Defeating Tomorrow (Motives)

It’s 4:00am In the morning and I am still as awake and as fresh as if I just woke up from a deep sleep minutes ago, with a lot on my mind, I’ve tried to figure out in a thousand way the events of the past few days of my life and the world around me is shaping the man I have become. In a few weeks I will be a graduate from the acclaimed strongest polytechnic in Nigeria with a 2nd class, and still I am caught in the web of barrage of thoughts, trying to figure out the next required move that will produce the next big thing in my life. Although I have learnt, invaluable lessons from the feet of men of great wisdom with outstanding understanding of the principles of life like, Bishop David Oyedepo, Poju Oyemade, John Asharaf, Boyce Watkins, Leke Alder, Ibukun Awosika et al… etc, a few of this great men became my favourite and the words they’ve spoken still rings aloud in my ears, but still I carefully search the heart of the earth, looking for the rights spot to sow that seed I have in my hand, oblivious of how to get there, but equipped with a heart that searches the truth without relenting until exciting quality is produced from deep within.

A tool I have identified and used since I found it is a heart of praises and a tongue that give thanks in all situations, I have used it effectively and produced results that are enviable with it, doors are opening and opportunities have been coming my way exceedingly and still am grateful. Although am not worried about the future, but something within me still seeks the path that I must follow, the principles I must define, the rules I must understand and obey to produce the imaginable and unimaginable. I seek these things like babes seek milk, I knock on doors, knowing they will open, and hoping that I find wisdom on the other end of it. I ask questions with the hope of getting answers that will feel my heart with vigor and lighten me up, just like oil for my lamp.

I smell victory already and I think it’s the joy of it that keeps me burning all nite long with closing my lid and not the indomie noddles I devoured late into the nite, I hear the gong of victory sounding already and nothing will make me deter, I have burnt my bridges already, defeated my goliaths and now because He lives, I can face tomorrow like I just did, overcoming today.

Alive

Who needs an airplane when I can teleport?
“oya oferegege gbe mi pa”
Who needs a Ferrari when I can shorten the distance?
“ona ka, ona ko; aa kin ba onise rin”
Who needs their gods when I’ve got divinity?
“ifa olokun asoro dayo ti kin fololo fohun”
Calling the things that be not as though they were
“shango olukoso oooo!”
A fit fore surpassed by the Son of man
“Jesu Oluwawa”

I shall pour libation at the feet of the gods again
Pay homage to the roots of my ancestors
My walls will breathe again
And my words alive and fresh
My history not curios at all
Breaking the bounds like meteors from mars
I will live and reveal again
The wisdom that was denied
That which lives within my loins and my dark golden skin

TOMORROW IS YOU

To the leaders that will be when we leave in pursuit of wisdom and stability
To thee we pass the mantle of power and the touch of exploit
Thread the paths we were too afraid to dare
Go to places we were too afraid to visit
Touch the lives we won’t be around to ho! and ha!!

Where we fell and stood up again, move on
Walk with gallant strides and produce the best in it
Because our failure is not failure at all
It is like light to your path and lamp to your feet
It is like a compass, showing you the direction in which to go

Fear not the barking of the toothless dog
Neither be scared of the howling of a hungry one
Stand where we stood and touch where we couldn't reach
Bite more than you can chew
And let God do the chewing for you

Cos we were scared and we bite a little
We forgot that God as placed in us the power to do
That which we can think or imagine at all
We underestimated our prowess and capabilities
But now we know that our best was not enough
So go all out and be better than the best

Do not be afraid of the shining edge of GP
The title that surrounds a man does not a make him a chief
Neither does the story of conquest at war make a man a warrior
Only the battles you’ve won or lost
Plays the tune of victory or the agony of defeat

Do not be afraid of what you can do or how great you can become
To be afraid is in the nature of man, an eminent beginning of failure
Rather, let not your heart be troubled
Because HE who made you did for a purpose
Do not struggle to define your purpose
Rather strife to discover and live
Live to enjoy the glory of this great discovery

For the sake of integrity
Never take an oath you won’t live to honour
Never say “I..............” when it is defined within you that you can’t
Never say a word just for the pride of life
Your word is your bond; honour it with every second in you

Being a leader is standing tall even on death grounds
Look around you, you will see
Look within you, you will know
What we see and feel is nothing near leadership
But you can change the paradigm if we can’t

“Be the change you want to see” (M.Ghandi)
Cos “The tomorrow you seek and the change we long to see is you “

I'm Abidemi Babaolowo Oderinlo

Calling a Spade a spade

What I want to write today is an article I will love you to pirate. I’ll like you to dub it, and put it on your blog post. Modify it if you like, give me credit if you want, or give me none at all. They say we’ll achieve a lot more if we don’t care who gets the credit.

I have refrained deliberately for a long time to make any comments about our National Rebranding exercise. I hope I will be able to say what boils in my throat and wrists tonight, without making too much reference to it. For all it’s worth though, I think the fundamental error I can see, is that Nigerians have not been made to own it, and hence rather than having people championing it, and helping others buy in, what we have is criticism and condemnation by the same people who would have been it’s champions.

Having said that however, I have a proposition of an exercise that we can own as Nigerians. It’s a simple idea and it came as a fallout of a discussion that ensued in my office yesterday. It’s an answer of what we can do to focus our leaders on the problems that we have as citizens and to assist them in giving it the attention it deserves. We no longer need any assitance from any source to know that our most crucial problem in Nigeria is Leadership! If we are all on the same page in this realization, then our efforts towards a better Nigeria must be channeled to support, focus and direct our leaders.

I remember shortly before the elections last year I wrote an article I titled, “Power is all we need!” I pleaded with our would be leaders not to promise us roads or education, but to promise us just one thing - Power! That if in any leaders 4yrs we can celebrate 1yr of uniterupted power supply, then we should imortalize that president. Haven been to Egypt now to watch tombs, I say we must do the same, but before they die however.

First for the nation, then the states, then our local governments. Once we have a new president for example, we should as a nation analyze our most significant problem that we want solved in his or her tenure. After we have agreed on this problem, we should then go ahead and give that problem the same name with our president. We should substitute the name of our leader with this problem in our conversations, in our articles in newspapers, in our slang’s, in our music and drama. We should do this per state and per local government as well.

Let’s say for example that we have discovered that our biggest problem in Nigeria is Electricity, and for example that our president’s name for the tenure was Yaradua. Then everytime light goes, every time we are in darkeness, everytime we have any issues, our conversations should be like this.

When it is bad as it is - “Chai, Yaradua has gone again”, “Ah, we have not had Yaradua for the last 2 days”, “This Yaradua is so unstable”, “Ah what did we do today oh, we have half Yaradua today”,” What’s wrong with you, you are complaining that you haven’t seen Yaradua for 3 days, what about people that haven’t seen Yaradua for one year! or ever!”, “I wasn’t able to do it overnight, because Yaradua kept fainting”, “We have been using Yaradua as backup to our Generator”, “Iron your shirts, Yaradua may soon go oh”, ”

When this start becoming good - ” Up Yaradua!”, “Yaradua is really trying oh, we are not where we want to be, but we are far from where we were”, “Yaradua has been consistent for the past 24hrs”, “Ah, we need to celebrate 1yr of uninterrupted Yaradua”, “Yaradua is so much better these days”, “With Yaradua so constant, Nigeria is really becoming the most desirable nation to live in on earth”. “Yaradua is constant in all the states of Nigeria and the structures are in place to get Yaradua into all the local governments.”

Can you for your own new ones?
If we keep speaking this way, our leaders will know that we mean business with our desire for solutions. The next president will also know that one critical unsolved problem will bear his name until it’s solved. I recommend, that whichever president fixes electric power be given the opportunity to forever bear the same name with electricity in Nigeria and be forever immortalized in the lips and minds of Nigerians. The same for every future identified problem. A similar approach should be taken to the state levels. Whatever problem we align and identify must be instantly changed to the name of the Governor. If the issue in Lagos for example was Transportation and assuming the Governor was Fashola, then by now, people should be saying “Fashola is getting better in Lagos now”, or ” I entered one wrong fashola and they collected my phone and laptop.” or “Big Fashola (BRT) is actually making life easy for Lagosians”. We can identify the states one by one and identify the problems that need to be solved and replaced with their name.

My people say that whatever hurts one, must be primary in one’s conversation -
“Oun to ba duni lo n po loro eni”

If you use this on your blog, just put a litte comment here saying you are using it so I can follow on to your site and register my solidarity. I think this is something that we the people can own and gradually take things to the way things should be. We deserve more than what we are getting, and UNTIL we the people are clear about what we want and about our commitment to make sure it happen, then nothing happens. Let’s make this happen!
Now I really need to sleep before Yarauda’ goes!

curled from www.deoluakinyemi.com