THE CHALLENGE OF RESTORATION: NIGERIA

The founding fathers of Nigeria had the vision of leading their people from the shackles of disease, want, ignorance and development to modernity. This vision they shared with great men like Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Dr. Mahathir Mohammed of Malaysia in the 60s and 80s. This vision is aptly captured in the message of the old national anthem if the politically incorrect language is ignored. "Nigeria, We Hail Thee" (1960-1978) Nigeria, we hail thee, Our own dear native land, Though tribe and tongue may differ, In brotherhood we stand, Nigerians all are proud to serve Our sovereign Motherland. Our flag shall be a symbol That truth and justice reign, In peace or battle honour'd, And this we count as gain, To hand on to our children A banner without stain. O God of all creation, Grant this our one request, Help us to build a nation Where no man is oppressed, And so with peace and plenty Nigeria may be blessed QUESTION To what extent have these aspirations been met by successive government of our nation? The brotherhood was shattered by a needless fratricide civil war where millions of Nigeria lost their lives. The war stained the “banner” handed over to us by our father, contrary to the vision of the founding fathers. A whole generation was wasted in 33 years of military rule- a period where truth and justices were literally on vacation. We become a nation where the prayers of the founding father to build a nation where no man is oppressed, rang hallow. Oppressed typed our nation until people losing their freedom and even their lives by peaceful voicing opposition to government. Our government was born into this atmosphere of shattered hopes, surreal dreams, blurred vision and a bloody civil war. We are weaned under the jackboots of military oppression, ethnic and religious strife, urban violence and finally “plenty”of want. It is this generation that has now been called upon to restore Nigeria to the original vision of our founding fathers. The challenges are daunting in the sense that we lack one of the most basic tools of any political endeavour – experience of good governance. The founding fathers had a very short period to actualize their dream/vision before the noble enterprise was shaken to its foundations. The generation of our fathers was wasted by military rule that of our elder brothers was lost to economic depression. But we are determine to succeed. Today, we are literally back to where they are at independence, with the task of building a united, prosperous and peaceful nation still a dream. Unfortunately, time is not on our side, we are not at the dawn of our generation but at late afternoon, with the twilight about to set in as to be expected of a people with literally forlorn hope, Nigerian’s are importantly expectant. We do not blame them, it is the duty of government as the generation of leaders called upon to restore the vision to meet their aspirations. It is possible to achieve modernity within a generation as the experience of Singapore that developed from a 3rd world country to First (1st) world country. In 30 years between 1960 and 1990 and subsequently that of Malaysia has shown. All that is required is a Leadership with Vision and political will. This is probably our nation’s last chance, as from the current global trend, it is doubtful if any nation will have another 40 years to experiment with government but as stated earlier, 40 years is more than a enough time for a nation to achieve modernity.

IF I CAN

There are few individual that matter to my life and they really make sense to my living, hope, aspiration, dream and destiny. Men like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, Dr. Nelson Mandela, Dr. Tunde Bakare, Dr. Mysles Munroe, Chief Gani Fawehinmi and few others. I draw my inspiration from these men and part of their visions, ambition and aspiration I also sheared. If I can see any one of them, I will love to stay around them. If I am looking for model and mentor, I will simply pick these noble men. If I can see my future, it is through the spectacles of these men If I want to be serious, it is because they are If I want to be relevant and be significant, it is because these men are. If I can build a house for them, I will build a mansion for each of them. If I can write, I will write volume of books on these notable men. If I can be part of the educational system in Nigeria, I will put the life, time, visions, dreams, aspiration and ambition of these great in the curriculum for students to learn. If I can do my duty as a Christian ought If I can spread the message as the master taught If I can love people the way Christ love the humanity to the extent of laying down His life for the human race then my living is not in vain. If I can help somebody as I pass along If I can cheer somebody with my words or songs If I can show somebody that he is traveling wrong then my living is not in vain. If I can see my values, dreams, aspirations, principles transfer to my children, friends and people who have pass through my tutelage and they all walk in them, then my living is not in vain. If I can see New Nigeria of my dream If I can see my native land line up among the comity of nations If I can see oppression, injustice, killing, corruption, evil, looting of treasury, unrighteousness exterminated in this nation, and then my living is not in vain. If I can see Nigeria students pass through examination without malpractices If I can see officials of the examination bodies comply with the rules of the game and sanitize the system, then my living is not in vain. If I can see again free and fair election conducted in this nation again, If I can see election conducted in Nigeria without killing, fighting, looting and manipulation of votes, then my living is not in vain. If we can all stand and fight for our right If I can see Nigerians demand for accountability, justice and equity, then my living is not in vain If I can see Nigeria of my dream, where there is justice, equality, accountability, prize control, consumer protection, labour good welfare package, child protection, high value of naira, availability of social security, desire level of productivity, adequate wages that is enough for the workers and their family, then my living is not in vain. If I can see a New Nigeria where the electorate votes count, where citizen determine who should be their leaders, where people can demand for their right, come together to build the nation, then my living is not in vain.

NIGERIA IN DIRE NEED OF A CONCENSUS

For the past three months I have been out of public life due to a situation and circumstance of life beyond my control. During this period a lot of happenings were going on in Nigeria as usual that ordinarily should not have happened in a sane and civilized society, ranging from Yanya Bombing, Abduction of Chibok Girls, the protest, and public, government and international reactions to all this dismal incidents, bombing in Jos, a city that have enjoyed a few months of relative peace for some times now, constant bombing, killing and kidnapping in Borno inspite of fake state of emergency declared by the ruling political jobbers. The LASU fee hike and students’ protest that followed, the international community reactions to the cluelessness, weakness and lack of capacity of the government of the day to address the impending problems talk less of proffering solutions to the problems. So many happened that time and still happening even on greater scale that space will not permit me to document it but out of it all and unfortunately I cannot make any contribution then, one major event that caught my attention and also birth this write up is the consensus that was built around abduction of Chibok Girls with this slogan #BRING BACK OUR GIRLS. Nigeria government in its characteristics manner don’t show any serious concern to any issues that bother the people, from which they derived their power and ability to govern. If not for the efforts of the civil society, right activists, concern citizens, the press, social media and crying mother who came together to build a consensus on this issue until the irresponsible government become responsible a bit, the little efforts shown will not even surface at all. Until the citizens of this country come together to build a national consensus around every lingering national issues that affect our collective being and survival, this vultures in power (VIP) will continue to take us for a ride, continue with their usual looting, corruption and wastages that have become the characteristics feature of Nigeria government. To my surprise, the citizens that need to be concern about their life, their wellbeing and survival within this contraption called Nigeria are daily seen looking away when their rights are trample upon, when their life is wasting away, sometimes they are seen putting a baseless defense for the failure of the government. I can see poor people behaving senselessly, for example in Ejigbo where three women were allegedly captured for stealing pepper, what did the poor people do? They tortured them to the verge of death. The Alu four (4) University students who were tortured and burnt alive by the poor people. The same energy that they should have directed and use it to confront the cabals that runs their life down were now wasted and exerted on the poor people like them. What a country and what a people? Petroleum Minister was reportedly stolen billions of dollars and the citizens or the poor people can’t organize themselves and exert the same energy used to punish themselves on these gangs of power drunk that preside over Nigeria. Today the petrol is being sold above the pump price and government and the people just pretend as if nothing is happening. What a country and what a people? We urgently need consensus if we have to continue and survived, we are in dire need of a decisive consensus. In Nigeria the ruler raped the citizens day and night and to my surprise all of us went to bed without any proactive measure. We are have been lied to everyday and to my surprise, even the intelligent men, I supposed still queued behind the absurdity of the ruler. We are told corruption is different from stealing and the next day Chairman of a commission back it up and I ask myself that, what kind of people are these? I need to be going around with my dictionary so that these gangs of ruler will not corrupt my mind with their usual blunder and absurdity. Dotun George

NO LONGER AT EASE

The only people who cannot see that the times are fast changing are those fat cats who are feeding fat on public funds all over Nigeria. And they are eating with impunity and without any iota of shame. In the process, most of our youths have been left despondent, hopeless and helpless. Many generations of unemployed and possibly unemployable graduates are roaming the streets, rudderless and defenceless. In deference to the laws of stimuli, they are forced to take to all manner of crimes. The natural instinct of man is survival. Not everyone can stand the scorching heat of suffering. Meanwhile our men of power continue to behave as if nothing would ever change. All it takes is to go through endless charades of elections, and declare whosoever they endorse as winner. They are already warming up for another round of rigmarole. For them, elections must be treated as a theatre of war. All, they say, is fair in war. But must it always come to this? Why must an attempt to serve the people become a matter of life and death? Why must a tiny minority, and not even the best amongst us, continue to hold all of us to ransom? The reason is simple. For too long, we have considered politics the exclusive preserve of never-do-wells, upstarts and nonentities. It was the same attitude that made us to send the dregs of our society into the army and police for so long. We didn’t realise that one day soon, the falcon would no longer hear the falconer, and everything would fall apart. We have now reached that state of Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease. Accordingly, anarchy is reigning supreme. What is worse is that our children living abroad are not able to return to the old kingdoms, where they can visit their aged parents, eat organic meals that are washed down with original palm wines. In the modern kingdoms, the Obi Okonkwos are not able to return to the ancient villages of Umuofia because the kidnappers are hovering in the wings and ready to pounce on any careless returnee. Such is the tragedy of our land overtaken by the pestilence called politicians in our clime. We are governed by people who obviously hate their country with uncommon gusto. Nothing seems to work and it matters not to our tin gods. No one seems to know these leaders and where they come from. The youths have been stupidly patient. Now they seem to have exhausted that patience. And they are expressing it in different forms such as militancy, kidnapping, terrorism and all sort of crime. The elders think it is a joke. They are saying they are yet to see good examples among the few ones in their midst. But they forgot that they handpicked their godsons, and that a reptile would always give birth to a reptile. It is in the nature of all reptiles to crawl. Besides, most are harmful and deadly. Many of our youths are world class. They’ve conquered the world. They have been flying like Angels. But back home the demons of democracy are making it impossible for the eagles to soar into the skies. They are frustrating every attempt, and thinking the ravening clouds would always be victorious. They have forgotten the sonorous words of Albert Luthuli in Let My People Go: “No nation can live perpetually in servitude”. There was an end to slave trade. Apartheid collapsed before our very eyes. A black man became not just an American president but the most influential man on planet earth. It is high time to tell the tyrants men in power that every day will not always be your day, a radical change may be inevitable in the days to come if the myriad of problems facing this country is not resolve on time. Just a little change and adjustment in the way we are govern and the way rulers rule this country will save us a lot of evil that is looming. So tell me who can stop the eagles whose time has come. It is time to unfold those incredible wings, and begin to fly higher and higher. These eagles are ready.

DO THE PRESCRIPTION FIT THE SICKNESS?

Do the prescriptions fit the sickness?

In solving our personal, family, society and national inherited or imminent problems the only thing I wanted to say, the question I wanted to ask is whether the prescription fits the sickness. Do we have an answer to the problem we want to solve or we have an answer but which is not suited to the problem?

To get a problem fix or to cure an ailment it all begin with diagnosis and the result of this determine the prescription the expert or the physician will prescribe.

Diagnosis – analysis, judgment, finding, verdict, opinion, conclusion and identification.

• The art or act of identifying a disease from its signs and symptoms
• A concise technical description of a taxon
• Investigation or analysis of the cause or nature of a condition, situation, or problem ‹~ of engine trouble
• A statement or conclusion from such an analysis
• The act of discovering or identifying the exact cause of an illness or a problem.

Prescription – Instruction, recommendation, direction, medicine, treatment, drug, preparation, remedy.

• Establishment of a claim
• Act of writing at the beginning, order, limitation of subject matter
• The establishment of a claim of title to something under common law usu. by use and enjoyment for a period fixed by statute
• The right or title acquired under common law by such possession
• The process of making claim to something by long use and enjoyment
• The action of laying down authoritative rules or directions
• A written direction for a therapeutic or corrective agent ; specif: one for the preparation and use of a medicine
• A prescribed medicine
• Something (as a recommendation) resembling a doctor's prescription ‹~s for economic recovery›
• Something prescribed as a rule
• A plan or a suggestion for making something happen or for improving it.

If the diagnosis is wrong the prescription will be wrong and if the prescription is wrong the patient suffers and I think history has taught us as we’ve gone through this procedure over and over something is fundamentally wrong with our assumption (supposition, statement, postulation, hypothesis, guess, best guess, theory, conjecture) as to what are the issues to address in our personal life, family, society and in this country and if we don’t go fundamentally to clarify what is needed to be done we would have all these nice documents presented with all the acronyms and they will be totally meaningless to our self existence and expression and survival as a people so I think that we need to do more fundamental things than what we are doing now. I think we have taken off an assumption and its one government after the other picking up from the previous government’s program on and on and on. What if the primary assumption was wrong and we’ve just been developing on it.

We wouldn’t be able to answer the real issues so I leave it to the individual like you so that in the process of thinking through and in the dialogue we would be more fundamental than we are doing now.

Some of the problem we had as a people is with monitoring and accountability as related to the institutions for monitoring which most of which are not well suited to us and I think we need to go ahead and to talk about domesticating some of the institutions.

I want us to explore that a little bit further but there is no space for that probably I may have to look at it at another time.

And the counter question I had is whether we needed to domesticate the systems and institutions to suit us or we needed to change to accommodate new system.

Its two ways of looking at it because if we keep trying to domesticate things to suite us we may in the end have a mutation (alteration, transformation, transmutation, change, metamorphosis)  of a system which doesn’t serve as and doesn’t serve its original purpose also so we probably may have to be doing some changes at our level. But all together I want us to engage discussion and fruitful dialogue so as to get the right prescription.

These are problems that started from 1914 and we need to be a little bit more committed and more focused to solve them. The political abnormalities we have in the country started before the evolution of the nation called Nigeria. The colonial master did not consider the subsequent generation that will come as a result of their amalgamation 1914, they focus on the present, what they will gain and how they will continue to control and influence our polity. The diagnosis carried out by the previous leaders and government of Nigeria concerning our national problems was wrong and therefore the prescriptions also was wrong and as long as  the prescription was wrong the patient (Nigerians) suffers.

The sage ‘Chief Obafemi Awolowo’ has a clue to most of our national problems but no one seems to listen or pay attention to some of his hypothesis. In a speech made by Chief Obafemi Awolowo at the first Press conference he held at Ikenne on 4^th August, 1966, after his release from prison. According to him he said and I quote “During the past two years I have devoted my full time in gaol to an earnest search for solutions to Nigeria’s multitudinous and tantalizing problems. One of my books, entitled ‘Thoughts On Nigeria Constitution’, which devoted to a consideration of our constitutional problems will be published by the Oxford University Press during the first week of October. In approaching our constitutional problems, I had taken pains to study and analyze the constitutional evolution of every country in the world. I made bold to say - and this will be substantiated by the contents of the book when published – that I did embark on my research with complete scientific objectivity. At the end of it, I was surprise – though pleasantly because of my previous stand in the matter – to be faced with the rationally and scientifically unassailable conclusion that only a truly federal constitution can unite Nigeria and generate harmony among its diverse racial and linguistic groups.

Unfortunately, it is not, recognized by the bulk of our people, including the intelligentsia and even some intellectuals, that the making of a constitution is applied political science. At this adolescent stage in the evolution of homosapiens, it is no longer necessary for political scientists or enlightened constitutional lawyers to grope in the dark in the search of a constitutional formula suitable for our country – or any country for that matter, or apply the rule of thumb to the making of a constitution.

My own study and analysis have led me to the enunciation of certain laws or principles which must be observed in drawing up the constitution of any given country. I express the laws in the following terms:

1.   If a country is unilingual and uni-national, the constitution must be unitary.

2.   If a country is unilingual or bilingual or multilingual, and also consists of communicates which, over a period of years, have developed divergent nationalities, the constitution must be federal and the constituents states must be organized on the dual basis of language and nationality.

3.   If a country is bilingual or multilingual, the constitution must be federal and the constitution states must be organized on linguistic basis.

4.   Any experiment with unitary constitution in a bilingual or multilingual or multinational country must fail, in the long run.

The man went ahead to put the argument better “I readily conceded that the former constitution had many defects. But federalism is certainly not one of them. It follows, therefore, that a step in the right direction is first of all to recognize the exact ailments of our nation. Once this is done, it should not be too difficult for us to devise appropriate remedies for them. But we must realize above all things else that in approaching our problems, at this juncture in our history, we must eschew any kind of partisanship – be it political or ethnical, and allow our thinking and reasoning to be guided by complete objectivity and rationality. Our heart must be ruled by unconquerable goodwill and irrepressible earnestness for Nigeria’s continued ones. And our aspirations must unflinchingly direct towards normative social objectives which are scientifically oriented.”

Coming back to individual, to finally proffer a permanent solution to our imminent problems we must start the diagnosis now, analyze and identify the real problems and after that prescription can now follow, I think every one of us need direction. But in the process of diagnosis if we are not sincere enough or we fail to find out the real problem everything will still lead to exercise in futility.

EXCELLENCE IN LEADERSHIP

Leadership in my own term is simply means management, to control, guidance, to have headship, and give direction to any group of people, individual and organization. Leadership is not in position but in disposition.

It is difficult to define a leader or leadership. There are probably as many definitions as there are leadership experts. Let us consider one definition by John Maxwell this.

“Leadership is influence. No more no less.” With this definition, John Maxwell makes the development and the maintenance of influence central issues, in fact, the only issues in leadership. Whoever has a level of influence on others is a leader. If he cultivates this influence well and puts it to use for the benefit of all, he becomes a good leader. That no man can lead beyond the level of his influence makes it necessary for a leader to keep expanding his sphere of influence to increase his scope of leadership.

If we are to agree with Maxwell, then everyone is a leader for everyone has an influence over some others. It may be easy for us to admit that politicians, celebrated movie stars, high profile businessmen and famous pastors are people of influence. And indeed, they are. But so are you. We may have different levels of influence, but we all have influence. And we all can grow our influence to increase our scope of leadership.

Great leaders are those with considerable influence. They do not rely on their position to lead. Your position of authority may elicit obedience – even fanatical obedience; but only your influence will make the people to follow you willingly and even go beyond the call of duty. A leader makes the people willingly do what they are not willing to do but are capable of doing.

Leadership, according to Prentice, is the discipline of deliberately exerting special influence within a group to move it towards goals of beneficial permanence that fulfils the group’s real needs.

The fact that leadership is a discipline means it can be learnt. It involves skills that can be acquired. It thrives on influence, which is deliberately exerted.

There is a community involved. Expectedly, the community has common goals. The goals must be such that are beneficial to the group, i.e., such as promote or enhance well-being of the group. The more noble the goals, the more significant the leadership. The group needs being met must be genuine needs that advance the cause of the group. Those who create false needs and set to meet them are not leaders.

This definition negates what we often refer to as leadership. Influence, not position, is what is paramount. You can be a husband by position and not the leader of your home because you do not have the influence needed to steer the home along the line of your goals. If your goals for your society are to advance your self-interests, then they fall short of “goals of beneficial permanence” Prentice is referring to. For example, if you want power so you can settle scores with the people that have offended you in the past; you are not a true leader. A leader’s vision transcends selfish interests. If you intentionally create confusion in your group and then turn around to lead the group out of that trouble, you are not meeting real needs. Hitler set out to meet false needs of the superiority of the German race to the rest of humanity. Because those were not the real German needs, he lost to genuine leaders who, out of concern for the real needs of their own people engaged relentless war against Hitler’s Germany.

Once a while, in the course of human history, a group of concerned men and women appears on the scene to make the difference in their generation. The Bible and history are replete with the emergence of such groups, which rose in difficult moments in their time to challenge the status quo, move to preserve their race, restore order to their society, embark on noble projects and mobilize their people toward a noble cause. These are the kind of leader I want to portray before you.

The world stood still as the Joseph generation mobilized a heathen nation to obey God, respond to His warning of a future world-wide famine, develop a divine plan to harness resources in times of abundance and manage an effective distribution system that saved humanity from collapse and ensured that the lineage of the Messiah was preserved.

The Joshua generation was an all-conquering army. An army with a divine agenda, enabled by the Captain of the hosts of God, ran roughshod over heathen nations, perpetuating the culture of their Jehovah and fulfilling prophecy of a home place for Israel.

A shepherd boy rose with a band of faithful men after the pollution of God's divine order to restore dignity to a despondent nation and provide an eternal throne for the Messiah. It was said of David that he "served his generation".

Nudged by a spirit of compassion for the misfortune of their people, the Nehemiah generation rose up to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, restored servant leadership, integrity, benevolent government and worship of the Jehovah.

Gideon and his small bound of men went out in the might of the Lord to sack armies mightier than them to free their people from the hands of the oppressors.

Twelve hapless men, called and empowered by the Man from Galilee, turned the world upside down.

When William Wilberforce and the famous Clapham sect rose up to oppose slave trade in the then decadent Great Britain, no one gave them a chance to succeed. Less than there decades after, these men, propelled by their faith and belief that all men are created equal, brought slave trade - the most lucrative industry in their time - on its knees.

Hebrew chapter 11 of the holy book ‘bible’ is a hall of fame of small groups of people challenged to take on causes that made the difference to their generations. "By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions, quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword. Their weakness was turned to strength. They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight. They were too good for this world." Hebrews 11:33-36 (New Living Translation)

You are probably reading this because you are too good for this world. I firmly believe that such a time has come in the history of our dear Africa for men and women like you to arise and make the difference to our generation. Let's 'infest' this continent with our goodness virus.

I invite you to come and let's make the difference together. The continent is waiting for us.

INEVITABILITY OF LEADERS

In my more than 7 years of studying leadership and training leaders, I have come to this conclusion that leadership is the vehicle for change and development. Our society stands or falls on a leader. One of Nigeria’s literary giants has said the problem with Nigeria is leadership. It is so, not for Nigeria alone but for any other nation or indeed any group of people. The essential nature of leadership is in the fact that anywhere there is a collection of people; the need for leadership is established. Simply put, leadership becomes inevitable whenever there is a community of people.

To appreciate the value of a leader, think of a ship without a captain. Or an aeroplane without a pilot. Imagine a team of individually skilled footballers without a coach. The vehicle of any community will be on a free fall to anarchy without a skilled driver behind the wheel.

HOW TO GENERATE EXCELLENCE

There are many tools I have applied and taught people about when it come to the issue of excellence but due to space I will provide few out of what I have taught and I will still teach until everyone is properly align and accurate in our dealings with God and with other fellow human being.

To have excellence in Leadership it requires vision, skill and discipline

VISION

Vision is a vital tool a leader uses to navigate the stormy weather of change.

Edmund Haggai is of the opinion that leadership begins when a vision emerges. We should not expect any leader to lead without a vision, same way a pilot is not expected to fly without a plan. Your life and that of any community you are involved in are doomed without a clear vision. More than a plan, a vision is a mental picture of the future the leader or the visionary seeks to create. It is the ability to see the end before we reach it. It is the faculty of sight trained to see far beyond the present. Vision is a vivid insight into the future.

Myles Munroe bemoaned the lack of vision in our world. He said the greatest tragedy of human race is to have sight and not insight. It will be foolhardy not to agree with him. Our generation sees more than any other in history. The miracle of eye glasses and contact lenses has kept our eyes working even at old age. The trained ophthalmologists work hard to ensure we keep our sight and our faculty to see. We do this much for our physical eyes, which are desirable and good; but fail to do the same for our inner eyes with which we sight and create a beneficial future.

For this sin, we are paying very dearly in our nation. At every level of the society and in every institution, lack of clear vision is easily noticeable. It is demonstrated by the lack of enthusiasm to work, the general lack of direction and the commitment to maintenance rather than to change.

Clear vision inspires enthusiasm. We bring passion to a work whose end we know and the benefit of which we desire, especially when the vision meets real needs. Motivation comes naturally, driving away every form of complacency. Discipline is easy once there is a clear and beneficial end in sight. For a shared picture of a beneficial future, we will be willing to moderate our appetites, mobilize and focus our physical, mental and spiritual resources and endure any pain in the course of reaching the future. We cannot talk of extraordinary achievement without a vision. Such achievement that uplifts a community comes when people can see and identify with a desirable end that meets their real needs. With vision, work suddenly takes on meaning. Energies are directed and focused towards the desired goals and a faith arises that overcomes obstacles and challenges.

What are you doing to develop your insight? Your ability to see beyond now? You desire to live your life to the fullest may remain a wishful thinking until you start to develop a mental picture of the future. You can create your future and that of the society through the power of your vision.

SKILL

Skill is another vital tool that will guarantee excellence in leadership. Skill is guarantee for success in all your pursuit, lack of skill can kill any dream, organization or institution and lack of skill can frustrate any effort.

What is skill? It is the know-how, expertise and proficiency. It is the force behind anything calls excellence. When you learn the know-how of anything and the application of expertise the end result will be excellence. Excellence command natural followership that is what make successful leader.

Every destiny is at the mercy of skill, skill is the security of every dream. Remove skill and no dream survives, stop wishing a change, start working at one.

Skill naturally command the attention of people, you can not posses expertise without commanding attention. Imagine a motor mechanic, that every car he handles will still have to go to another mechanic, he will soon be out of business.

A wrist watch repairer, that open a wrist watch and can not put it together, everybody will say don’t move near him he is a destroyer, very soon he losses customer and he cannot pay for shop and have to close up and back in the village as a peasant farmer. It is not the devil that is at work, it is lack of skill.

Many organizations, company, churches, nation like Nigeria go into ruin not because of economic problem or demonic influence but because of terrible leadership without skill until God begin to work out a restoration process.

Many churches like our own church are crawling and experiencing backwardness and retrogress not because the devil comes in but because of lack of required leadership skill. On the altar of pulpit of leadership you hear leaders with crazy utterance, immature illustration, and provocative gesture. In this kind of church prayer and fasting go on unending yet things are not changing.

Nothing survives without skill. Survival of any people, organization and Institution is largely determined by the quality of his leadership. Doing thing alone does not make it works but doing it well is the only way.

I strongly advice everyone to dream of excellence to cultivate this great value called “Skill” because the expertise of a passenger cannot avert accident but it is the expertise of driver that does. The maturity of a wife is not enough to carry the home but that of the husband does.

 Leadership begins with leading yourself, it is a personality act and it begins with you.

A missionary said “Plant me in the desert today and I will raise a mega church there in a shortest time. You know why, because he has the know-how in his finger tips. Skill of shepherd hood in David that cause him to lead his nation successfully.

TRAGEDY OF BROTHERHOOD

Growing up in the ancient city of Abeokuta “rock city’ the capital of Ogun state, Nigeria. A sage, statesman, politician, a lawyer and a nationalist by the name ‘Obafemi Awolowo’ came to the palace of Alake of Egba land to declare his manifesto as a presidential candidate of Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). I asked the older ones around me, who he was, what he was up to and everything about him was unveiled to me. I noticed that everything about his manifesto was about Nigeria, how to re-engineer and reposition the nation Nigeria. I fell in love with him and the nation Nigeria he projected in his manifesto. In my days in school I took quality time to study this man and his entire contemporary that worked together to attained independence for Nigeria, they have a goal, purpose, aspiration and vision for Nigeria.

Since then, I never recovered from that revelation of the man who loves Nigeria and about Nigeria he loved.

Everything about Nigeria is good and okay at the inception; people therein lived together in love, peace and harmony except few who decided to be an instrument of deception and destruction.

Nigerians are happy people, hardworking, resilient, hopeful and belief so much in the prosperity of their nation. But now I am a grown up man, that Nigeria that I knew is no more existing and this create a serious ache in my body and in my mental faculty.

Today, we have more yorubas, Hausas, igbos, ijaws, fulanis, ogonis, etc than Nigerians which is tearing our unity and coexistence apart, instead of Nigeria the founding fathers paid a great prize to build. Each promotes her interest, sentiment, and reservation instead of Nigeria.

The Nigerians who are happy, loving, caring and hardworking people before are no more identify with such good things. When I walk around I see anger, sadness, sorrow and hatred for their lives, the government and the state of the nation on their faces.

What a tragedy, seeing brothers of the same nation killing themselves like animals because of religion, politics and many other issues that cripple her ones. Things we can resolve without shouting, fighting and killing each other.

What a tragedy that people who dwell together in unity before now live suspiciously. We have people in the leadership that is deaf, dump, irresponsible and not active to the yearnings of the people. For this nation to survive any crisis, storms or problem we might be facing, we need to revisit the kind of brotherhood our founding fathers envisage at the beginning.

The message of brotherhood was contained in the old national anthem.

Nigeria we hail thee

Our own dear (native land)

Though tribe and tongue may differ

In brotherhood we stand

Nigerians all are proud to serve

Our sovereign motherland

Let us hail Nigeria again because she is our dear (native land),

Though we might have different tribe and tongue let all of us embrace this principle of brotherhood and stand in it.

Brotherhood talks about unity, agreement to live and survive together, it talks about oneness of goal, vision, purpose, value and belief system. Our founding father resound brotherhood, “in brotherhood we stand” failure to stand in unity and love we can’t have a nation that will stand all its challenges. Today the emblem and flag of our brotherhood that ought to be our symbol of nationhood has been stained with blood of violence, killing, bombing, corruption, nepotism, tribalism and what have you. Except we begin to learn how to live together like brother and sister we will all end up perish like a beast without hope, there is hope for Nigeria and the survival of this once upon a time giant of Africa can be guaranteed if we work together and put our destiny into our hand, push all the enemies of Nigeria out of their power base and rebuild a nation we can all be proud of.