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.