Politics is like a game of chess. You either get to the game and play wisely and ruthlessly or you get out of the game. Politics is never for the gentle and merciful individuals that hold the wellbeing of others in high esteems. Politics is for the individuals who are vultures in nature and eagle in looks. They feed on dead elements and that is why nothing ever lives in their hands. They are quick to make promises and very slow to implement what they’ve promised. Inconsistency is their habit; back biting is their character, self elevation is their hobby.
It’s fun when you have a master on the play field. He gets everyone dirty while he remains clean and spotless. The game master developed the game plans; assigned responsibilities to the team members and gets everyone to the field to play. They keep playing until they all get dirty; some wounded, some get killed while some remain strong and loyal.
It is the duty of the game master to determine how the game is played. But the victory in any game depends, not just on the available plans, but also on the skills of the players and tactical approach of the game master.
Every game master is a great thinker and a great leader. What made them a leader is not just in their thinking, but in their ability to translate their thinking into actions and actions into results then multiply the results over and over and over again and again until they had successfully reproduce themselves in as many people as possible, most importantly their harden followers.
A leader’s vision becomes blurring when he begin to see other people’s efforts to birth his ideologies and vision as threats. At that point, insecurity had stepped in; and the next thing in his mind is loosing control. At that point, he had lost the control already. He had become blind to all he is and stands for; and the next thing he wants to do is to make everyone in his leadership spheres to beg him for whatever they want or need from him. He had made himself a god; he is bound to fail and fall.
Never blame a leader that sees his followers as beggars; every leader reproduce after their kind. A baby goat is a goat. A baby cat is a cat. You produce who you are, not what you can be. Every leader produces who they are as a leader in their followers.
Nigeria and Nigerians are known all over the world as corrupt and fraudulent people. Well, the bad ones among us made the rest of us bad in the eyes of the world. But there are so many of us that are legitimate in our actions and affairs and doing well in our businesses.
Truths must be told, some Nigerians are just a reflection of whom our leaders are; right from the four walls of our houses, where we sleep and wake with our parents; to our religious organizations, where we have our clergies who speaks their hearts, minds, thoughts and ideologies to us, yet made us to believe that they are speaking the mind and heart of God to us.
Every politician in any part of our great country Nigeria or in any part of the world is a product of parental leadership and religious leadership. The life and destiny of any human is anchored on these two institutions. There is no politician without a parent and no politician without a religion.
Therefore, before you nail anyone for any wrong doings; be he politician or just a citizen of the nation, first and foremost find out who the person’s parent is and who the person’s religious leader is. One of the two or the both of them has the keys to his brain. And trust me on this; they always do what either of them asks them to do.
Every child takes after their parents, and every human being on earth have both biological and spiritual parents and they both control your life and determine your actions. So, if a politician lies to you, be sure that either or both of his parents are liars, and take this from me, am yet to see a politician that doesn’t lie. Lying is part of the game. As a matter of fact, it’s the in-thing of the game. And every great politician is a great liar; that is why they will lie to us just to get us on their sides only to get what they want from us and turn their back against us.
Leadership begins from home. What we get from our communities, states and nation from our so call leaders are nothing but what they learnt from their parents. A child who was brought up with hammer in his hands will always see every problem as nails. But a child who was brought up with a chisel and an hammer, and was trained on how to use them effectively to carve out beautiful things out of ugly elements will always see every available object as a beautiful work of art.
Our great nation Nigeria had experienced the worse tragedy in history. I wouldn’t say that it was a war between the youths and the government. Far from it. The youths have nothing against the government; even though the government themselves never had anything for the youths.
What took place in my nation that led to the killing of so many youths on the streets of Lagos is a total reflection of leadership disabilities and blurring of insight and hindsight.
It is the right of the citizens to demand for what is right for their own good. And it is the right of the right thinking government to come to the round table, look into their demands and reach a consensus on what can be done immediately and in the nearest future.
Dialogue is the best medium to achieve the impossible. Men become anarchy when reasons are absent in their actions. A person of wisdom reason things out very well before they embark on their actions.
I love and respect anyone and everyone in leadership positions because leading people is never an easy task. But the truth is, leadership is never by force. If you don’t have what it takes to lead, then stay away from leading.
Ours is a nation where a Nigerian Professor, will spend thirty (30) years, to develop a machine that can produce Kilishi. Please, help me out, what percentage of economy growth is Kilishi adding to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a nation? To worsen the situation; the machine is still in the process. The question then is, what happened to all the resources (money) that our Kilishi Professor has been collecting from the Federal Government for the past thirty (30) years?
That is the nation we find ourselves. What exactly is the importance of educational qualification that cannot produce results that will benefit the citizens?
There is a National Scholarship for all Nigerians who wants to study abroad. The scholarship covers for tuitions, feedings and accommodation. Some notable Nigerians in the past benefited from this scholarship, but presently, the scholarship is only being enjoyed by the Northerners. The funny thing is, they don’t have to apply for it, the government delivers the scholarship to them.
Back in the 90s, I asked myself why will an Art student be required to have A in English, Mathematic, Art and in two other subjects before he or she can gain admission into university to study Art? I applied to about twenty universities abroad, and to my greatest surprise, the only subject required of me to study Art was Fine Art; then the ability to read, write and speak English as a means of communication not as a requirement to get admission into the university. I propose that such idea should be incorporated into our educational system whereby a candidate passes the subject of the course he or she wants to study and have the ability to communicate effectively in the language of the society.
I said earlier, that the government has nothing for the youths. That is the truth, they have nothing for the youths and the only reason why the youths took to the streets was because they wanted to do something for themselves.
In 1993, I was in the house of the then seating governor in Ogun State and late Chief M.K.O Abiola came in. I was there with my school uniform on; and Chief M.K.O Abiola asked the governor what I wanted; and the governor said; “don’t mind him, these are the no futures of this country”. He said that to him in English, thinking I didn’t understand what he said.
Well, I don’t blame him. Majority of the secondary school students in Ogun State back then didn’t know how to speak or write in English. Many of us didn’t even know that our English or Literature teachers themselves didn’t know how to speak proper English language until we got out of school, socialized and associated with people that were well advanced than us, then we developed ourselves to speak the little we know how to speak now.
The demolition and destruction of our educational system in Nigeria is a total reflection of the Presidential speech I read regarding the killings that took place in Lagos. I read the Presidential speech word for word; letter for letter and honestly I felt so sorry for my nation Nigeria and I felt terribly sorry for Mr. President.
I felt so sorry for Mr. President because I knew so well that he was not the one that wrote the speech; somebody else did and it’s obvious that the person that wrote the speech lacks human empathy; and to the best of my knowledge, the person is psychologically and sociologically damaged.
With the present situation in the country; I expected the speech to be more persuasive, supportive and humanistic in nature. Instead, it was something else. I just couldn’t imagine such a statement coming from such quarters.
Such quarter supposed to be the bank for the intelligent, the smart, the technocrats, the mind power individuals. Men and women that can bend any mind and crush any heart with the power of words and speech; but it is unfortunate that what they deliver to my President is a trap to tear his government apart.
It’s totally immoral to state that the Nigerian youths should apply for a Grant between N30, 000 to N100, 000 to start a business! Whoever wrote that statement obviously did not know what the Nigerian youths are capable of doing.
N30, 000 to N100, 000 is something a Nigerian teenager not even youth can produce and reproduce over and over again. Nigerian teenagers and youths are hard working not lazy. And their challenges is never money, their challenges is FREEDOM. They are not allowed to be themselves and over any little thing, they will be gunned down.
Their liberty is being taking away from them and that is the only thing they are asking for. Teenagers and youths in the developed countries are doing so well, simply because they have the freedom, the liberty, the autonomy, the self-determination, the independence, the choice, the free will, the sovereignty, the emancipation, the right and the authorization to be what they want to be and go where they want to go.
It will be a shame on us as a nation if nothing is done in regards to the demand of the people. And the lives of the heros and heroines that had falling on our roads and streets will be a waste of efforts if the Federal Government will not yield to the call of the people.
Mr. President, you have a choice; to rewrite the history, to repeat it or to erase it. Whichever one you chose is the very one people will remember you for.
No one lives for ever. We live today. We will all die someday. What we do now is what people will remember us for.
Once again, I salute everyone in leadership in our country. Continue with the good works that you are doing. But remember, a leader of the people is not the one that flog them because they are not animals, a leader of the people is the one that reason with them because they have a vision ahead of them to accomplish and mission to achieve.
Thank you.
Sam Adeoye
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