Month: May 2016

Defining Our National Character

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

“What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.” – Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934.

Just as every individual has a character, every nation has a national character. What determines the depth, breadth and height of a nation’s influence is not the natural resources possessed by such a nation, otherwise Nigeria should be the most influential nation in the world. It is also not in the skill sets the citizens of such nation possess, otherwise India should probably be the most powerful nation. It is neither in the level of education of the citizenry, though this has direct impact on the GDP of the country. What determines how powerful a nation will become is her National Character.

What is Character? Character, in this context, ‘is the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.’ It is the summation of the values, thought patterns and habits that make up a man. National Character is therefore the summation of the value system, thought patterns and habits of a nation. It is the soul of the nation. A nation with good national character is like a nation with a good soul. A nation with a bad national character is also like a nation with a bad soul. No matter how richly endowed such nation is, her National Character will always overshadow all her endowments. Woe to that nation without great National Character, even when endowed with cornucopia of natural resources!

What is our National Character as a nation? Do we even have guiding principles that we all commonly adopt? Usually, every nation writes her constitution using her National Character as the foundation. What are the guiding principles behind our Constitution in Nigeria? An American child knows and is guided by the value system of USA. Personal achievement, individualism, hardwork, morality, humanitarianism, equality, democracy and so on guide the Americans. These also have been built into their constitution.

At some point during the administration of former President Obasanjo, an attempt was made to articulate a national value document at Kuru, Job in 2001, but it all ended like most other government projects, swept under the carpet. A major reason why each successive government comes in with a lot of hope and leaves the country worse off, is the absence of a commonly adopted National Value Document. It is such document that defines the National Character of a nation. Government’s attempt to tackle corruption will be strengthened when there is a value document guiding the act of governance. Until and unless we go back to the basis and define our guiding principles as a nation, tribalism, nepotism, corruption, self aggrandizement and placing personal comfort above national good will continue to tow us as a nation.

This current administration must define our National Character and put up strong and durable structure for its national adoption. Only then would we have commenced the journey to true nationhood. Where there is no dream, the people perish.

God help us all.

Good morning Africa!

Good morning Nigeria!

Crossing The Finish Line

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

In a race, the sprinter’s focus is to get to the Finish Line, usually marked with a tape. Every good sprinter aims to breast the tape first, and even if he doesn’t get to the tape first, he wants to get to it eventually. No sprinter is happy dropping out of the race! Run your race to the end. Don’t give up. Don’t quit. Don’t worry about those who have crossed the line, worry about you crossing the line.

In life, we must live as though there is no finish line to cross and we must also live like there is a finish line. Two conflicting perspectives, isn’t it? Well that is how life works. First, there is no finish line to greatness. There is a saying that “the finish line is just the beginning of a whole new race.” Sometimes the greatest disaster for a man is to assumed he has crossed the finish line when there are still more races to run. Don’t ever get to a stage in life, where you feel you have seen it all, heard it all, known it all or experienced it all. No, you haven’t. There is still another life out there. Don’t become complacent with success. Make crossing the finish line a life habit. Do you know that even when you cross from life to death, you just begin another life?

Second perspective is to always aim to cross the finish line. “If you say you are going to do something, you do it. If you start it, you finish it. Yes Sir. No Ma’am. And you’ve got to have that kind of structure in your life. It kind of helped me be that disciplined person I am, whether it’s with workouts, film or just the game of football. ” Robert Griffin III. Always finish anything you start. Always make sure you cross the finish line of every goal you set. You cannot make any serious headway in life, if you are not disciplined enough to finish a task. See yours goals or tasks as races that you must participate in and run to the end. Being the first to cross the finish line makes it even more better. Set your eyes on the finish line and disregard the distractions on the way.

In conclusion, in life you have finish lines for our goals, yet there is no finish line to greatness itself. Do you want to be great? Then you must be ready for an endless journey.

God bless us all.

Good morning Africa!

Good morning Nigeria!

Copyright
@adewumioni.com

Building your Brand Equity

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

Successful people or businesses ride on impressive and formidable brand equities. Some names are synonymous with certain skills, trades or vocations. When you mention Pablo Picasso, we know you are talking about painting. When you hear Wole Soyinka, you know it is about English Literature. Tiger Woods will bring golf sport to your mind, just as Serena Williams will bring tennis game to your consciousness. All these examples have succeeded in building their brand equities, and their services keep riding on their brands.

What is Brand Equity? “Brand equity is the value premium that a company realizes from a product with a recognizable name as compared to its generic equivalent.”(Investopedia.com). A brand’s power is derived from the goodwill and name recognition that it has earned over time, which translates into higher sales volume and higher profit margins against competing brands.(Business dictionary.com). Brand Equity has value and can be measured. However that is not the thrust of this write up. Our focus today is how to build your personal or business brand equity.

First, it is important to note that brand equity grows from brand’s presence, value, perception by customer, and loyalty by customer. James Carnrite listed the four components of brand equity as Brand Recognition, Brand Experience, Brand Preference and Brand Loyalty.

To achieve these, you need the following :
Create a niche: Define your market and carve out a position in the market that you are best positioned to serve relative to other providers of the same service or product. You might find a cost advantage position, a technology advantage position or a skill advantage position. Without a strong niche, you can’t build a strong brand. This is what will determine how your presence will be felt in the market. In the world of story telling, Nnamanda Ngozi Adichie has created a niche for herself as a non-fiction story writer. Find your niche, usually in what you can do better than anyone else.

Service Excellence: Beyond niche, you need service excellence to keep your market loyal to you. So whatever it is you offer must be delivered with excellence. Excellence in service delivery, after sale, and support is key. How can people reach you? How easy is it to pay for your services. Is your product or service worth just the exact value you have placed on it, or there is a premium that makes people feel they have more than enough value for their money? It must be total service excellence.

Business or Personal Character: With your niche and great service, if you lack the right character, you can’t build a successful brand. As a matter of fact, you will have a negative brand. It is important to define your values and let them guide you in your transactions and dealings. Be a promise keeper. Be a builder. Don’t be known as a bad employer. Aim to be the best place to work or the best person to work with. You can’t command good brand perception if you have a bad image out there. One of the reasons why we invest a lot in attracting foreign investments is because of our poor national character. Investors are interested in your character more than your skills or services.

Be Open: Honesty and transparency are great door openers. Be ready to admit your mistakes and to learn from them. Don’t be a buck passer. Be straight in your dealings. Communicate the features of your product or service correctly. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. Be known for your integrity.

Social Responsibility: either as an individual or an organization, be socially responsible. Identify a good social cause to invest in. Be responsible to your environment. Be responsible to your immediate community. Make your presence felt.

In summary, a strong brand equity can keep you going when the chips are down and others are struggling. It is wise to build a strong brand equity.

God bless us all.

Good morning Africa!

Good morning Nigeria!

What Do They Really Need Money For?

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

Perhaps the best human summary of the needs of man can be found in Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. He summarized our needs into five starting from Physiological (need for food, water, sleep, sex, homeostasis, etc), then Safety (of body, health, family, resources, employment, morality, property), then Love/Belonging (friendship, family, sexual relationship), then Esteem (self esteem, confidence, achievement, respect for others, respect by others), and finally Self Actualization (morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts). This I believe is a detailed breakdown of the scriptural advice in 1 Tim. 6:6-8 which says “But godliness with contentment is great gain, For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. Having food and raiments, let us therefore be content therewith.”

What else do you then need money for? If you are able to meet all these needs as detailed by Apostle Paul and Abraham Maslow. It amazes me how people go beyond the accepted boundary to make money, even after satisfying these basic and premium needs. Some kill, some convert public goods to private goods, some loots the treasury and some steal the nation blind. The kind of money being peddled in the news as ‘looted’ by some individuals, especially in this contraption called Nigeria, is mind boggling. The other day, a former minister was going to pay off a mortgage worth £12.5 million in UK. Yoruba will say ‘E gba mi’, meaning ‘pls help me’. Please help me, why do they steal, when even the comforts that come with their positions are enough for a lifetime?

Truly, I am lost here and need help in form of some credible explanations. If I have three to five properties for both shelter and maybe sustenance, I feel I should be okay. Or maybe to help others I acquire a little more (and legally/morally so). I do not understand why people buy properties all over and even forget some, knowing none of these will go with them when they cease to breath. I heard the story of one of these stupendously and filthy rich men, who stopped on a journey to somewhere in Benin on sighting a property he obviously coveted. He asked his team to stop and then asked one of his PAs to find out the owner and to make an offer to the owner. And guess who the owner was, he himself! Obviously he bought it without even knowing and he was almost repurchasing it! Such madness! ‘E ma gba mi’. (Please help me).

In a nation, where more than 90% are groaning under huge weight of lack and abject poverty, we have a few individuals stealing billions of dollars. A broke nation that has some few individuals that can buy her over and over again. Isn’t it an irony that they even steal and stash their loots in foreign havens?

I still need an answer, what do they need the money for? To buy countries? To compete amongst themselves? To finance their generations unborn? I don’t know, maybe you do!

God bless us all.

Good morning Africa!

Good morning Nigeria!

Copyright
adewumioni.com

The Sanctity of Human Life

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

There is so much respect and honour placed on man by God. He even honors us above angels, such that we will judge angels eventually. 1 Cor. 6:3. He created men and placed all his other creatures under the control of men. Psalm 8:5-6. This glory and honor on man is borne out of the fact that, out of everything God created, it is only man that was created in His image. So we are God’s exact image.

Little wonder, God commanded in Exodus 20:13 ‘Thou shalt not kill’. This is one of the ten commandments. God hates the shedding of human blood. As much as God required blood sacrifice in the old testament, the only time he requested for human sacrifice was in the case of Isaac, and it was a test for Abraham. As soon as He was convinced of Abraham’s obedience, He provided a replacement in the form of a ram. God despised shedding of blood and wherever human blood is shed, the land in such place becomes cursed because the voice of the victim will be crying out to God for vengeance . Gen 4:11-12. The one and only human sacrifice made by God Himself is Jesus Christ and this sacrifice suffices for the atonement of the sins of any man.

All over the world today, there is a movement against capital punishment. Almost all the members of the United Nations have signed on to the treaty to end capital punishment. Amnesty International has been in the forefront of the campaign against capital punishment since 1977. It is abhorred even in the countries with the highest crime rate. Apart from Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and a few other countries, nowhere in the world is a convicted criminal killed again, at worst, such convict will be sentenced to life imprisonment. The reason for this is because every man has a right to change or repent. When you kill that man, you deny him the right to repent or live a new life.

It is therefore worrisome that we openly disrespect sanctity of life in Nigeria. We kill under every reasonable and unreasonable excuses. We stone people we label ‘witches’ to death. A young boy of less than 5 years old was abandoned somewhere in Southern part of Nigeria to die because he was perceived as a wizard. Thank God for an angel in the person of a white woman that saved the poor chap. We find it so easy to set ‘armed robbers’ ablaze in the most cruel manner. The ‘ALUU Four’ still rings in our memories. Our security agents are quick to kill the people they are meant to defend and then hide under accidental discharge. Not to mention the bloodshed through kidnapping and ritual sacrifices. Bloodshed through terrorism. Bloodshed through the traps set on our roads in form of man made ditches.

No wonder our nation is struggling. Nothing seems to be working. Because there are too many voices crying for vengeance over the nation Nigeria. Unless we repent and turn from this wicked way, we may be on the path of destruction like Sodom and Gomorrah. Don’t ever encourage jungle justice, you are as guilty as those who partake by watching them. Enough of blood spillage in our land. If Oil Spillage could hurt nature, how much more blood spillage.

God help us all.

Good morning Africa!

Good morning Nigeria!

You Are Complete in Him

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

“And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of principality and power.” Colossians 2:10

We are often tempted to believe we suffer one inadequacy or the other. We tend to believe we would have been better off with a lighter color, a more evenly spread set of teeth, a few more inches taller, a few more pounds lighter, a straighter leg, and so on. We even sometimes query God why he left out that part, as if He is not wise enough to know what is good for us. Sometimes it is not a physical feature but a physiological one, like not being able to speak as fast as someone else, not being able to laugh with ease like another person, and so on.

It is important to understand that, you were formed by a perfect God. He doesn’t make mistakes and all his creations are without blemish. What you consider as a shortcoming is not unnoticed by God. He knows it and can use it to your advantage. He created you as a complete being. Perfect and having everything you require to succeed in life. The problem with us is that we try to find our completeness outside of Him, and that is anti-nature. You can only find your completeness in Him. When you live your life in Him and through Him, you will never have reason to feel incomplete.

So the question is not, ‘why didn’t He create that part of the body the way you want it?’. The question is ‘why are you seeking completeness outside of Him?’. If you stay in Him, you will appreciate how He has created you and He will also bring the right persons, who will appreciate you just as you are, into your life.

Our frustrations are borne out of self dependence rather than God dependence. This is the reason why people take drugs to get high because they feel incomplete without taking those hard substances. It is also why some women undergo dangerous surgeries to increase certain parts of their bodies. Is God that insensitive to have created you that way? Definitely not. It is equally the reason we seek for affirmation by joining cult, so that we can feel powerful (while on the inside we are really jellylike). It is the reason for several hurtful things men do to themselves. Stop hurting yourself. Stop allowing others to hurt you. Find your completeness in Him.

“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.” Psalm 139:14

Stop trying to complete what God has completed. You are complete in Him.

God bless us all.

Good morning Africa!

Good morning Nigeria!

What Do You Stand For?

/ Adewumi Oni / Leave a comment

“A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” – Malcolm X.

Your life will only be meaningful to the extent that you stand for something. What separates ‘influencers’ from ‘influencees’ is in standing for something. Those who influence others (either positively or negatively) are those who stand for something and will do everything to defend what they stand for. Martin Luther King stood for the end of racial discrimination and he spent his whole life for the cause of the black till the point of death. He is today, a major reference for America’s racial struggle. Nelson Mandela stood for the Independence of his nation, spent 27 years behind the bar defending that cause. In life and death, he remains a role model for all freedom fighters.

If you want to truly live a meaningful life, you must stand for something good. A cause that will better the lot of humanity. God created you to defend a particular cause. Find that cause and stand for it from today. Don’t live an empty life. Daily pursuit of livelihood is not a cause, you are better than that. If you are rich, that blessing is to defend a particular cause. Find that cause that makes you tick. If all you do all through your life is to work just to be comfortable and afford the pleasures of life, then you haven’t fully lived. You start living when you are ready to die for a cause. The worst part is when you stand for nothing yet opposing those who stand for something good. It is a terrible position to take. Don’t be found in such a position!

As you enjoy Workers Day holiday today, it is an opportunity to reflect on your life and identify what you truly stand for. If you already have a cause you stand for, rededicate yourself to that cause. If you haven’t found a cause, begin your search today. As for me, I have pledged my life to raising true leaders with the end goal of a better nation and a richer world. This is my living and dying goal. Everything I do revolves around this cause. My choice of business is determined by my cause. When you stand for something, it defines your entire life. Maybe you are struggling with life and your life looks meaningless. It could be because you haven’t found a cause to stand for. I challenge you today to start living by standing for a cause.

What then do you stand for?

God bless us all.

Good morning Africa!

Good morning Nigeria!