Author: admin

I thought to remind you, in case you have forgotten, that the best way to move away from what you don’t want is to move closer to what you want, gradually. You only take credit for what you have done. You cannot build reputation on expectation. Are you interested in your goal or you are committed to your goal? The two are widely apart. To be interested in your goal is to have the intention to work towards achieving it but to be committed to your goal is to start doing something about it. So, I ask, are you interested or committed? Goals are dreams with timelines. I hope you agree. It starts when you conceive it (dream), it graduates to ‘I can’ (belief), then it transforms to ‘I will’ (will power). Commitment sets in when you start doing something about your goal. You only get rewarded when you can say ‘I have done it’ (goal). Now you know why awards are given to inventions but not intentions. Think about that.

I come from a country of the learned. We value education and will go to any length to acquire academic qualification. Even in the face of the odds, my fellow countrymen and women are resilient. We defy the odds to excel in all academic pursuit even under the most difficult circumstances. I celebrate the Nigerian spirit. I celebrate excellence because excellence begets success. My message here is to Nigeria, my country. Nigerians beat academic records and set new ones across the shores. We are record breakers with insatiable quest for knowledge. Why is our depth of knowledge not translating to development? This is a question that you and I would have to answer. If we find the answer, perhaps we could remind our policy makers, that education is not an end in itself, it is supposed to be a means to an end. If education is about research and development, then we must have focused on the research part while we ignored the development part of education that focuses on the practicality and application of the knowledge that is acquired. We lost it and we don’t even seem to realise it. Consciously or unconsciously, we killed technical education and edified university education in a manner that made others feel inadequate. We discriminated against polytechnic education that is reputed to be more inclined to practicality. Jointly, we created a society that celebrates academic qualifications more than the greatest invention of all ages.

When faced with challenges, we are told to be concerned but not worried. Why? Pastor Taiwo Odukoya explained – concern, while not denying the existence of the problem, focuses on the solution and not the problem but worry focuses more on the problem than the solution. Nothing can be more profound. Like we experienced in the ‘80s and up till the early ‘90s, when the effect of austerity measure began to bite, the productive youths are leaving Nigeria in droves again. Someone asked me why are the productive youths in Nigeria leaving Nigeria? In my silent response, I tried to apply the “concerned but not worried” maxim but it occurred to me that I will be denying the truth if I say I’m not worried. Why? The solution to the problem on our hands is not visible to the naked eye.

I want to share a story. If you keep an open mind, you will get my message faster. Please look beyond me and focus on the intrinsic message in my story. Let me say before I continue that as much as I crave affirmation like any other mortal, I don’t write on social media to get likes, comments and shares. I write because it is my calling. I get my greatest gratification when my readers send me private messages to tell me how much my write ups have helped them to take some life changing decisions. I wrote an article on 12 July 2021, titled “Certificate My Foot”. Since I started writing for public consumption in September 2016, that article has attracted the highest reactions from my readers than any other article I have ever written in my life. As at date, “Certificate My Foot” has had 56,925 views, 1608 likes, 393 comments and 167 shares on LinkedIn. On my Facebook handles, the article has attracted 248 likes, 102 comments and 66 shares. Some bloggers took my permission to publish the article on their blogs. On account of “Certificate My Foot”, I have had over 600 connection invites on LinkedIn and a good number of friend requests on Facebook that I cannot remember. Here is the link to the article for reference purpose:

It takes courage to build hope around the Nigerian dream. Some would even argue if there is any dream at all. Nigerians love Nigeria even if they can’t explain. Show me a Nigerian who has everything going for him in a foreign land and I will show you a Nigerian who longs to see the day when Nigeria will get it right to be called his first home with pride. What is the Nigerian dream? Two major events happened simultaneously in the world of sports recently. In the build up to the Tokyo Olympics, the Nigerian basketball team defeated the American team in an unprecedented upset by any African basketball team even on American soil. England lost the final of the Euro 2020 cup to Italy in a fiercely contested soccer duel. Two events, three continents but different responses. Not minding that it was an exhibition match, the news of American defeat by Nigeria did not make the news round in Nigeria the way any sports enthusiast would have expected, maybe because it’s not football.

America is in the eye of the storm and many are wondering if the land of liberty can still flaunt the title of the beacon of democracy as it is wont to. While I admit that there is a big question mark on America’s moral right to police the entrenchment of democracy anywhere else, I still believe that America’s democracy remains a model, even in spite of the brazen assault it suffered in the hands of President Trump and his allies. What is playing out in America only reinforces the fact that human beings are the same, irrespective of race or colour. What regulates the excesses of man is law and order which is what America prides itself on. The event at Capitol Hill on Wednesday the 6th of January, 2021 was only a crystallisation of a feud that was sown when Donald J. Trump was voted as The President of The United States on the 8th of November, 2016. I wrote an article shortly before President Trump took his oath of office in 2017. The article was titled “Lessons from America”. Before then and in the build up to the elections, I was a vehement critic of Donald Trump’s fitness for the Oval Office and I did it without apologies. Writers, they say, are more of idealists but writers, most times, are able to see into the future not because they are soothsayers but because history is not lost on them. Hence, they are able to project into the future, even at the risk of backlashes.

It’s a season of wishes. In the true spirit of the season, please permit me to wish you a happy new year filled with pleasant surprises. Truly, wishes become dreams and when dreams are formed into achievable goals they become accomplishments. What we call achievement are accomplished goals which is otherwise described as dream fulfilled. May your dreams come true in 2021. It is customary to have everyone speaking at the same time at the beginning of the year when goals are set and when the energy is still strong. In the midst of the collective voices saying almost the same thing, it takes discernment for you to sieve the voices to heed. Please let me add this to the myriads of wishes that you might have gotten as you set to action in 2021 – listen to yourself.