The Hand of God written by Lanre Olagunju

For those who believe in the existence of God, indeed you must have felt His hands in one way or the other at least if you haven’t seen it. But realistically, the produce of His hands are in two ways, it could be in form of a refreshing elevation which places you on a height where others can only be green with envy. And on the other hand, it could be a dreadful thing to fall into His hands. Anyway, without demand, I can only pray the former for you as long as you’re willing to do a silent amen.
So many world achievers in one way or the other have testified to the invisible hand of God.

And that reminds me of the ever great argentine midfielder born of a factory worker, who led Argentina to the world cup title in 1986 on the strength of his masterful performance. The first of Diego’s goal that secured Argentina’s victory over the English team later became infamous, when it was revealed with evidence that he had used his hand in punching the ball. Amusingly, Diego Maradona attributed the goal to the invisible hand of God.

One of the most memorable and immortal kings that Israel ever produced, King David, who was unarguably referred to by God as a man after His own heart once lamented of how consuming the blows of God’s hands could be.

What we unwittingly refer to as good luck (not Goodluck!) is most times an evidence of his hands? I sometimes wonder how much anyone can achieve the fulfillment of any vision without His hands. Without disdaining your intellect, the kind of vision I’m talking about goes beyond eyesight. I’m practically talking about divine details you got indisputably within your spirit as regards any accomplishment, be it personal or global, that you can now clearly understand and visualize.

Two vital recipes for success that can’t be negotiated are faith and intellect. In fact both are mutually exclusive. These days it has become evidently clear beyond doubt that no phenomenal accomplishments be it political or economic can be attained without sound intellectual prowess, and mental ability that harnesses the power of foresight and hindsight.

The world was created by the undeniable and unfathomable prowess of the divine, therefore only a similar prowess with such ability can birth the kind of change that we gravely desire; be it at the personal, national, or global level.

Past inventions were produced by the best of men with sound knowledge and intellect. If in our present world, we think we would achieve developmental success via other means other than this; then we are collectively the best of jokers in every sense of the word.

To have faith is to strongly believe that that which is uncertain will certainly come to pass. Note that if our world was built on intellect and faith then the combination of both will be the super combo for the attraction of the pleasantries of God’s hand so as to replicate other things that must be recreated or should I say discover. Faith brings unexplainable peace and joy amidst chaos and lopsidedness. At such time, the intellect might not be able to provide beyond facts but with faith you get an assurance that a force more capable than your ability is readily available to bail you out.

The finest and superlative of man’s efforts will ever remain limited. Also, man’s efficiency at his best cannot be adequate to fulfill God’s words. If He has said it, then His touch will be absolutely needed to perfect it. Labour alone can’t guarantee timely result. Haven’t you read? “That by strength shall no man prevail” To be constantly void of divine helpers might be an indication of the absence of God’s hand. I quote King David and I quote him verbatim when he said “Why have you refused to help us? Why do you keep your hands behind you?” To live a life emptied of help in form of assistance or support could be the most frustrating thing. To start with, no man is an island says the old adage. Meaning we need the presence and support of other mortals to fully maximize life. Then how much more do you think we can do without the orchestrator of life? The strongest source of courage is to be fully armed with the knowing that one isn’t alone. Even when you think you’ve known it all, you would still need the perception or judgment of others which your intellect might never be able to produce or replicate reason that perception is most times influenced by environment and foundational background which in every sense is peculiar to every individual.

Overtaking which in every moral sense might be considered unfair is also a produce of ‘the hand God’ there is an adage in Yoruba which interprets that ‘that a person achieves a goal before his colleagues doesn’t out rightly means that he has surpassed them all” therefore it’s a meaningless thing to compare oneself to others. after all each one has his own race.

To have faith in oneself and in the invisible hand of God regardless of present happenings is a sure way to live beyond frustration and hopelessness. Yet it would be foolhardy to think that angels will do for man what man must do.

The long leg syndrome is not an healthy one, neither is the belief that God will become so limited that He’ll always need a third party to reach you. All that is needed has been embedded inside. So sit and discover. The need for carrying begging bowls like mother Africa does doesn’t arise. Beggars lose their identity for crumbs that wouldn’t last a jiffy.

You will succeed!

Follow this blog and the writer @larigoldd on twitter

[ Read More ]

SPLITTING NIGERIA!!! Written by ‘Lanre Olagunju

The issue of how long Nigeria will remain as one nation is becoming more frightening per second. And unfortunately, the present day puppet government with no shoe no direction, isn’t showing enough concern over major fear- provoking national issues.

Now that even the blind from the sockets can see that we are doing everything to fulfill the American forecast, loaded with false prophecies and fatalistic fantasies that a country that has stayed together for fifty suffering and smiling years; with unsuccessfully managed tribal, religious, ethnic and corruption oriented issues would fall apart by the year 2015. The acclaimed world power of our time, USA, choreographs major global events and minor ones too. But what we sometimes fail to realize is that many of her intervention is for the paramount interest of America. At the end no country will matter not even its supposedly close buddies.



Many past and present US ambassadors have expressed many conflicting statements about Nigeria, for instance, in 2009 in a colloquium in Rhode Island University, Princeton Lyman, a former Ambassador to Nigeria said the country was no longer relevant to the USA in the order of events. Conversely, during the dying days of former president, Umaru Yar’adua, same America, labeled Nigeria as the most important partner of the USA in Africa. At that time, former ambassador Johnnie Carson purported that Nigeria was too important a country to be led by someone whose health is puny. Nigeria, you will agree has mastered the act of hearing the worst about itself, therefore the sum total of Ambassador John Campbell’s forecast has scarcely sent enough worry or anxiety.

But to carelessly think or admit that any US envoy will make such seemingly unrehearsed statement is foolhardy. I’m not out rightly saying that the US is masterminding the split of Nigeria. But the US is awfully too strategic a superpower to approve its ambassadors make such unpremeditated statements. Could all of this confusion be a sub strategy to a bigger strategy?

Bloodshed is absolutely unavoidable if an enormously big nation like ours will split, but are we not loosing lives already? Now that we are served with two devils: of either looking for strategic ways to solve our ethnic oriented crises or split up via excessive bloodshed, only to later discover that that wasn’t the issue, shouldn’t we be thinking of which is the lesser devil by now?
Some of the founding fathers of our independence never saw or agreed to the dream of a one Nigeria. ‘So no be today sef” in 1948, northern leader, Abubaka Tafa Balewa said: ‘Since 1914 the British government has been trying to make Nigeria into one county, but the Nigerian people themselves are historically different in their backgrounds, in their religious beliefs and customs, and do not show themselves any signs of willingness to unite . . . Nigerian unity is only a British invention’.

Also, Obafemi Awolowo, who dominated Western region politics, wrote: ‘Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. There are no “Nigerians” in the same sense as there are “English”. The word “Nigerian” is merely a distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria and those who do not.’ …Can you imagine!

Now, it might be easier to understand the reasoning behind these words but where this ethnic strives as real as this even at infant Nigeria?

Just as I strongly feel that ethnic and religious differences are responsible for some of our national setback, I also feel that it’s neither insane nor mad but more, to fight war in God’s name. The divine is more than capable of winning his own followers. On whose behalf do limited mortals like ourselves fight for the all powerful? Much more, corruption which is the mother of all is the most prevalent of all of Nigeria’s challenge after all, if we would say the truth all tribes, languages and religions are well represented in the class of rich corrupt charlatans. Therefore fighting corruption is the main thing! It would be a colossal waste when we kill ourselves for all the wrong ethnic and religious reasons in the world, only to divide into south and north Nigeria and yet be governed by these same corrupt leaders.

I don’t know who is deceiving us that breaking up into north and south Nigeria like Sudan did would solve our corruption ‘wahala’. For where!? Considering a country with six geopolitical complex zones, and over 350 absolutely different languages, if we must break-up, we would need to break into more than pieces.

The challenge in my opinion isn’t all that a religious, ethnic, or tribal thing like many of our corrupt leaders wants us to see it. It’s more of a class interval barrier, the long difference between the so called ‘haves’ and have more, and the hopeless ‘don’t haves’.

We always erroneously feel that our size is the major problem. If population isn’t India and china’s problem then we had better find productive use of all of our critical human capital and fertile but long lasting fallowing lands. May I suggest that we take lessons from the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia? These two countries collapsed partly because they had size they couldn’t manage.Ours too is a management deficiency. A country that can’t manage its people will need more than a miracle that raises the dead to manage its resources. If you ask me I will rather say oil resource is also our problem. Nigeria needs to diversify her oil economy which in every way has become a course to the nation. The use of oil resources for economic wealth has rendered the mind of many regimes excessively impotent. Plato said “whatsoever is cherished in a country will be cultivated there”. If we really claim to cherish our crude oil, how come we are yet to lunch a sound refinery?

It also worth noting that we all are a part of all this mess, including some of the nationalist a few of us are ever willing to die for despite that they are dead and decayed already. The elite use to think that it was all about going to school, get good grades, more professional certification, get a good job, then drive great cars on roads with big pot holes big enough to make soup for all.

I strongly advocate that for our collective good, we should ensure that our diversities in regions, ethnicity, and religion be viewed as attributes which services our common national interests in mutually beneficial ways. Nigeria is a pluralistic society and that is a positive thing which we must emphasize instead of the manageable differences emphasized and exaggerated at all times.

follow the writer @larigoldd on twitter

[ Read More ]

NIGERIA: THE CYCLE OF PROSPERITY written by Japheth J Omojuwa

I stated in previous articles the fact the PDP being what it is will never do better than it already has done. In essence, Nigeria can only be worse off with their continued demonstration of total disrespect for the voice of the people, their total disregard for the betterment of Nigerians and their epidemic desperation to feed their depravity and kleptomaniac urgings with our common wealth. Having said this, I should also quickly state that all hope is not lost. We can achieve national prosperity even with the PDP holding forth till 2015 after which they will be sent packing with their short sighted tenure elongation quest and clique oriented policies.


Nothing will be achieved by the Jonathan administration except we daily tell him through the mass media and his Facebook account what he needs to do. He has come out to say the most telling action of his government apart from signing the FOI bill into a law is not his idea. The draw back in having millions of people advising the president is that governance stalls on indecision. The president is sitting somewhere in Aso Rock hands on his chin waiting for the arrival of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala whom many expect would be the saving grace of the administration to come and deliver the goods. Her arrival would also reduce the effectiveness of the president’s petch seekers on Facebook. Irrespective of who is coming or who is going, we have a responsibility to continuously demand good governance from these lot.



In demanding good governance from a party like the PDP whose default setting is corruption and illegality, let us also remember that we as citizens of Nigeria must look out for the interest of one another. No matter how well a government performs, prosperity would be an isolated reality except the people take it upon themselves to make that quest theirs. Let us face it, the average Nigerian does not think he has succeeded until he sees the poverty he rose from and instead of looking to do as much as he can to reduce or halt that line of shame, he simply doles out cash for the people to scramble for when in his heart he knows that would never solve their problems. What is wrong with providing dependable means of survival to ones people? Dogs are being overfed while children are dying, some folks’ children are paying top dollar for walking lessons amongst other luxurious sessions while the majority find it hard to afford the fees for basic education. The reason we have more poor people than necessary is not as much about government’s policies as it is about our age long desire to be “the only one out of a poverty stricken lot” making sense. For most, they are richer if the people in their circle of influence are poor. Like I always say, you are just a poor buffoon!


I believe in earning ones living, you create value in the form of goods or services and get paid in return. The truth of the matter is, you also need the numbers to work well for you. Sometimes you need an introduction to play in the big leagues and a few times your excellence introduces you. When you succeed to an extent, you don’t sit back to caress your new found relative prosperity, you instead look for a way to make someone in the quest for his/her own success find it. We always look to the United States for most of our arguments and that will serve as one here too. The U.S. outgives all other countries in terms of philanthropic generosity, estimated to annually commit as much as $300 billion. Just recently, Warren Buffet the legendary investor gave the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 23.31 million shares in his investment company Berkshire Hathaway. The shares were passed to the foundation on July 6, and they closed at $76.52 on this day. That is $1.78 billion! Warren Buffet alone has donated over $11 billion worth of shares in Berkshire Hathaway for philanthropic ends. The 80 year old is worth an estimated $50 billion and has a concrete plan to give 99% of his wealth away. Beat that! With fellow billionaire Bill Gates, they both inspired and got several other billionaires (and some non billionaires have joined) to give at least 50% of their wealth to charity. Some 60 plus American billionaires have already pledged their commitment to this. Michael Bloomberg,Ted Turner, David Rockefeller and even our contemporary Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg amongst others have joined the giving frenzy. They could raise as much as $600 billion and indeed more if it is sustained. They raised a relatively massive amount from Indian billionaires. This is where copying America would not be a bad idea. Irrespective of where debt has left the Union, I believe her strength lies in her citizens’ willingness to always find better means of livelihood beyond what is obtainable. America will be fine.




Warren Buffet, Bill and Melinda Gates...The world's biggest givers...and richest
That is why I weep for opponents of capitalism. You wail about its lack of morality, yet you cannot survive without products off its shelf. The best inventions of man were achieved out of capitalistic tendencies. Look at most of the billionaires in the Gates and Buffet Giving Pledge, they are in fact atheists in large numbers. If there is a Heaven for Givers, these ones will be the rulers there.
Fellow Nigerians, we can blame the government for its entrenched culture of waste and they are indeed wasters, but we have as a people wasted more resources engaging in things that count for nothing. An old man dies, millions of naira get spent to cater for his death after which his survivors die trying to get a few thousands to earn a means of livelihood or find even lesser sums to go to school. We must look out one for the other. The N700,000 you are about to blow on a Brazilian hair that in most cases leave you even uglier could be the difference between a boy becoming a productive member of our society or the one that’d kill you someday in a fatal robbery attack. It is not just about visiting Children Homes, it is about making telling contributions to people’s lives every day. Start where you are, start with those you know, start today. Gather your old clothes (it is the height of wickedness to continue to keep clothes you no longer wear just to see your wardrobe full all the time, please do something about this) give someone in need. Imagine if we all decide to fill in the gaps of poverty left by our governments. We are indeed a good people and I know we can make a difference by doing more. If this piece gets one man to make that difference, I would have succeeded in starting a cycle that I believe is the path to our common prosperity.


Follow this blog @larigoldd on twitter and follow the writer @omojuwa

[ Read More ]

How We Became Unemployed 2. Written by Seun Onigbinde

The imported subsidized oil is used to fuel our imported generators on which Nigerians spend almost 2 trillion naira. What of impact on the environment and so on. We might have created jobs for the generators sellers in Oyingbo and Mikano might employ ten maintenance engineers but what is the multiplier effect on the general good of the economy. The same goes for rice and sugar importation when we have plains of fertile land. Vietnam, China and Thailand farmers will surely be smiling as our demand crumbles their inventory. We have the tact strategy, clear roadmap and implantation plan to fix this anomaly. I have seen volumes of documents, so I am not a nerd presenting new ideas. There is just a system that benefits government stooges.


They tap Nigeria like strings with efficient importation and collection of subsidy and you wonder why they would be happy to keep the system that way. The government that stands as a bridge for public good is scrambling for identity.


Our job agenda rather than distribute more motorcycles, make graduates traffic wardens, tree planters or cleaning officers, should be to first knit our education system with match classroom -to -industry teaching, entrepreneurial skills, boost infrastructure, SME lending and explore our natural resource from first to last end of value chain, and in between jobs will arise. Open new frontiers of service industry and upgrade skills of young talents to meet them. Dangote did a jobs report with FGN and one wonders if it a’int gathering dust. Sorry, he just employed 15,000 tanker drivers at the expense of the roads, are those the jobs we are dreaming of?

[ Read More ]