Nigeria: Wither Goest Thou???!!!

I am so heartbroken at the way people accept apparently deceitful and empty opinions/comments (by our leaders, especially, the politicians) aimed solely at maintaining public relations. I am not surprised though, but really disappointed with the way people, even the so-called learned Nigerians, have accepted this. It’s like we are okay, whatever you (a leader) do or think as long as you put out a statement that says what we wants to hear: not the truth, not the honest opinion, just something that makes us feel better in that moment. I don’t blame people though, not even our most learned scholars. It’s a broader problem with the human race. We can’t always handle the truth; all we need are simplified narratives to suit our sensibilities. Politicians especially, have mastered the art and that is what we get from almost everyone in public eyes (politicians and other public servants inclusive). It’s a big shame really, since the youths are always at the receiving end. But come to think of it, when will Nigerians, not just the youths and the majority poor of the like of my parent, demands their government to be responsible???!!! Enough of “what have you done to the government” deception; a government of the people need to be responsible to its people! That is what brings wealth (re)distribution and growth!! That is what brings development!!! 

June 2012

My Father who is in Heaven, thank You for June 2012: my month of destiny changing events that will lead to a ceaseless super-abundance-overflow in every aspect of my life. Thank You God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit for the new month. As You bless me, bless my friends also, so that together, we will praise and glorify You, in Jesus Christ name, amen.

Divine Deposits!!!

Wen u encounter somebody who tries 2 tell u dat u have nothin 2 offer, & dat u can never or will never achieve somethin of substance, be sure 2 laugh LOUDLY... Its gravely impolite & heinously sinful 2 hear a joke of dis magnitude & not LAUGH.... Possibilities re written ALL over me, I do not know about u!!!

Being A Man

A man must be patient, undetered and determined for him to move ahead or progress in Life.

Don't be discourage man, Keep trying, one day you will reach your desired goal

Self Reliance: The Guiding Principle to Greater Heights

…In all civilization, there is a fundamental belief in supreme deity who guides and protects the people as they match along the road to success. But above all, there is an unshaken belief in self-reliance. This is the guiding principle.

Self-reliance result in self approval anytime a little success is gained. This, in turn increases the belief and dependence on the self. The more you conquer odds, the more you trust on your judgment, the more proud you become of your effort. Self reliance is an integral virtue without which the mountaineer is left at the bottom of the valley, helplessly gazing up at the height he could have conquered. This is true for the individual as it is for a nation; the former being a unit of the later.

A nation that is seeking a golden age must have entrenched in its nationals these two qualities – a deep, deep belief in God and an attitude of self reliance. The former replenish spiritual strength while the later is the inevitable tool that carves out a sure path in the material jungle.
Once the majority can develop and put to use the attitude of self reliance, the nation is planted on the path to its golden age!

Man and Conspiracy

Life is a paradox where the chain of events often defies logic. A lot of ironies play out in this curious age of reasons. Quite often, man is ruled by a number of irrational variables which add to the mystery and paradox that shape humanity and events.

Events are not quite what they seem on the surface. But man often wades through the imponderables of life to make a sense out of the labyrinth of existence. Through such efforts, dreams are transformed into reality. There is always a constant struggle to capture the seemingly endless mirage. Man in his push to conquer has remained essentially restless. Always pushing ahead, beyond barriers, behind the scenes; to build and to destroy all toward a goal. Indeed, survival and conquest have presented man with daily challenges.

In a world ruled by ideas however, surviving the endless hurdles has been Herculean. From the individual to the group levels, and even among nations, Darwinian dynamics rule the roost. The fittest often survives. The unfit becomes extinct. It is a refrain that liberal minded philosophers find difficult to accept. But even among the very powerful, plots and conspiracy against each other reign supreme. There is perfidy, disloyalty and faithlessness. Treachery is an act, perhaps a defining goal in the road to conquest. Simply put, men conspire in a group to out-maneuver one another.

In Hobbesian state, the picture of life being short, brutish and nasty is a recurring decimal. Perhaps also, these features are the driving force behind the series of conspiracy to achieve or play ones’ part within the available stretch of time. Little wonder, men plots against the grain of reason. The painful part of conspiracy is its furtive nature. That is why conspirators at work are always difficult to expose: often, they pretend to be loyal. There is always no art to read the minds construction on the face – apology to William Shakespeare. Watch out, that friend, political acolyte or even your crony could be among the conspirators. Like the great reggae musician Bob Marley noted in his music “your best friend could be your worst enemy”.

Make no mistake about it, aside from men who plot against one another, children also plot against their parent. Group conspires against others. Nations are constantly in conspiracy to acquire, steal or to spy. The bottom-line at times is to attain leverage, an advantage over the other. Destruction is the goal at other times. From individual to family and other groups, the quests for wealth and power have given vent to endless conspiracies. So also have the attempts to settle scores spawn conspiracies against the unsuspecting.

But human needs like basic economic principles reveals are essentially insatiable. As soon as one need is met, it is in the nature of man to push for more. That is why after the tough battle to cement a marriage, tales of struggles for control between husband and wife take roots. Such battles are silently conspiratorial. Business partners are always at dagger drawn for control. They too conspire just as nations plot against nations. Conspirators seek to wear down the opponent, the target. But at the end of the day, conspiracy is destructive.

In all quest, self-preservation is the primary law. And to succeed, economic, social, cultural, military and intellectual battles are waged. The quest for political power and its reward has given birth to conspiracies of various shades. Political power may in fact be the ultimate goal of the most celebrated conspiracies.

It is no exaggeration that in the search for power, man has perfected the art of subversion. Conspiracies are often times a fore play to acquire power, to oust the incumbent or to establish a foothold for strategic purpose. In all, these are cold calculation towards tilting the apple-cart. Coups, counter coups, assassination; or even a palace coups and on many occasions, blood bath occur, as the deadly aftermath of conspiracies.

Just like men plot, cabals plot too. Americans are yet to overcome or even understand the conspiracy behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The death of General Murtala Mohammed remains a lingering consequence of a bloody conspiracy. Moshood Abiola won a presidential election in 1993. Men conspired to/and deny him his presidency. Its consequence ousted General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. General Sani Abacha, a beneficiary of the 1993 general election annulment, came; arrested Abiola, jailed General Olusegun Obasanjo and Shehu Musa Yar’Adua for allege conspiracy to oust him (Abacha). Shehu Yar’Adua was killed out of conspiracy by the Abacha junta in a bid to checkmate Yar’Adua’s political profile. But conspiracies often produce series of reaction which consumes the initiators. In the end, even Abacha, in spite of his goons had no armor against conspirator. He died like a chicken in 1998.

What more shall I say? For time will fail me to mention the first PDP rally in Jos in the 1999 and of course the most recent, the April 2007 PDP Primaries that produced Umar Musa Yar’Adua as the parties presidential flag bearer and today the president of the leaping nation, Nigeria, falsely called the giant of Africa. It will also be a great oversight on my part to ignore or disregard the must recent (2007) coup in the PDP that ousted the erstwhile Chairman BOT (Board of Trustee) of the ( most acclaimed largest) party (in Africa) in the person of Anthony Annenih and his replacement by Olusegun Obasanjo. Annenih was himself a foot soldier of Obasanjo. He described his replacement as a betrayal by his former boss.Conspiracy and its act have not ended. It will never be.

Now when it comes to conspiracy: WHAT IS ONE TO THINK?

FUEL PRICE AND VAT INCREASE

Human beings as far as they are understanding and just acknowledge ability as the proper measure of responsibility. The blind man is not held responsible to see nor the deaf man to hear. Even the most oppressive government imposes upon its citizens only such taxes as it judges him able to pay. To demand more of any man is finally to destroy such ability as he may posses. Any government that would demand more of (from) its citizens than they were able to pay would soon dry up all tribute at its roots and bring upon itself sure destruction. Such governments are not innocent before they have heard the cry of the masses, but their responsibility is vastly increased after they have heard it.

However, this simple logic has failed to be acknowledged in Nigeria. Obasanjo in his characteristic manner was so nefarious that he could not think of better things for Nigerians in general and his successor, Umar Yar’Adua in particular, (who inevitable has a lot to battle with in the nation Nigeria), but to, (in few days he was expected to pack his bag and baggage’s), increased fuel price by over 15% and VAT by 10%.

To use increase taxes to feed government purses and enjoy greater expenditure is perfectly natural – and that is precisely why it is wrong, especially given the economic state of Nigeria; it accords it with insensitivity and is of the essence of inhumanity to the generality of the Nigerian populace.

To accept a larger increase in taxes to lay up treasures in government coffers accords with the principles of modern government. While every government who has this problem to face should prayerfully consider its larger responsibility in the light of many factors, a moment of rational thinking would lead us to conclude that good economic policies are not and can never be the same for all nations since their levels of poverty in particular and development in general are not the same.

So what is Nigeria waiting for?

"Anu Moulda, Ngu Ga Sanakur, Amma Ga Sukwa Tsu Noleen"

Mhm. A ngwamari du ma ga kubu. Naja Su munagu di niu ga ngari daha gu.
Pics. Removed by author.

Democracy Is Not Dead…It Just Never Was!

“Democracy is dead” was the caption of the BBC. “It just never was” said my friend Jagila. What an intellectually sound reasoning they are!

The two-times four year term of Olusegun Obasanjo (from May 29, 1999 to May 29, 2007) was not a democracy (democratic dispensation); it was a transition period from the “military” to a “civilian” (Obasanjo himself knew that he did not have the spirit of democracy, though his pomposity made him to say or claim otherwise on almost all occasions).

For this reason, the world should judge Nigeria on the basis of this new era. Whatever judgment, it should be based on what(ever) Umaru Yar’Adua is going to deliver to the Nigerians as democratic dividends.

So, instead of saying democracy is dead in Nigeria, we should say democracy is brought to life again after Shehu Shagari’s government of the 1979 was ousted out.

With Yar’Adua is the beginning of real democracy whether he is able to deliver the so called “goodies” of democracy.

It is a truism that some nations have had their Heads of States/Presidents as retired army officers. But it never was, from the armed force to agbada (civilian). They must undergo some kinds of political tutelage, or rather start from a lower office, say senate, and gradually ascends to the office of the president. But, in Nigeria, even the office of the governor is small to a retired General, Colonel etc. I remembered Obasanjo once saying only a retired General can rule Nigeria. Aren’t rubbish?

Behold a home breed politician is the president of Nigeria today, lets wait, see and pass our judgment as time unfold the outcome of this new epoch in the Nigerian History.

Resist Not Evil…

The great teachers, sages and wise ones of history have left us with many proverbs, sayings and instructions for living a good life. While most of these sayings are obvious in their meanings, others seem to be contrary to the very thing that these wise ones were teaching. Take for example Jesus, where he says, in Matthew5:34 “Resist not evil….” Now that is a rather strange saying for a religious teacher, isn’t it? What did Jesus mean by this?

It is my contention that, in addition to all of the many different ways that people sees and interprets who Jesus was – he was, above all, a profound mystic who was far ahead of the people of his time in terms of understanding the principles of the Universe and human nature.

He understood, for example, that when you focus your attention on something, you create a certain vibration or frequency which puts you in alignment (on the same frequency) with that thing. To say it simply:

“What you see is what you get.”
“What you think about, you bring about”
“What you focus on, you get more of.”

In other words, what you give your attention to, you actually align yourself with at a frequency level, whether it is something you want or something you don’t want.

Thus, when you fight against the thing you don’t want, you are giving it your full attention and, at a frequency level, actually empowering it. Exactly how this takes place is explained from a quantum physics perspective. With quantum physics we now have a clear scientific understanding for many things that the great mystics of history have known for eons.

Back to the point. When people wish to eliminate something that is undesirable, they often start a campaign to fight it, based on the antiquated idea of war. Thus, in the USA, we have seen the “War on Poverty,” the “War on Drugs,” the “War on Cancer,” the “War on Terrorism,” etc., just to name a few. Other parts of the world have other priorities and thus other ‘wars.’ Now the interesting thing is, they still have poverty, drugs, cancer, and terrorism, and in most cases the problems are actually worse now than when they declared war on them.

It makes me wonder what kind of world we would have today if we had conducted a campaign for Prosperity for All, or Optimum Health for all, or the Campaign for Justice, Equality, Brotherhood, Peace and Prosperity for all – regardless of national boundaries?

An even more profound question is, what kind of impact would we have had on terrorism if we were spending TWO BILLION DOLLARS A WEEK in the Middle East (US current war budget), on health, education, social justice, and infrastructure development (water, electricity, roads, etc.) instead of guns & bombs?

All of our experience points to the fact that what we fight against (give our full attention to), we actually tend to empower.

Why? Because this is one of the fundamental teachings on global leadership. The kind of leadership that we need today is that which can carry us from the old consciousness which has brought us collectively to the brink of extinction to a new, visionary leadership which can carry us forward into a positive future. First and foremost this requires a change in consciousness. And this change is based on an understanding of the basic principles of how the Universe works; principles which have been the fundamental teachings of the world’s mystics and have more recently been confirmed by the science of quantum physics.

At this stage in our planetary history, we don’t need leaders/managers who can efficiently pilot a sinking ship. We need visionary leaders who can really see the hidden reefs and steer us in a new direction; for Africa as a start, then the global economy in general .