23rd May 2008

I woke up this morning with a tingling sensation of joy because it is 23rd of May and it is my 23rd birthday.

Things on so many occasions have not gone the way I planned but I still have every reason to say thank you to God for being there for me. I remember when I was in primary school and I was really looking forward to one of my birthdays then. It was, as you already know, a day for most kids to look up to because it was the only day when everyone else wore the school uniform and you were permitted to were your choicest clothes. You were like the king or the queen of the day and everyone really would want to be your friend.

What interested me about this particular birthday was the fact that I woke up around 2am in my house and I went to the bathroom to take a warm shower. Taking a warm shower at that time was not really a strange thing but every other thing I did was strange. I was a primary school pupil who had never touched a pot needless to talk about cooking. After my shower around 1am I went to the kitchen to warm the beans my mum had prepared the previous night because she didn’t want me to go late to school. I ate and got dressed for school. Now that too was strange because at that time my mum still decided which of my sparkling clean uniforms I was to wear. I decided all that I had never decided and then thought of what to do.

My next prompting – I say prompting because it looked as if there was an instructor I did not see – was to go out to pump water for the house. I did not hesitate. I took the key to the main door and headed straight towards it. Turned the padlock open and that was it. Instantly doors were clinging behind me and one could hear my dad’s footsteps pacing faster than I had ever seen him in my life. “What are you doing? Where are you going to? What time is it? 2am? All the questions came like rapid rushing river for a weakling that doesn’t even swim. The picture painted was that I was probably responding to “invisible remote control” the way one of my teachers in Mayflower School would call it. I think God specifically anointed that padlock to make some noise and loud enough to go through the doors and wake sleeping parents.

Since then the key to the house had to go into custody every night so that whatever prompting you received, you would have to be prompted to explain why you should get the key. That same morning when we were driving to school, the driver of the bus got on the express lane having forgotten that he was supposed to drop us on the service lane to allow us cross to the other side of the road. Upon a reminder, the driver swerved over the lane divider to the service lane but that would have cost us our lives as much as he wanted to help. For the next two three minutes other vehicles were grounded because they had to give our bus that was now riding on two wheels the time to balance or experience the worst. All through this, as a primary school pupil, I cannot explain where I got my calm from because I cannot remember saying a word and I remember so well that I was not scared. I am now 23 – several years in between – and still kicking for God.

LIMITED SEATS RESERVED

29^th of May

 

 

 

 

LET’S HAVE A CHILDREN’S DAY

WITH A DIFFERENCE

 

23^rd of May will be my 23^rd birthday so I have decided to do something very simple.

 

I will be teaching on how to write a business proposal from 11am – 12pm at the Conference Hall, LTV 8/Ekofm premises, opposite Coca-Cola, Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos.

 

29^th May will be the date because we are together doing this for the less privileged children but the hall has been fully booked for 27^th – the children’s day. So I will implore you to pay N500 to help some dying children. You will go with information to better your lot but we can’t give information to dying people. Kindly make payments at the venue.

 

Yours truly,

 

 

Fola Daniel Adelesi

2008 Secretary General,

Nigeria International Model United Nations’ Conference.

 

 

 

27^th of June

 

 

 

 

Is the D-Day for the launching of the new book titled:

 

 

 

 

“INDEBTED

 

 

TO

IGNORANCE”

By

Fola Daniel Adelesi

A Motivational book that opens your eyes to vital issues of life.

 

Stay in touch for more details about venue and time, thanks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before 2025 in Nigeria (4) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

The Revolution in our Education

 

After four long years (with the intermittent interruptions of almighty ASUU) within the university walls, I wrote my final papers and went back to my home base in the country. As you can trust by now, my restless self will not just sit in one place until I lay my hands on something tangible to do so I kept going to a couple of organizations to present some proposals and at the same time trying to get an insider information from those organizations regarding recruitment as a new staff.

 

I primarily flaunted my projects, though they are my priority, so a number of the people, even and especially the big wigs, were in love with the laudable projects as they often say after my 5 minute persuasive speech tingling in the hears of the listeners because of the power of oratory in the evident in the slightly deep baritone voice and with nearly all words carefully pronounced. Did I just blow my trumpet? Oh! Please if I don’t it will rust because my lineage is not really the music freak kind. After playing intelligently around some of the organizations I found out that there was an auditioning to be conducted in one of the organizations just two days before the d-day.

 

I scaled through the first stage and was called upon to go for the next stage almost immediately. By the way, the person who did the interview at the first level said, “you guys are good for you to have qualified for this stage.” There were just five of us in the second stage and I was the only guy among four other ladies. When we finished I found out that one of the ladies had the working experience for the new job she came to be tested for. The three others already had a professional training from a designated school. I was the only one who was fresh from school yet I was on the same platform with the specially trained and experienced

 

Immediately after the interview my mind went back to the kind of stuffs they taught me in school. Instantly I asked, “did they teach me this in school?” No the lecturers did not but I had worked on myself. At that point I understood what some people meant when they said that the university systems were churning out unemployable graduates. Though I still stand on the fact that this is not absolutely true but I have come to see some vital issues.

 

Why did the university teach me so much of what nobody in the market place will ask from me? Why are people complaining about the quality of graduates when they have deliberately closed their eyes on the quality of some lecturers? I have seen the depth of decadence from no other place than the institution that is expected to teach decorum and instill values. What do you expect from a system that that operates by “you rob my back I rob your back?” (sexual demands from lecturers for good grades, sexual demand from students to students to impersonate during examination, students paid to impersonate, students paying others to write their final year long essays, lecturers showing up for classes two, three, four hours behind schedule and taking attendance in favour of the jobless students that waited for them, lecturers showing up in classes only three weeks to examination for the first time in the semester.)

 

All these and many more abound in our university system. I am not surprised because the lecturer is a product of the system and the students are the products of the lecturers. As much as it is important to note that not all lecturers are like this, we still would say that what the university has to offer through students can only compete favourably with the quality of lecturers in there. We all know the problems so what’s the way out?

 

Our first step to achieving the desired educational system is not to keep throwing out one minister for education or one vice-chancellor or principal but to check-mate mediocrity. Let’s throw them out if they need to be thrown out but like I said in the series I called “from personality to principles,” we need to begin a check on how things are done more importantly than who does those things.

 

I think we should not waste the lives of students teaching them what they do not need because the real educational system helps a child to discover his or her strength and focuses on that for the rest of the educational process.

 

Let’s have more technical colleges to churn out students that are practically relevant to the needs of the society because the society wants to pay for service and products, not raw information.

 

Our syllabuses should expand to accommodate sound leadership training because a lot of people have poor leadership mid set and still think that leadership is position. They also demand respect from those whose positions are supposedly inferior to theirs and they easily forget that old age is not automatic leadership.

 

There must be a power check – too many people are power drunk in the system and their greed increases when they realize that their tenures would expire and someone else has to come in. At this time they struggle to build loyalty so that they can still topple the administration of the incumbent.

 

When we check greed and avarice the lecturers have better lots so they do not need to transfer aggression to innocent students who usually become defensive in the process.

 

Our examination system is not going to help the kind of graduates we project for 2025 so we must adjust it to be more practical. The population is not an excuse not to prepare results or teach effectively. We have an idea of how many students are supposed to run practical classes then start in good time so as to finish at the expected time.

 

There is little or no test for the communication skills of our students and the truth is that effective communication is the weapon to fight against stagnation at some points in your life. If people know they can rise faster in life through communication, they will place a priority on communicating effectively.

 

Our educational system still ignorantly prides itself in the patronage of prospective students instead of the quality of students we produce. Once again, I am greatly looking forward to 2025 and we must put in all for such a time as this.

 

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

 

Motivational Speaking, Proposal Development, Event Management …

 

BEFORE 2025 IN NIGERIA (3) – Fola Daniel Adelesi

 - The Parasitic Personality

 

Great teacher and pastor, Mathew Ashimolowo, the Senior Pastor Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC), London related a joke in one of his tapes where he was teaching on 31 reasons for lack and the solutions. He said an American proposed to invent a cell phone. A Chinese proposed to market and A Nigerian said he would buy it. The next statement he made was that this reveals the consuming mindset of the people instead of a producing mindset.

 

I have said repeatedly in the previous issues that I believe in Vision 2025 but we cannot hope for a better tomorrow without preparing a place for the expected opportunities to land. A lot of us are still acting like other people owe us but when the ball is in our court we act like it’s just a favour we are doing if we help and we are not under obligation to help.

 

When we were growing up we were exposed to a number of wrong things that cloned a ridiculously out-of-this-world mindset and we are now living with it. One of those things was that anyone who visited us and leaves without giving us money was stingy. Sometimes such people were hated so much and this is still happening today. This is exactly what a lot of people grew up with so they do not think about making things happen for themselves. They are always expecting people to make things happen. They believe if you are rich you must give them money so that they can live fine.

 

I do not have a problem with anybody giving you money but we must identify two kinds of receivers. There are some receivers who are parasites and there are some who are visionaries. When a parasite receives money he blows it up and keeps asking for more. Whatever he gets is never enough. When a visionary gets money he uses it as a leverage for the skills and abilities already inside of him. Upon proper consultation on their ventures, these kind of people barely come back to ask for money.

 

This challenge is not with money alone. I have seen a lot of people who think their relatives must only use what they have for a while and pass it on to them. When I was an undergraduate I met a guy about three times or more in the same week at different places on campus. He claimed he was stranded the first time so he was asking for money to travel. He came to me the second time repeating the story because he had forgotten he once came to me. The third time he came the story had changed to trying to meet the demand of his project supervisor. The last time he came I was alighting from an official car of the university so I didn’t even listen because I was now familiar with his usual lies but he didn’t know my face. He went from people to people repeating his lies.

 

I do not expect that kind of a person to think for himself. He will keep thinking somebody else is responsible to him. You know where you always expect people to make things happen. I don’t live my life as if people owe me. If they give, fine! If they don’t, fine! I always think like I am the one who owes you. If we work on this then 2025 is a good time to look forward to.

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

 

Motivational Speaking, Proposal Development, Event Management …