Inspiration for the day.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life,
and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what
you believe is great work. And the only way to do
great work is to love what you do. If you haven't
found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all
matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.
Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to
happen. Make it happen. Make your own future.
Make your own hope. Make your own love. And
whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by
passively waiting for grace to come down from
upon high, but by doing what you can to make
grace happen... yourself, right now.

We Never Stop Learning.

One day a very wealthy father took his son on a trip to the country for the sole purpose of showing his son how it was to be poor. They spent a few days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

After their return from the trip, the father asked his son how he liked the trip. ‘It was great, Dad,’ the son replied. ‘Did you see how poor people can be?’ the father asked. ‘Oh Yeah,’ said the son.

'So what did you learn from the trip?’ asked the father. The son answered, ‘I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.

'We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.

'We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.’ The boy’s father was speechless. Then his son added, ‘It showed me just how poor we really are.'

Too many times we forget what we have and concentrate on what we don’t have. What is one person’s worthless object is another’s prize possession. It is all based on one’s perspective.

Sometimes it takes the perspective of a child to remind us what’s important.

Nigerians got no chill

After Nigerian President Buhari met with US President Barack Obama, he took to twitter to say that he thanked the POTUS for his support against the fight against Boko Haram and wished him a happy retirement. Nigerians took totheir twitter pages to respond to the tweet.

Truth be told.

From Oby Ezekwesili

I still find it funny that most people
don't know why Nigeria economy
went into recession, they love the
incompetent lies of Lai Mohammed
about the past government ruining
everything. It's also myopic to think
that if Jonathan were to still be in
power, we would be worse off.
The truth about Nigeria's recession
is this; it was caused by the
president's unguided rhetoric and
uncultured body language.
Firstly, there is nothing we are
buying today that we weren't buying
5 years ago, therefore it's not our
purchase that put pressure on Naira
but withdrawal of funds by foreign
investors.
After the election, the president
created instability with his unguided
statements about how everyone is
corrupt and how everyone is going to
jail. The instability made foreign
investors to liquidate their
investment and change their money
to dollars. In the process of trying to
flee, they were willing to buy dollars
at any price, which lead to high
exchange dollar rate.
Even though some of them were not
ready to run away, but want their
money in dollars to save their
investments from devaluation, the
president gave a bad signal by
banning deposit of foreign currency
into dormiciliary accounts. That was
enough for free market believers to
see the draconian handwriting on
the wall, that was the beginning of
dollar rush.
To make matters worse, the
president came up with another
outrageous policy of rationing dollar
to certain sectors and blocking many
sectors out. That was the nail in the
coffin which facilitated the
emergence of free FALL.
In the end, foreign investors took
over $80B out of the economy within
a short period and everything went
down to free fall.
To those who believe it will be worse
if Jonathan is still there, you are all
wrong. Policy continuity and political
stability will not let billions of
dollars leave our shores within such
tiny time frame. Even though the
government might have income
shortage, the private sector will
weather the storm by their
confidence in the market.
The fear of the unknown created by
PMB is responsible for the economic
downturn not low oil price. Interest
rate in America is currently at 0.5%
while it is 12% in Nigeria. JP Morgan
Chase will not mind borrowing $50
billion from Feds at 0.5 and put in
Nigeria for return of %2000 profit.
Citi bank will do the same, likewise
US Bank Corp. Chase gave Buhari
warning about the repercussions of
his fixing policy before they pulled
out, but his illiterate cyber warriors
and misseducated e-soldiers said
JPMORGAN can go to hell, they no
longer believe in economic metrics
since their messiah is in charge.
Funny enough they are all suffering
today because of the stupid policy,
but they find relief by blaming it on
past administration and Gucci
appetite of average Nigerians.
For your information, if your
president "kontunu" with his
unguided rhetoric, Naira will go
down to N1000/1 $. But we thank
God, he is no longer talking.

Word!

Your Excellency Sir, Change starts with you...........

______________________________

Change was your idea not ours.
Change was your manifesto, we do not have a manifesto
Change was your mantra, not ours
Change was your magic word
Change starts with you.

We did not vote us into power...

We voted you into power because we bought into your Change mantra.

Change you sold.

Change we bought.

And Change we want.

Change we can touch, Change we can feel, Change we can relate with, and Change that has a human face. And we want it from you.

Show the light, we will find the way.

In 1937, when the Great Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe( Owelle Osowanya Onitsha) launched The West African Pilot newspaper. He chose a very special motto for it.

"Show the light and the people will find the way".

Zik knew leadership is everything.

The very idea that 'Change' starts with the led and not the leadership can be best described as an abdication of responsibility by the leadership.

That was the utopia Carl Marx preached, but as he also found out, it took the intervention of the ruling class in the person of Frederick Engels for his ideas to be heard.

There is no known historical precedent where the people led the change paradigm without the leadership.

I have ruminated through my books on political and economic history. There is no known reference.

The closest was the French Revolution of 1789, and if you take a closer look, it was not even started by the Proletarian class. Danton and Robespierre were not ''the masses''.

Every dramatic, and drastic change witnessed from the 19th to 20th century across the globe has been top down.

Nnamdi Azikiwe studied it quite well in his Renascent Africa, and came to the conclusion that "Show the Light, and the people will find the way"...

Chairman Mao failed woefully in China because he believed change could come from the people that was why he launched the Cultural Revolution.

But it took Deng Xiaoping to show that leadership is everything when he manipulated the ''unseen finger'' that has pulled over 600 million out of poverty in the last 30 years.That is leadership!

Cuba withstood the world's blockade, suffered all sorts of indignities, yet gave their people one of the best education and health care services in the world. It took the leadership of Fidel Castro....

General Park knew this quite well when he set out the policies that encouraged the Chaebols in South Korea.You can describe him as a dictator, but he laid the foundation for the take off of a prosperous Korea. Today I am writing this with a Samsung mobile device thanks to the foresight of General Park, hose daughter incidentally is the present President of South Korea.

Lee Kuan Yew is an evident testimony that change can only be effectively and efficiently launched top down. He enumerated everything succinctly in his well received book, From the Third World, to the First World. Singapore today is a living testimony to that.

Mahathir Mohammad pointed out that principles can be replicated. He learnt from what happened in neighbouring Singapore, and helped steer Malaysia in same pathway.

Can we take a look at what leadership caused in Chile, that is today well referenced as the Chile Miracle? The bringing in of the Chicago Boys who helped drew the economic blue print that led to the emergence of the first rich society in South America? This too is a well documented case study.

What of Dubai?

Was it the poor people of Dubai that caused the change or the Sheikh who pursued his dreams inspite of contrary views from 'knowledgeable folks'....today, the Dubai experience has been duplicated in Qatar, Oman, Bahrain etc etc...and in each case, it took leadership.

Brazil already has an economic growth template initiated by President Cardoso while he was the Minister of Finance. But it took Lula Da Silva to take Brazil to global prominence...

Now let us come home to Africa.

Botswana has always been described as an oasis in the midst of poor leadership, mismanagement and chaos. Was it the Batswana people that engineered the change process or the leadership of Ketumile Masire who followed in the footsteps of the first President of the country Sir Seretse Khama. He mentored Festus Magae, reputed as Africa's incorruptible leader. Is Botswana today not regarded as Africa's most stable country, with the continent's longest continuous multi-party democracy. It is relatively free of corruption and has a good human rights record.

Look at Rwanda....

Just 20 years ago, it was the most destroyed nation in the world. Go there today. It is a model, walk through the streets of Kigali, it is the neatest city in Africa. Even Rwandans dont even walk around dressing haggardly. Interact with them to check out their level of patriotism. Check out their growth rate and how today they are the most respected African country at international diplomatic circles.

Look at Ethiopia, hitherto known for poverty and hunger...today it is the driving force in the Africa rising story. They are building a massive 8000 km railways criss crossing the entire country.Their airline is the most profitable state run airline in the world, and the rate of infrastructure development is second to non in sub Sahara Africa.

I can go on and on....

I can also go into Europe and give examples where just one man or woman came up with an idea, sold it to everyone, and ensured everyone is part of it.

Even democratic Germany survived the economic crises of the last decade because of the leadership of Angela Merkel.

In the United States, and at different times in their history, we have seen the emergence of someone who took the bull by the horns, and steer the nation from economic doldrums to prosperity.

It started with Thomas Jefferson.

Then we had Abraham Lincoln

Then Franklin Delano Roosevelt whose astute leadership ensured Americans elected him four times as President even when he was bedridden.

We had John F.Kennedy, whose dream was to put a man in the Moon.

We also had Ronald Reagan

Bill Clinton, and of curse Barack Obama......

These leaders stood out.

In the UK we had men like Winston Churchill whose words, just words boosted hope in time of despair, and whose wisdom helped save an entire continent.

In France we had men like Charles de Gaulle. He was France, France was him.

He was affectionately described by the French as "Celui qui dit non"

Your Excellency Sir, show the light, and the people will find the way!