Before 2025 in Nigeria (2) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

Before I begin, I want you all to note that I believe so much in Nigeria and that, according to Fela Durotoye, by the year 2025 Nigeria will, undoubtedly, be the most desirable nation to live in. I only write this notes on “Before 2025″ so that we all will see and accept our responsibilities because things will not just happen. We have a role to play.

From “People to Principles”

 

Thank you for taking some time out to read my blog but I think you should tell someone about some vital issues being raised here. The last blog was talking about optimism and faith but now it is important to talk about the people through which the faith and optimism are expressed.

 

One of the primary issues I really think we have to tackle before 2025 in Nigeria is the problem of moving from people to principles. Many of us are blaming a person for what went wrong in a place when we know so well that we are actually doing it as a way to explain our failures. Remember that our failures will not turn success through our explanation. You may not understand what I am talking about until you have a few examples laid out for this issue.

 

Professor Moris Iwu was appointed shortly before the general elections in 2007 to head the electoral committee. I am not going to talk about his performance and I will not be open to discussions about his performance. I only want to discuss a critical issue. A number of people think he tried and some think he was horrible. My challenge really is that when I looked at the people who were saying that Iwu should go, they were not people who have an idea of what the real problem was. Iwu is a personality and is not the problem of the election. Our obvious problem was principles.

 

When I say principles I think we both need to examine something serious here. There were several political parties in the country at the time of Election. One of those parties is the incumbent party. The party in power is the one that will conduct an election through a committee that it has set up in the name of trying to be transparent. The person who presides over the electoral committee will be appointed by this same party. Now how much of fairness do you expect from the whole process? The simple tactic of that time was to appoint a “due-process” administrator against some “007 (James Bond) politicians.” Iwu is not desperate so he expects that things will turn out naturally because he is not aware that he probably was in a stage-managed sabotage. Unfortunately the Nigerian public did not help issues because they tackled people and not principles.

 

When we do things in a way we must have certain results so why are we going to keep changing people instead of principles? I cannot remember how many Ministers for Power and Steel that President Obasanjo worked with when he was in power. Obviously the people still did not produce the desired results though they may have taken some steps in that direction. Our immaturity comes to limelight when we start blaming people for failures when we are supposed to help them decipher what was wrong in the way they went about things. In any organization, be it political, religious, business or social, one of the first antecedents of growth is when we can face people to say, “I know you messed up but the problem was not you. The problem was the way you did it.” The person becomes the problem when the person is indifferent but until otherwise proven, we must learn to differentiate people from failures. Let’s be sincere to let them know their strategy was what failed and we together fine tune issues. If we don’t go this way then we are in for a greater mess.      

People may fail woefully but they will also succeed beyond imagination if they are in the right atmosphere and they have the right principles to work with.

 

Fola Daniel Adelesi – tok2daniel@yahoo.com   +234 703 790 7851   +234 805 247 2448

 

Motivational Speaking, Proposal Development, Event Management …

 

Before 2025 in Nigeria (1) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

Before I begin, I want you all to note that I believe so much in Nigeria and that, according to Fela Durotoye, by the year 2025 Nigeria will, undoubtedly, be the most desirable nation to live in. I only write this notes on “Before 2025 so that we all wil see and accept our responsibilities because things will not just happen.

 

I intend tp pick on some of the challenges of our societies not as presented by many because they paint these challenges as the ones created by others instead of admitting that these are challenges that are self-imposed as a result of misplacement of our priorities and over induldence in anomalies. This should not be a forum where you would want to play the blame game if you intend to comment on any of the series. We will not be able to solve any problem if in the first place we do not accept that we have a problem. Let as accept that we have a problem so that we can start asking ourselves what the solution to the prolblem is. The first of the many topics i will write about, God helping me, is about the issue of optimism and faith.

OPTIMISM AND FAITH

Many of our people (Nigeria – because of the focus of this paper) have come to use optimism and faith interchangeable but this is something I have a big problem with because it explains why we are not getting things done in so many places. you will always find someone who is supposed to use the word optimism using the word faith. Why do I have a problem with these words? Can’t I just let the people be and stop disturbing them because I have a good background in the English language? Is it really a problem of playing upon words or there is something going wrong somewhere that a lot of people are not paying attention to? Let me make things easier by telling you about my perceptible difference between optimism and faith.

Optimism is seen when things are going wrong but a man who is expected to panic because of turn in events refuses to panic. He probably knows that things are likely to go wrong but he anticiates the silver lining in every cloud. he does not just accept the situation as it is. He knows or feels that something can be done instead of just allowing the visible impact of potential danger shapen one’s emotion. Optimism can be viewd in the light of a man who knows that nobody in his family has ever hit the million naira or dollar mark but he hopes that someone will hit it one day – note that he only hopes someone will hit the million naira or dollar mark. He is not specifying who and how it will be hit. He is also not specifying when.

I may agree with you that Faith has Optimism as a primary ingredient but must be quick to tell you that optimism is not the chief ingredient of faith. Faith believes, like many of us do, that things will change but does not limit itself to hoping that things will change. It responds to the call for change. It begins not only to say that things will change but finds practical answers to how things will change. Faith therefore will be much appreciated if we start seeing it as a practical application of optimism. Faith says things will change and it tells you the plan on ground to change it. Faith says this place will change and it shows you what it will become. It does not just hope.

Let us realize that a lot of Nigerians are merely optimistic about what can happen in Nigeria and are practically wasting away instead of doing someting with their lives. If you expect that things will change then you need to put in place a plan to make it change. Don’t just go about shouting and asking people to keep hoping when you have no foundation upon which you can lay their hope. A number of people say that at one time or the other they taught there was no hope for Nigeria but when they find a few young people doing something important they come to accept the fact that there is hope for Nigeria.

Why have they thrown their pissimism into the trash can because of some young people? They simply have found young people who have optimism but will not just go about in the street telling everyone they are optimistic. The proof of their optimism is the action they have taken. Their action explains their optimism and some of the people who will not believe in words come to blieve in their actions.

We have a lot of eloquent speakers in Nigeria who will even confidently and glaringly defeat a white man using the white man’s language for a debate. Oratorial powers should not be used to push more people into a mirage. It is one of the powers we would need to effect the necessary change in Nigeria but let us use it effectively. We are going to cast visions for where we are going. We are going to cast visions for how we are going to get there. We are going to cast structures to be used in attaining the towering heights we want to climb. We would need to set job specification or maybe everyman will begin a search on what his or her on role should be and then we can use oratorial powers to mobilize people into the moving ship of dreams.

It is indeed a suicidal mission to mobilize people through oratorial powers into a moving ship carrying only optimism and no specific direction. Optimism says we are getting there one day. My question is, ‘where are we getting to?’ Faith does not say we are getting there without having said where we are getting to. It tells us where we are going and motivates us to go ahead instead of giving up.

All Nigerians must leave the arena of optimism -hope without action and specific focus or direction and acceptance of responsibilities - and move unto the arena of faith – hope with visible action taken in response to the set focus of direction for a desirable change from where we are to where we want to be.

…to be continued

Fola Daniel Adelesi,     (+234 703 790 7851           +234 805 247 2448)

Edible Pen Consult - Motivation – Proposals – Event Management – Product & Service Marketing. 

The Colours of Opportunity – Fola Daniel Adelesi

I have heard a lot of young people who seem to be looking for an opportunity to get things done but they never get anything done. Why? They always say that the opportunity has not come. If is true that the opportunity has not come then we should begin to ask questions like, ‘where did it go in the first place? Why did the opportunity go out when it is fully aware that some people are waiting for it? What colour of shirt or robe is the opportunity wearing so that we can spot it when we see it?

All of these questions may sound interesting to some people but there is obviously a problem. Like the famous Joseph I must let you know that opportunity is always dressed in the cloth of many colours. As colourful as the robe is it is still not everyone that can see the robe. Why? There are dues to be paid to be able to see the beautiful robe of opportunities.

Bishop David Oyedepo said some people tell him that he is fortunate and he did say that his usual response to those people is, ‘why are you unfortunate?’ Your guess about this kind of response is as good as mine. Some people believe there is no such thing as luck or chances but I think there is. I only must tell you that it is reserved exclusively for those who know the password to access it any time it has to be accessed.

Do you want an opportunity? If your answer is yes then you must know how to spot an opportunity. The interesting thing is that you cannot even spot an opportunity if you have not been preparing for it. What do I mean? The things that open up to people as opportunities are the things they have prepared their skills for.

Let me show you what an opportunity is. One day an Uncle gave me his complementary card. I looked through all the products that his company markets. I spoted one that would be interesting to a large market. I presented a proposal to him and gave him my bills. The opportunity was not in the fact that he paid my bills. The opportunity was in the fact that I got his complementary card an applied one of my skills – writing proposals – to the services I saw.

There is an inner prompter in every man wound, like a dynamo on the wheels of a bycycle, by the skills acquired to spot opportunities. This is the way to spot the colours opportunities.

Fola Daniel Adelesi. 

Value Impact Productivity (VIP) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

You must have heard a lot of people who say or think they are Very Important Persons but I think they still have a problem. I do not have a problem with anybody who thinks he is important because we all need some self-esteem to get anything done in life. You are going to appear miserable if you do not have self-esteem and you are probably going to have your world up side down.

Come to think of it. Is it really the amount of money you have in your bank acount that makes you a VIP? Is it the kind of car you ride in that makes you a VIP? Is it the house you live in that makes you a VIP? Is it the position you occupy that makes you a VIP? Is it the kind of friends you keep that makes you a VIP? Whatever your impression or opinion of a VIP is should not be a problem right now but I must say that the definition is changing.

The revolution around the world right now is taking us to the era where you are not going to be a VIP simply because you were born to wealthy parents. You are going to work out your address yourself. It is going to be a time when you would only be called a VIP because of your relevance to the society. We have add enough about the illusion of celebrity. You cannot just wake up with ill gotten wealth and you expect the entire world to reckon with you as a VIP. Yop hope they will give you some titles and present some awards to you so that your profile will be boosted. No! If it used to be that way we are no longer going to have it that way.

You are simply going to be a VIP because of three things and they are Value, Impact, Productivity. If you have no value added to yourself in this time that we are talking about you will not get the attention of people. only the value that you have added to yourself can allow you make impact in your time. This is going to be a time when you will only be permitted to brag becuase of your impact. Every other thing you say will not be regarded. Your impact on the people is what will help us measure your productivity and, like I said, you will never be regarded as a Very Important Person until we have seen your Value Impact Productivity.

Lay aside every material thing that does easily deceive you to pursue the acquisition of Value and the transfer of impact for a life on productivity. Because of my writing, speaking, consultancy services and innovation I am a VIP. Are you one?

Fola Daniel Adelesi

+234 805 247 2448      +234 703 790 7851