THE THREE STAGES OF SUCCESSFUL RELATIONSHIPS

One of the most critical area of every life is the relationship realm. This is speaking primarily for every kind of relationship. However, this note is specifically addressing romantic relationships. Every one of us have got what trips him or her in a woman or a man. At the point of starting out in the relationship, those things must have been spotted in our man or woman and that would have influenced our decision to give the union a go. It is very important that you never make the first move if you don't like the person. You don't consider starting if there is nothing in that person that you believe fits into your idea of an ideal partner. But that is just the first stage. There is a second stage and a third stage in every relationship that succeeds. What makes it a success is when you get to the third stage and move really on to greater good. Your relationship is not a success if it stops in stage one or two. Let us consider the three stages.

The Honeymoon Stage

You meet the guy or the lady, you interact for a while and you are 100% convinced you are meant for each other. Then the dating becomes more meaningful. You start addressing each other by special names; your friends know about you. You talk, talk and talk. Both of you see no evil, feel, no evil and believe nothing negative about each other. But this is a foundation laying stage. Serious partners will use this to build trust, speak about their past in phases, discuss family matters and talk about their future. Serious people will speak about their vision and how their relationship can affect it. They discuss and explore ways and means of surmounting challenges. At the background of all that is happening at this point is a high level of romantic feeling for each other. For couples who have agreed to the principle of NO SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE, they go through a constant period of fighting back feelings of holding each other and touching and all of that. That may altogether not be avoided but they will ensure that there is no sex in spite of the huge amount of desire they feel. Feeling is a major part of this period. They want to see each other, send loving text messages, talk through the night and attend events together. One day without speaking or seeing each other is boring. This is the Honeymoon Stage. It does not last forever. After a while, the next stage opens up...

The Reality Stage

Was the first stage not real? Oh yes, it was. But at this second stage, whatever is felt at the first stage is going to be tested by fire, flood and storm at this point. If the love was superficial, this stage will reveal that identity. If it was built on truth and genuine love, it will be tested here. This is the stage where each of you begin to notice what you don't like about the other person. The way she speaks to you without "respect", the way he does not "care" about you... you begin see that your man or woman is always "thinking about herself" or "himself"... you get angry at each other, and walk out of each other's presence at times. But in your different private moments, you hate the fact that you tear at each other the way you do. You reason that you shouldn't have reacted the way you did. That is correct. It is not strange. The person who hurt you most the closest person to you. 

You have these conflicts because the real person is getting close and you are seeing things you never saw from away. You were not supposed to see them from a distance in the first place, anyway. The Honeymoon Stage is designed for attraction; this stage is for re-alignment and proper positioning. This is the time you work on your mindset to come to terms with the real person. The first things you experienced in the Honeymoon Stage is not a fluke... it is not a lie - it is only one aspect of the person. A man or woman is not a one-season human being. We are known in part in different seasons. Don't define a person just because you met him in a happy season. Wait for the unhappy season and see another part of him. That is what brings about total knowledge. And in life, we keep learning about ourselves.

This Reality Stage is critical. It tests your conviction. It tests your resolve and when all is said and done; if you cross this stage, then you can fly into Stage Three. We are not done with Stage Two yet.

Stage Two is the stage that reveals maturity or tasks you to become matured. As Christians, it tests your ability to keep promises you made in the euphoria of feelings and excitement. When you said, "I will love you forever", Stage Two demands that you put that into action even when you feel nothing like you felt when you uttered those words. At this point, it is important to state that true love is not just about feelings, romance and sex. IT IS ABOUT RESPONSIBILITY, COMMITMENT and TRUST. You will hurt each other so much you would sometimes regret ever meeting the person but while Stage 1 makes you feel good about the person, stage 2 brings about another kind of feeling - you feel bad sometimes. 

Look back into the initial attraction when you have the crisis of Stage 2. What attracted you? Is it still there? Who he is, has it changed? Has the crisis of Stage 2 made her totally a different person? What fighting spirit do the two of you have to fight for what you both believed in? IT IS A MAKE OR MAR STAGE. At this stage, Lilly levered lovers quit on each other. They see no further than the challenges. Some of the challenges can be so daunting that if third parties who do not know the person in Stage 1 are allowed to make input, they will make a decision for you to crash it. That is why third party advisers and observers must be kept at bay in relationships that must succeed. It does not matter how close you are to them; be careful not to discuss certain matters of your relationship with them.

How to cross Stage 2: Stay true to your initial love for that person. See the challenges as a job you must do to help the person overcome. See it as your task. Don't walk away. That is failure. Don't quit. Quitting is only permitted or allowed when Stage 2 reveals a totally fake individual and if he or she was never sincere in the first place. That also is the advantage of stage 2. Besides that, stay true to the love you still feel for that person. The reason you hurt so much when your relationship is challenged at this stage is because your spirit does not want to lose the prospect of having the Honeymoon of Stage 1 back in play again. 

80% of relationships today do not cross Stage 2: Why? Because we lack the tenacity, the patience and the endurance to work on our emotions. Relationships that succeeds has got feelings, romance and excitement on one hand and has got patience, commitment and dedication to the person on the other hand. The first one is easy and the second one is hard. The interplay of the two will produce amazing results for the future of the two of you.

Stage Three

When you cross stage 2, it will take only God Himself to stop the two of you. You have weathered the storm; you have endured the pains and struggled through the valleys and climbed the mountains. You are on the verge of the Promised Land. Wedding dates are now fixed, plans are in full force and the Marriage Life is in view. The couples who go through Stage 2 and succeed are those who will have a blissful marriage. So many marriages skipped stage 2 because in the heat of their passion, they jumped to Stage Three. Don't worry. Stage Two cannot be skipped really. You will have it inside the marriage and God have mercy on the two of you... you might crash the flight in the first or second year. 

Take a critical look at your relationship now and use your tongue to count your teeth. I hope this helps a lot of people. I love you all.

Taking Another Look at Love

Its been a while since I blogged.  A lot of factors has been responsible.  A lot of travels and a lot of work too.  Now, lets take another view at love, that vexed four letter word that has caused a lot of ripples in the lives of both the young and the old over the ages.

I do not have the time to speak about the different meanings of the word "love".  Suffice it to say however that love can be classified in three different categories of "agape", "phileo" and "eros".  All are important depending upon which angle you are positioned.  Agape, as the Greeks explain is God's unconditional love.  Phileo is the kindred feeling for brother and sister, mother and father, friends and acquaintances.  Eros is the animal love that lovers and married persons express in sex.

I want to focus on love as can be expressed in romantic situations.  This is the hottest subject of the times.  Every woman needs a man and vice versa.  This need creates equally high amount of crisis that if not properly managed can cause a huge emotional turmoil of gigantic proportion.  You see a lady, you feel strongly for her to be friends with her and when you speak to her, both of you seem to have the same chemistry and the next thing on your minds is how you can make that mutual feeling last for a long time.  But this always does not last as long as we expect it to be.  They are short-lived by many factors.  Some of these factors are what really true love should help ameliorate.

When you tell someone you love him or her, I believe what that should mean is this:  I like you as a person; I want to always be with you and if possible, I want you to spend the rest of our lives together.  It also means: I care a lot about you - I want to be part of your issues, your challenges and your needs.  I want to stand by you and help you through the vicissitudes of  life.  Love and romance fails to achieve its ultimate peak because we want to enjoy only the good part of the person we claim to love and allow them to deal with their peculiar challenges alone.  If it is possible, and this happens often; when we discover some issues about the person we claim to love and it is going to inconvenience us, we find ways and means to break away from that person.  Is that love?  Nope!

Love is when in spite of the weaknesses and challenges someone is facing, you can stand up and say: "Yes, I see these issues; but I have made a commitment to be in love with you - I will stay here with you and together we can fix this problem".  Love says, I am in pain because of what you have caused but I know you are a good person; your challenge or weakness is not what defines the entirety of your life.  Brace up, I am right here with you.

As human beings, we are basically selfish being.  Love seeks to banish selfishness and enthrone selflessness and sacrifice for the good of your love object.  Relationships, marriages and friendship across all romantic and emotional levels will do well and better if true love is given a chance.

True love does not tolerate evil, but finds a way to deal with the evil.  True love hates deceit and unfaithfulness but is able to stand up to them and defeat them.

Love and Friendship

I have always believed that two people desiring to become emotional and romantic lovers must first of all be friends.  What really is love without being friends?  Its a contradiction in terms.  Friendship is the central point of what holds true love together.  Friends don't relate on the basis of feelings but on the grounds of commitment to look out for each other's interests.  Therefore, when the sweet feelings of love wanes, the power of friendship holds the two together.  When issues make the two lovers temporarily alienates their romantic partnership, friendship makes them look at the issues objectively and they find a way around it.

Don't marry someone who is not a friend.  Marriage can throw some hard punches at the two of you; the best way to weather the storm of these challenges is when the two of you as friends can step aside, look at the issue as a mountain that must be overcome and synergize your friendship powers to overthrow the troubles.

Let us do this again another time.

Undressing Issues That Makes Relationship & Marriage Sour

              A lot of people in relationships and marriage have no business being in it at all.  My impatience reached fever pitch recently when a lady told me she had been in a relationship for twelve (12) years only to discover that the guy had just married someone else behind her back.  I tried to brace myself up to encourage her to take heart and move on but I couldn’t resist the feeling of anger knowing that she too was culpable – by allowing someone to hold her life down for 12 whole years.

       There is a huge difference between casual dating that result in intimate relationship and a serious commitment to each other for life.  The former is engaged in by people with fleeting or no purpose for life in a holistic way while the latter is entered into by people who have an idea of what they want out of life and what donation they are here on earth to make.  For the second group of people, even though they are few, they are the ones who turn out to be real world changers.

            When two people are drawn to each other only on the basis of how they feel in their genitals, they will eventually fall apart and lose the feelings the way the sex act itself plays out from foreplay to climax and eventual limpness!  There has to be a more serious reason to be romantically linked to someone beyond the “oohs” and “aahs” of romance and sex.  If you are presently in a relationship that you hope may end up in marriage and the binding force is the power of sex between you and your partner, then you must begin to scratch your head and seek the exit door.  It is better to quit now that you still have your sense intact.

            The life of an average individual is made up of four major areas.  There is the spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional set-up.  If you must be in a relationship with someone, wouldn’t it be reasonable to first of all seat down and count the cost?  Find out if you are on the same spiritual wavelength with the person.  What is your understanding of material well-being and how does the other person view it?  Can the two of you carry on an intellectual discussion without misunderstanding each other?  Can you balance your emotional life with that person?  This is the most primary level of test.  If at this level, there is a disconnect in any of these area, you must raise the red flag and put a break to your feelings no matter how strong they are.  You cannot trust your feelings alone!  You have to balance your feelings for each other with the other three major areas which are critical aspects of your lives.  Like I have always said, there are 24 hours in a day.  The highest amount of time any couple can devote to the passion of sex is only about 1 hour!  If you have not figured out what the two of you will be doing with the remaining 23 hours, then you will be creating a monumental frustration lifestyle ahead of you.

Having dealt with the foundation issues, I want to critically address some of the challenges people in purpose-driven relationships face from time to time.  There is the danger of feeling that they are coasting home since their partners have some high level of understanding about relationship at a generic level as they possess and therefore do not expect any bumps along the way; this is a breeding ground for taking each other for granted.

For the relationship to continue to flourish there has to be constant watering and tending.  The inability to continue to work on themselves and the relationship itself is the bane of many unions.  Let us nail the head on this subject by looking at three critical issues of watering and tending.

1.      Understand Your Roles

Any time people abandon God’s ways, pain will become their portion.  God ordained that the man to be the leader and the head.  The woman was created to support the man as a helper.  This has nothing to do with who is better of the two.  The confusion people have is the fact that they believe because the woman is a helper, she is automatically inferior.  No!  The man on the other hand is not better than the woman; he just got a role to be a leader.  Look at it critically; a true leader is also a very serious servant!  God made them equal but with different roles.  Play your part.  Play your role. 

2.      Be truly sincere

Don’t tolerate anything in courtship that you will not allow in marriage.  If you can’t take it now, deal with it now.  If you find anything antithetical to your belief system or values, discuss it now!  If you can’t agree at the courtship period, don’t be deceived that being married will make things sort themselves out.  Things don’t always sort themselves out – people have to do it! 

          If you don’t like the guy or the lady now; watch your steps.  Understanding about each other develops with time.  That is the reason why I advocate for a fairly reasonably long relationship to allow for time to test the attitudes and orientation of each partner.  The relationship shouldn’t be too long beyond necessary – that too can make the two of you weary yourselves out.  If the two of you use to enjoy discussions just for the sake of mutual fellowship and one of you starts getting irritated unnecessarily about it, then you must watch it.  Two things could be possible – someone else might be tickling his or her fancy or the feelings for you are waning and there is nothing else that looks interesting to sustain your friendship. 

3.      Make sacrifices

Relationships or marriages that work are the results of sacrifices.  But I am not asking that people should commit suicide!  There is a world of difference between tolerating someone for a weakness the person is owning up to and is willing to change than someone who justifies every wrong action and says “that’s me – deal with it!”  There is no character trait that cannot be changed especially if it runs contrary to Biblical standards.  It must be noted that I am discussing from a faith-based point of view.  That is the center of my life and if you have no faith in Christ, you are reading the wrong piece.

We must learn to trade-off some of our requirements for a lady or a guy who should be our relationship partner or spouse.  You cannot have a perfect partner – you are not perfect.  So if you have a partner that meets the generality of your requirement based on some of the criteria we have enunciated above, then other things can be worked on with time.  But, you must make sure they are things that are not central to your values and belief system.  Those are the things you cannot afford to trade-off!

A discussion on building value-adding relationship cannot be exhaustive.  At best, I have just scratched the surface, but I believe that in this piece, there is enough stuff here to lay a solid foundation upon which purpose driven people can build their relationship on.  Enjoy a sweet day wherever you are.

I am 40 and the foundation is set!

In the beginning...

I was born 40 years ago... precisely 14th August, 1972.  My birth was not accident.  It was predetermined by God and it was meant to fulfill a purpose.  I didn't know what that purpose was until I was in my early 20s.  Even then, it was vague but the activities I engaged it gave credence to it later.

I have had a heck of a journey for 40 years!  I have had bumps, de-tours, distractions, obstructions, obstacles, mountain climbing times and valley walking seasons.  Through it all, it has been with the God-factor in it.  I have also had some very joyful moments.  That is how journeys are.  They are not always straight in nature.  The most important thing is the fact that I have my destination in focus.

The days of naivety and ignorance

There was a time in my life when I lived in ignorance but I was a curious and inquisitive person.  I have always been a nice person; trusting everybody hook, line and sinker!  Believing any body and just trusting that everybody meant well.  I have learnt hard lessons in the course of my life that not many people actually care about me.  But my days of naivety and ignorance were not excuses for the penalties I had to concede.  The penalties were huge but I survived them.

I am a better person for the lessons I have learnt from the stress that came from making bad decisions which was as a result of poor information.

Godwin the Determined Person

I read somewhere recently that persistence and determination are equal to omnipotence.  Today, on my facebook page, a friend, in extending his congratulations said he wonders where I get the strength to keep pushing forward inspite of all odds.  In my 40 years of life, I have had to suffer all kinds of set-backs, set-ups and all.  As a pastor and a minister of the Gospel, besides being a management/leadership trainer, a media consultant, a professional writer/author and a life coach, I run a family and had the good fortune of being a leader in at a very tender age.  These did not come without its very devastating challenges.  But today, I speak as a victor.

I want to encourage those who are passing through challenges to know that you fail when you give up.  I don't give up once I believe in a cause.  Things may get mad, but I don't go with them.  In 40 years of being alive, I have been married and divorced; lost 3 children with 2 alive; have had to go through 2 devastating job losses one of which took place 2 weeks after my wedding.  I have had my fair share of crisis.  I have had time when I have been misunderstood, misconstrued, misquoted, and mis-everything.  But I am here today because God loves me!

I don't beat myself up.  I don't blame myself too much and don't take myself too serious.  But I work hard, I go for goals that I pursue and I wake up everyday speaking to myself that I am a victor because of Christ.

God blessed me with early...

I didn't go to a conventional university.  I went to the University of Hard Knocks!  I did most of my higher education through correspondence and part time basis.  I started working at 15 after secondary school.  I had to pay my way through school pushing truck in Wurukum Market, in Makurdi, Benue State.  In spite of what you might call a faulty start, at 22 I was a senior officer in a multi-national company, went on to work at Access and Zenith Bank for a combined period of 8 years and garnered enough experience to now begin to run my business today.  I have been recently blessed with a national award on entrepreneurship.  God has indeed blessed me.

I got saved at the age of 17 in Murtala Square, Kaduna, North West Nigeria on October 20, 1990 during the Reinhard Bonnke Gospel Crusade in that city.  That is the best foundation of my life.  I went on to become a very active Christian till date.  I served in virtually all arms of the Church in The Open Christian Assembly leading to my ordination as an Elder at the age of 30.  By the time I was 33, I was ordained a Pastor.  I spent 16 years in that Church.  I cut my ministerial teeth there.  Today, I run LoveHouse International Gospel Center.  At 40, I am a blessed man.

My future is bright

Don't ever allow your present circumstances to define who you are.  You are not the situation you find yourself in.  The situation and circumstances should be treated as an event.  Your life is happening in process.  If you have God in your life, then He is the anchor of your life.  He orchestrates what you call the bad, the good and the ugly to achieve His Divine purpose.  Don't scream out too loud because of pain and offend God.  Trust Him through the dark.  There were times my life didn't mean much to me or people around me.  Some people gave up on me; but there was no reason in doing that because my success or failure wasn't going to affect their own lives.  People get mad at you for no just cause, therefore do not be too careful to please any man.  Your life is entirely up to the decision you make and how you go about implementing your decisions.  

I will marry again; I will have children too!  I will be great and everything will be fine.  I will be a reference point and people will come to me for help and I will help them!  I have a good life in spite of everything.  Be encouraged if you have my kind of story... you too are going to be a success!

You don't need a perfect life; you must live your life to the full:

Don't surrender the driving seat of your life to people who think you ought to do whatever they say.  Live based on God's principles and the peculiarity He has packaged you to be.  You are special; you are unique and you are different.  It is not wrong to be different as long as you are in line with God.  People will not like you much at the beginning, but if you keep your cause in front of you and pursue your purpose with determination, you will become a star and an inventor of a concept that becomes a style for the future.

I am so thankful to God that He allowed me to see this day and allowed me to share this information of encouragement with you, my friends.  Let me know if this has helped you...

God bless you richly.

Nigeria: An Evolving Giant

Nigeria just marked its 13 years of unbroken civilian rule after the military held on to power between 31st December, 1983 to 29th May, 1999.  Before then, we had a civilian rule that was interrupted after it had been in the saddle for just four years (when President Shehu Shagari held forth between 1979 to 1983).  Before 1979, the military had held power between 1966 to that time. At independence, we had a civilian regime under the leadership of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa that was overthrown by the first coup which was however unsuccessful but gave birth to the reign of military rule in Nigeria.

In total, Nigeria had been subjected to military rulership for a whole period of 25 years of 51 + years of our existence as a nation.  This is the first time we are enjoying an uninterrupted period of 13 years without any military incursion in our political affairs.  While this calls for some measure of celebration, the civilian leadership have not lived up to the expectations of the potentials that Nigeria is known for.

Our leadership and by extension our nation is bedeviled by corruption both in low and high places; self-centered leadership; lack of vision and purpose in the political system and a serious misplacement of priorities by successive governments.  Patriotism is therefore not a culture that is common with us; it is actually alien.  Government is then seen as "Father Christmas" that must be patronized and lobbied to get your own share of the national cake.  Politicians therefore garner for votes from their constituencies so they can be represented at the center to ensure "development" comes to the community so represented.  While this in itself is not a bad idea, the voters do not vote with the big picture in their mind - they do not see the fact that the elected representatives must first of all work on ensuring there is a stable institution that they can call a nation before it can be strong enough to provide a platform for the actualization of the aspiration of its different constituent parts.  The politicians in campaigning for votes, using the sentiments of going to represent the "people" have other agendas up their sleeves.

Nigeria, 51 years and counting, 13 years of democratic rule and running is a sleeping giant.  The current regime appears to have been fired up by the huge expectations the electorates placed on its shoulders and appears to be working its way up the ladder of positioning Nigeria as a nation to be reckoned with.  I am aware that there are motley of issues that it has to deal with.  The strange issue of Boko Haram, which is gradually become a political tool in the hand of the opposition to rubbish the government; the incessant epileptic power supply or a non-existent power system; the huge unemployment especially among the youths and the total near absence of basic infrastructure like roads, housing and potable water.

A close look at the Jonathan administration reveals that it is dealing with a myriad of issues all at the same time.  Even the best opposition candidates would not have performed better in the circumstance.  The sincerity of the government, to me, is not in doubt.  But that they have perfectly worked to ensure a total deliverance of Nigeria from the woods is what remains debatable.  Governance is a process and even the corruption we talk about cannot be eradicated in one day; same with poverty.  The question we should seek to answer is whether the government is doing its best to tackle the many problems.

The last one year has been interesting.  The President and his team have fared well in the circumstance and we should be magnanimous in our criticism.  I know there is anger in the land about corruption, mis-governance and all that but violence and unmitigated protests will not solve any problem.  It aggravates issues.  As a people, we must learn to sit down to articulate our problems and issues and see how to proffer solutions to them.  That is the meaning of democracy.  There is no room for jungle response to issues.

Nigeria will survive the storm and we will come out a better and bigger nation.  A giant is emerging from the West Coast of Afroca that would become a world leader in virtually every sphere of things.  God is counting on you and I to make that a reality.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria...  Naija for life!

NIGERIA: A difficult jigsaw puzzle?

It beats my thoughts how everything negative is possible in Nigeria save progressive activities.  Yet this is one nation on the face of the earth that has the capacity to rule the world.  On paper, in the 1960s, we were compared to Brazil, China and India.  Today, we are struggling for relevance with Lilliputians like Ghana, Benin Republic & at the worst case, Somalia!

Reflect a little on our economic potentials: With oil reserve to last for more than 30 years, we are currently earning not less than 20 million US dollars daily from crude oil sale.  Our solid mineral potentials is virtually limitless.  From Plateau through Benue to the Western and Southern region, our soil is filled with literal gold in terms of solid minerals.  We have one of the best agricultural land mass in the world.  We can produce millions of tonnes of groundnuts annual in the north.  Same with rice.  Benue is home to yam and cassava and annual production at mechanized level can peak at a level that we can feed the entire West Coast of Africa.

Our human capital is enormous.  Our people are all over the world making monumental impact on different economies.  Barring our educational standards that has miserably fallen, we boost of one of the best crop of endowed people in terms of the capacity to learn and reach the peak of every profession.  Unfortunately, it is with the same propensity that we can learn to do wrong!

Our population is another plus.  China and other big nations have used their population to their advantage.  We are blessed with two of the biggest rivers on the continent.  Our culture is rich and our landscape is vast and imposing.  From the north to the south, all year round, our climate is clement and we are so blessed not to have any kind seasonal natural disaster.  How much more can a nation ask for?
YET...

We remain at a crossroads over 50 years after we gained nationhood in terms of political independence from the British.  Ours has been a case of a massive successful failure... bedeviled by ethnic bigotry, corruption, distrust and religious intolerance.  Besides the misfortune of military incursion into our body polity, we have had to deal with very unacceptable level of clueless leadership.

HOWEVER, I believe that we can change the tide.  The time to do that is now...  We can reverse the trend and build a BETTER NIGERIA.

Those who believe that Nigeria's leadership is their birthright must give up such a fight of making the country ungovernable before they wake up one day and discover that they have got gravel in their mouths... their kids may not have a place to call their own eventually because no single person has the monopoly of violence.

Those who think that they can line their pockets with every government money they control should watch it lest they remain behind bars for life because the coming silent revolution will swallow every corruption person.

Ethnic bigots, religious fanatics and tribal champions should quit their dreams.  It will simply not work.

It is time for the government to redouble its efforts in youth empowerment, power generation and distribution to achieve a zero point of power cut, build more refineries to cut cost and shift government revenue base more to other IGR than the oil fields that may dry up in about 35 years.  Build more roads, connect the hinterland with the waterways, link up villages to cities and educate our kids with the best curriculum.

THE TIME TO BUILD NIGERIA IS HERE... all those who do things they can't explain in line with purposeful living should repent and come to terms with reality.  Nigeria is living in the 21st century, we cannot operate with the tools and mindset of the 20th century or the dark ages.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Naija for life!

Does Leadership Mean Something Else in Nigeria?

It hurts to know that in Nigeria, we are taught one theory in school about how a responsible person, citizen or Nigerian should live his life yet in practical terms, we see a totally different thing on display right before our eyes even at the leadership level.  We are promised all sorts during electioneering campaigns but we are left to survive on our own whenever the elections are over and public officials or the politicians are in office.  That has prompted me to ask this question "Does Leadership Mean Something Else in Nigeria?".

Let me attempt to describe what leadership mean in Nigeria:

1.  It is a time to make money:  

People who are in elective or appointed offices in Nigeria are there only for the sake of what is in it for them.  Otherwise, how do we explain the uproar and the kind of threats the National Assembly issue whoever cares to listen anytime there is a discussion that relates to the pruning down of their jumbo pay and allowances.  What work are they doing that is different from the guys in the Federal Ministry of Finance or those in the Ministry of Environment?  The Directors who work in other ministries are more of bureaucrats than the politicians who fill up the National Assembly who mostly got their position because of the amount of money they were able to throw around during the elections.  

It is about money making... The House of Representative Committee investigating the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) have become immersed in controversies of bribe giving and bribe taking.  Even the SEC Director General is not innocent.  How do we explain a meal of N85,000 per time?  Where was she living before taking up the appointment?  How come she could not get a "befitting" accommodation all of a sudden in the Federal Capital after working there for almost 3 months?  N30,000,000.00 (N30 million) is a lot of money and this can pay the salaries of over 30 Nigerians in one whole year... but some woman is wasting it on hotel bills when an accommodation (no matter how palatial) can be rented in the highbrow places in Abuja for just N3 million per annum?  What kind of leaders do we have here?

2.  It is about exploiting innocent people

I want to speak about the Pension Fund here.  These are other people's sweat and an official would take the money (not just to use and return - which in itself is a game of bad faith) and pocket it!  The Military Pensions Fund is the worst.  Living and dead retired service men queue up in the sun and in the rain, sleep on street corners and in some extreme cases die in the process and they never get their Pensions paid or regularized.  My father served in the Nigerian Army between 1968 to 1980.  He retired on medical grounds having taken gun-shot wounds from the Civil War.  As I write, the Army Authorities have not paid him a dime since 1980.  He has considered that entitlement a write-off; yet some people are feeding fat on his benefits and driving around in gleaming cars yet the long arm of the law cannot catch them because as it seems, they are above the law.  That is the meaning of leadership in Nigeria.

3.  It is about playing to the gallery

I have lived in the North for the past 22 years.  More than half of my life-time to date has been spent with my fellow Hausa/Fulani countrymen.  These are some of the simplest people to live with on the face of the earth but because they are denied education by the same people who are supposed to be their leaders, they are brain-washed en mass to the point that they carry up arms against fellow countrymen without knowing why.  These same politicians then go to the TV houses and radio stations to speak out "for our people who are marginalized!"  Who is marginalizing who?  The people are used in Nigeria rather than empowered.  Most regional leaders are champions today because they are able to shout at those in Abuja more than others.  For their efforts, those in Abuja, in a bid to quench their so-called "fire-brand activism" give them millions of naira in cash or in contract awards for projects that are never executed.  They buy cars, marry more wives, build mansions and impoverish the people the more.

We can go on and on....

 Leadership is about making a difference in the lives of people.  But here, we have in the majority, oligarchies, semi-monarchs who parade them as democrats and in the process filter the country's resources away.  Many years, a young man in Malaysia decided to lead with a vision.  Today, Malaysia stands tall as a developed nation just a little over 30 years down the line.  We know that in the late 1970s, the same Malaysia came to collect palm kernel samples from us.  Today, they are the world's largest exporter of vegetable oil.  Yet, Nigeria is a giant on its kneel as a result of rudderless leadership enmeshed in corruption and thievery.

We earn so much and yet are so poor.  This country has no reason to be poor except that we have a different definition of leadership.  There is yet, hope for Nigeria because I know people are out there who are concerned as I am... our time is coming and may God give us the wisdom to lead our people to the Promised Land.  Amen.

    

I escaped Boko Haram's Daring Bomb

Dateline was Sunday, 29th January, 2012.  The place was Naibawa Quarters, South Eastern part of the City of Kano.  I had gone to Church in the morning and returned home to sleep after lunch.  Against the run of my initial plan, I decided to stay home.  I had wanted to take a bicycle ride across the office but I changed my mind.  That was a saving grace for me.

By 5pm, I walked across with my son to a relative's house in the neighbourhood.  At exactly 6.41 pm, we heard sporadic gun shots in the neighbourhood.  We all shut down everything in house - TV, generating sets and put out all lights.  We were flat down on our faces.  The gun fire raged and was followed by heavy sounds of bombs detonating. 

The gun shots kept coming close to the house and the entire neighbourhood was in a dead silent mood.  After about 45 minutes of sporadic gun shots with the attackers having a free reign, everything went quiet.  We had escaped a major attack from the dreaded Boko Haram.  And so the reign of terror was unleashed on the Naibawa area of Kano.  By the next morning when we were counting our losses in the area, the Police Divisional Office on the Naibawa Park road was a major target.  It was bombed and what was left was just mere ashes and rubbles.  Three residents were killed in the cross fire as the Police tried to defend their station.  Fear was palpable and the residents didn't feel like staying in the neighbourhood anymore.  Security was gone and the bombing of the Police Station effectively rendered the entire axis of Anguwar Uku, Naibawa and Zaria road without any police outpost after the Yar'Akwa Police Division was bombed on the first day of the attacks on 20th January, 2012.

A lady who had dragged her boyfriend to the station to report him for some domestic issues barely left the station after reporting the guy and leaving him in the station before the attack happened.  Her boyfriend was dead by the time the attacks retreated.  What a way to end one's life.

Kano, Nigeria's second biggest commercial city has been under siege for nearly two weeks.  In spite of the huge deployment of troops to the streets, Boko Haram kept pace with their terrorizing attacks in various parts of the city after the coordinated attacks of Friday, January 20, 2012.  That speaks volume of how unintelligent our fight against terror is.  In the heat of all these, I have seen mobile policemen posted at road-blocks around the city which have become a major menace still collecting or exhorting money from motorists and do not hide this at all.  The way these security guys are positioned, they cannot stand any surprise attack at all.

The morning of the attack on Naibawa, while I was walking across to Church in the neighbourhood, I saw surveillance helicopters flying overhead and then wondered why they could not pick out the attackers in the evening. 

The truth is that these attackers are way ahead of our security intelligence.  It is high time the Nigerian authorities deploy more sophisticated methods of nipping in the bud the spate of terrorists attacks that leaves innocent citizens victims all the time.  If we keep applying the same methods for a new problem, we will never get anywhere.

The economic impact of these attacks is monumental.  Kano is gradually becoming a ghost city with the massive exodus of non-natives from the area.  People who have made Kano a home of sort are now leaving in droves.  Why would they stay?  They can no longer be guaranteed safety. 

What does these all portend for the corporate existence of Nigeria?  Some politicians are still playing politics of sentiments with this inflammable problem.  The northern politicians are saying government should negotiate with Boko Haram and grant them amnesty like the Niger Delta militants were treated.  The question is:  How do you discuss with a faceless group whose agenda is more treacherous than advocacy?  They want to overthrow the government of Nigeria and enthrone an Islamic Republic.  They insist they want all Christians to leave northern Nigeria and then confuse matters by saying they are revenging the killings of Moslems in some conflict areas in Nigeria.

Whoever is behind these group should know one thing for sure:  Whatever has a beginning has an end.  Osama bin Ladin didn't last forever.  He was picked out.  So will Boko Haram end ingloriously.  At the end of the day, Nigeria will stand either as a one indivisible entity or a group of nation-states with the destinies of the people of the different nations still making progress. 

There is light at the end of the tunnel.

NIGERIA: The mistake of 1914...

In 1914, the British colonial masters in their bid to control the administration of the Northern and Southern Protectorates of their colonies decided to amalgamate the two of them.  In doing this, the British did not take into consideration the fact that these two different nation-states were not compatible.  However, because of their ultimate motive of mere administrative convenience and to advance their purpose of mastering the mass of people, they did not care one bit about the compatibility of the two different people.  They went ahead to name the two nations Nigeria and insisted they were one.  In spite of the forced marriage, the two nation-states remain till this day but only now fragmented into different nationalities and today Nigeria is about 6 countries forced into one confused nation.

By 1960 when the British handed over power to us at Independence, we had dissolved into three different nations and they handed over power to an abstract entity called Nigeria but the real power was in the hands of the Northern Protectorate under the guidance of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa.  He was a mere paper leader but the real leader of Nigeria was the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello.  The other nations in the arrangement were the Oduduwa led by Sir Michael Akintola with an emissary in the person of Obafemi Awolowo.  Biafra was another nation which was led by Sir Michael Okpala but had a paper tiger at the center in the person of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe.  This arrangement subsisted with many crisis for only six years.  Obviously, these nations pretending to be Nigeria could not co-exist very well.  At the dawn of independence, there were crisis in the West which we now refer to as the "Wild Wild West".  The Tiv riots in the early 60s was also an evidence of a forced marriage between people of different destinies.

In 1966, a set of military boys staged a coup and what happened was like an ethnic cleansing.  They wiped out the leaders of the North and the West and left their own leaders in the East.  Can you now see what I mean?  Three nations co-existing as one.  One decided to overturn the table and left their own leaders alive.  There was nothing nationalistic and patriotic about the 1966 coup.  It was just one of the nations trying to outwit the others after it felt there was an imbalance in the sharing of power between the North, West and East of the contraption called Nigeria.

What followed the 1966 coup was not funny.  The Igbo leader who took over after his kinsmen had eliminated politicians from the North and some from the West could not hold the country together.  He formed a unitary government which broke down in six months as he had no serious command in the Army.  The northern military elements staged a come-back and wrestled power and handed it over to a so-called neutral person in General Yakubu Gowon.  Another disgruntled group in the military led by Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu disagreed with this arrangement and gradually a revolt resulted and what we had was a 30 month Civil War that claimed the lives of more than 1 million people with the Igbos who decided to secede suffering the highest casualty.

In 1970 when Biafra surrendered to the Federal military might led by General Gowon, he declared "no victor, vanguish" and since then it has been a ding dong affair.  The North held on to power for the next 9 years through Gowon; Murtala extended it for 6 months and their stooge - General Olusegun Obasanjo held it in trust for 3 and half years and handed it back to them in 1979 with Alhaji Shehu Shagari becoming a civilian President.  Buhari stepped in - 1983 and General Ibrahim Babangida held on from 1985 to 1993.  When it looked like the Federation was going to get better with Chief MKO Abiola heading for victory after the June 12, 1993 Presidential Elections, acclaimed to be the freest and the fairest elections in our history, the elements in the North stepped up their game and helped to annul the election and General Sani Abacha came in with huge brutality.  He died 5 years later and it was again a northern leader in the person of General Abdulsalami Abubakar that stepped in even though for a short-lived period of 11 months. 

The civilian administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was a creation of the North through General Ibrahim Babangida who felt there was a need to right the wrong of the June 12 election failure.  But as it turned out, Olusegun Obasanjo of 1979 was no longer the same man in 1999.  He had wizened up and he was determined to balance things out.  But the North would have none of it!  That was where trouble started.  He was opposed at every point and when he eventually bowed out in 2007, the nation was already at its tittered edge.  His nomination of Yar'Adua for presidency did not pacify the North because they felt he was a sick man and that Goodluck Jonathan was positioned naturally to step in.  Fine, Goodluck eventually became the President but not after there was hell on all fronts about the Presidency being the turn of the North.

Many of the politicians who felt the North was cheated even went as far as saying they will make the country ungovernable.  Is that not what is happening via the Boko Haram bombings now? 

THE VERDICT:

For nearly a hundred years, we have tried to force ourselves to live together.  The mistake is way back to 1914.  Can we now see why we can't seem to work well as a nation?  This faulty foundation gave birth to the unbridled corruption in the system.  The reason is this:  we are not citizens but indigenes of regions.  Citizens contribute but indigenes claim rights.  We see ourselves as Igbo, Idoma, Igala, Yoruba and Hausa before we are Nigerians.  Distrust is deep within our fiber.  As a Christian, its simple to add that two cannot walk together except they agree... Amos 3:3.

Where are we in agreement as a people?  I can't see any from the North to the South.

Refer to my last blog of December, 2012.  It is time to gradually get this region called Nigeria into its proper place.  In my subsequent blog, I will begin to discuss the variables that will help us navigate into our different nation-states within the Nigerian landscape and foster more purposeful development.  Enough to the mindless wastes of precious human lives.  People should die for a reasonable purpose and not for NOTHING.  

Keep in touch with me.