change, as long as you are ready to learn, follow the footsteps of champions and apply other essential life-changing principles from the Book of Life and other relevant sources.” – Tolulope A. Adegoke, PhD., MNIM, FIMC, CMC, CMS

The example of Japan is pertinent here. In the aftermath of the Second World War, Japan’s two largest economic cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were bombed to the ground. Several lives and properties were lost. To put it simply, Japan was reduced to nearly nothing, economically and politically.

Yet, because the Japanese believe so much in their individual and national potentials, they have rebuilt their economy to be one of the best in the world. In fact, in the early 2000s, a Prime Minister of the country, while speaking at the anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing, said that even if Japan were to be placed in a desert, the Japanese would rebuild their nation to become the second largest economy in the world in a short time.

The truth of that statement can be seen all around – especially with the quality and quantity of products manufactured in Japan. In fact, even though Japan currently does not have enough steel to produce vehicle bonnets, nor does it have enough silicon to produce side-mirrors or even enough rubber to produce steering-wheels, yet the country is the highest exporter of cars in the world.

My point is that Japan rose to be an economic giant from being reduced to zero. Despite the odds and pains, it ascended the ladder of greatness among the nations of the world. This teaches us the power of resilience. Every zero status can be reversed if dutifully worked upon.

The wealth of any individual or nation is not found under the feet but in-between the “ears” – that is, the contents of their brain and character. Let’s apply this to Nigeria as a nation, especially to re-orientate its leaders and citizens, the young ones in particular. The real wealth of Nigeria is not in the creeks of the Niger-Delta or anywhere else in the country. It is neither in the abundance of crude oil nor in the vast mineral resources all over the country. The real wealth lies in the country’s heterogeneous population. Yes, let me repeat it – It is the very citizens of the Nigerian nation that are usually considered the least of its resources (the zero resources) that are its hope and future. This is because right in them lie the ability, acumen and determination to harness and utilise the various natural, mineral and petroleum resources of the nation in line with God’s purpose for its existence.

In truth, the so-called valuable resources that people often jostle and sometimes tussle to get from the ground are not the real resources of any nation; the true resources are the citizens – the often overlooked treasures who have several divinely-endowed potentials in them. Sadly, many of these die daily, before their time, and go the grave with their potentials in them. No wonder the late Myles Munroe said that the richest place on earth is the cemetery!

Pertinent Reassurance

Before proceeding to the next phase in which we shall be exploring detailed principles on positively empowering our zeroes, I need to reiterate here that, when it comes to this noble task, nothing is impossible! Only change is constant in life. Everyone can improve at anything and at whatever level, provided that he or she is willing enough to undergo the required processes of development.

My point is that your life can experience a revolutionary change, as long as you are ready to learn, follow the footsteps of champions and apply other essential life-changing principles from the Scripture and other relevant sources.

Let me illustrate this truth with the experience of D.W Ghent who was said to have participated in Dale Carnegie’s public speaking programme in Philadelphia. Shortly after the opening session, Ghent had invited Carnegie to lunch with him in the manufacturers’ club. Ghent was a middle-aged man and had always led an active life; he was head of his own manufacturing establishment and a leader in church work and civic activities. While they were having lunch that day, he leaned across the table and said: “I have been asked many times to talk before various gatherings, but I have never been able to do so: I get so fussed, my mind becomes an utter blank: So I have side-stepped it all my life. But I am now on a board of college trustees. I must preside at their meetings. I simply have to do some talking…Do you think that is possible for me to learn at this late date in my life?”

“Do I think, Mr Ghent?” Carnegie replied. “It is not a question of my thinking. I know you can, and I know you will if you only practise and follow the directions and instructions.”

Mr Ghent wanted to believe what Carnegie had said, but it seemed too rosy, too optimistic. So he said, “I am afraid you are you are just being kind; you are merely trying to encourage me.”

After Mr Ghent had completed his training, he and Dale Carnegie lost touch with each other for a while.

Some years later, however, they met again and lunched together at the Manufacturers’ Club. They sat in the same corner and occupied the same table that they had on the first occasion. Reminding Ghent of their former conversation, Carnegie asked him if he really had been too optimistic then. Ghent took a little red-backed notebook out of his pocket and showed him a list of talks and dates for which he had been booked.

“And the ability to make these,” he confessed, “the pleasure I get in doing it, the additional service I can render to the community – these are among the most gratifying things in my life. Not only have I given countless public speeches, but just recently I was chosen from all the community leaders in this city to give the introduction when David Lloyd George (then the Prime minister of Great Britain) addresses a mass meeting in Philadelphia.”

Yet, this was the same man who had sat at the same table less than three years before and solemnly asked Carnegie if he would ever be able to talk in public!

We find another amazing proof that nothing is impossible when it comes to transiting from a zero to a hero in the case of the biblical David. The inspiring story of his rise from a despised shepherd boy to a renowned warrior and revered king begins from I Samuel 16. Here, we are told how God, who had seen his commitment to duty and passion for service in the loneliness of the mountains and valleys where he cared for his father’s sheep, sent Samuel to anoint him Israel’s next king, following the rejection of Saul. Being the family’s zero, however, nobody had initially considered presenting David as one of the sons of Jesse – yet the Almighty God who rewards enthusiasm for greatness found him out and he was anointed. It was after this that he killed Goliath before the Philistines and the Israelites. He became a military general of Israel at the very tender age of 17.

David eventually ascended the throne, despite various attempts by Saul to kill him. He started as a zero but eventually emerged a hero! He diligently went through the rough but refining and toughening process of his transition through his strength of character, fear of God, unwavering courage and undaunted self-belief.

I tell you, friend, you too can rise from your present level to an exceedingly glorious and influential one. This is the will of God for you.

The End

Dr. Tolulope A. Adegoke is an accredited ISO 20700 Effective Leadership Trainer

Opinion

The End of a Political Party

Published

2 days ago

September 16, 2024

Eric

By Obianuju Kanu-Ogoko

It is deeply alarming and shameful to witness an elected official of an opposition party openly calling for the continuation of President Tinubu’s administration. This blatant betrayal goes against the very essence of democratic opposition and makes a mockery of the values the PDP is supposed to stand for.

Even more concerning is the deafening silence from North Central leadership. This silence comes at a price—For the funneled $3 million to buy off the courts for one of their Leaders’, the NC has compromised integrity, ensuring that any potential challenge is conveniently quashed. Such actions reveal a deeply compromised leadership, one that no longer stands for the people but for personal gain.

When a member of a political party publicly supports the ruling party, it raises the critical question: Who is truly standing for the PDP? When a Minister publicly insulted PDP and said that he is standing with the President, and you did nothing; why won’t others blatantly insult the party? Only under the Watch of this NWC has PDP been so ridiculed to the gutters. Where is the opposition we so desperately need in this time of political crisis? It is a betrayal of trust, of principles and of the party’s very foundation.

The leadership of this party has failed woefully. You have turned the PDP into a laughing stock, a hollow shell of what it once was. No political party with any credibility or integrity will even consider aligning or merging with the PDP at this rate. The decay runs deep and the shame is monumental.

WHAT A DISGRACE!

Opinion

Day Dele Momodu Made Me Live Above My Means

Published

2 weeks ago

September 1, 2024

Eric

By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

These are dangerous days of gross shamelessness in totalitarian Nigeria.
Pathetic flaunting of clannish power is all the rage, and a good number of supposedly modern-day Nigerians have thrown their brains into the primordial ring.

One pathetic character came to me the other day stressing that the only way I can prove to him that I am not an ethnic bigot is to write an article attacking Dele Momodu!

I could not make any head or tail of the bloke’s proposition because I did not understand how ethnic bigotry can come up in an issue concerning Dele Momodu and my poor self.

The dotty guy made the further elaboration that I stand accused of turning into a “philosopher of the right” instead of supporting the government of the day which belongs to the left!

A toast to Karl Marx in presidential jet and presidential yacht!

I nearly expired with laughter as I remembered how one fat kept man who spells his surname as “San” (for Senior Advocate of Nigeria – SAN) wrote a wretched piece on me as an ethnic bigot and compelled one boozy rascal that dubiously studied law in my time at Great Ife to put it on my Facebook wall!

The excited tribesmen of Nigerian democracy and their giddy slaves have been greased to use attack as the first aspect of defence by calling all dissenting voices “ethnic bigots” as balm on their rotted consciences.

The bloke urging me to attack Dele Momodu was saddened when he learnt that I regarded the Ovation publisher as “my brother”!

Even amid the strange doings in Nigeria of the moment I can still count on some famous brothers who have not denied me such as Senator Babafemi Ojudu who privileged me to read his soon-to-be-published memoir as a fellow Guerrilla Journalist, and the lionized actor Richard Mofe-Damijo (RMD) who while on a recent film project in faraway Canada made my professor cousin over there to know that “Uzor is my brother!”

It is now incumbent on me to tell the world of the day that Dele Momodu made me live above my means.

All the court jesters, toadies, fawners, bootlickers and ill-assorted jobbers and hirelings put together can never be renewed with enough palliatives to countermand my respect for Dele Momodu who once told our friend in London who was boasting that he was chased out of Nigeria by General Babangida because of his activism: “Babangida did not chase you out of Nigeria. You found love with an oyinbo woman and followed her to London. Leave Babangida out of the matter!”

Dele Momodu takes his writing seriously, and does let me have a look at his manuscripts – even the one written on his presidential campaign by his campaign manager.

Unlike most Nigerians who are given to half measures, Dele Momodu writes so well and insists on having different fresh eyes to look at his works.

It was a sunny day in Lagos that I got a call from the Ovation publisher that I should stand by to do some work on a biography he was about to publish.

He warned me that I have only one day to do the work, and I replied him that I was raring to go because I love impossible challenges.

The manuscript of the biography hit my email in fast seconds, and before I could say Bob Dee a fat alert burst my spare bank account!

Being a ragged-trousered philanthropist, a la the title of Robert Tressel’s proletarian novel, I protested to Dele that it’s only beer money I needed but, kind and ever rendering soul that he is, he would not hear of it.

I went to Lagos Country Club, Ikeja and sacked my young brother, Vitus Akudinobi, from his office in the club so that I can concentrate fully on the work.

Many phone calls came my way, and I told my friends to go to my divine watering-hole to wait for me there and eat and drink all that they wanted because “money is not my problem!”

More calls came from my guys and their groupies asking for all makes of booze, isiewu, nkwobi and the assorted lots, and I asked them to continue to have a ball in my absence, that I would join them later to pick up the bill!

The many friends of the poor poet were astonished at the new-fangled wealth and confidence of the new member of the idle rich class!

It was a beautiful read that Dele Momodu had on offer, and by late evening I had read the entire book, and done some minor editing here and there.

It was then up to me to conclude the task by doing routine editing – or adding “style” as Tom Sawyer would tell his buddy Huckleberry Finn in the eponymous adventure books of Mark Twain.

I chose the style option, and I was indeed in my elements, enjoying all aspects of the book until it was getting to ten in the night, and my partying friends were frantically calling for my appearance.

I was totally satisfied with my effort such that I felt proud pressing the “Send” button on my laptop for onward transmission to Dele Momodu’s email.

I then rushed to the restaurant where my friends were waiting for me, and I had hardly settled down when one of Dele’s assistants called to say that there were some issues with the script I sent!

I had to perforce reopen up my computer in the bar, and I could not immediately fathom which of the saved copies happened to be the real deal.

One then remembered that there were tell-tale signs when the computer kept warning that I was putting too much on the clipboard or whatever.

It’s such a downer that after feeling so high that one had done the best possible work only to be left with the words of James Hadley Chase in The Sucker Punch: “It’s only when a guy gets full of confidence that he’s wide open for the sucker punch.”
Lesson learnt: keep it simple – even if you have been made to live above your means by Dele Momodu!

To end, how can a wannabe state agent and government apologist, a hired askari, hope to get me to write an article against a brother who has done me no harm whatsoever? Mba!

I admire Dele Momodu immensely for his courage of conviction to tell truth to power.

Opinion

PDP at 26, A Time for Reflection not Celebration

Published

2 weeks ago

September 1, 2024

Eric

By Obianuju Kanu-Ogoko

At 26 years, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) should have been a pillar of strength, a beacon of hope and a testament to the enduring promise of democracy in Nigeria.*

Yet, as we stand at this milestone, it is clear that we have little, if anything, to celebrate. Instead, this anniversary marks a sobering moment of reflection, a time to confront the hard truths that have plagued our journey and to acknowledge the gap between our potential and our reality.

Twenty-six years should have seen us mature into a force for good, a party that consistently upholds the values of integrity, unity and progress for all Nigerians.

But the reality is far from this ideal. Instead of celebrating, we must face the uncomfortable truth: *at 26, the PDP has failed to live up to the promise that once inspired millions.*

We cannot celebrate when our internal divisions have weakened our ability to lead. We cannot celebrate when the very principles that should guide us: justice, fairness and accountability,have been sidelined in favor of personal ambition and short-term gains. We cannot celebrate when the Nigerian people, who once looked to the PDP for leadership, now question our relevance and our commitment to their welfare.

This is not a time for self-congratulation. It is a time for deep introspection and honest assessment. What have we truly achieved? Where did we go wrong? And most importantly, how do we rebuild the trust that has been lost? These are the questions we must ask ourselves, not just as a party, but as individuals who believe in the ideals that the PDP was founded upon.

At 26, we should be at the height of our powers, but instead, we find ourselves at a crossroads. The path forward is not easy, but it is necessary. We must return to our roots, to the values that once made the PDP a symbol of hope and possibility. We must rebuild from within, embracing transparency, unity and a renewed commitment to serving the people of Nigeria.

There is no celebration today, only the recognition that we have a long road ahead. But if we use this moment wisely, if we truly learn from our past mistakes, there is still hope for a future where the PDP can once again stand tall, not just in name, but in action and impact. The journey begins now, not with *fanfare but with resolve.