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Lifetime Transition: From Vagabond to Champion (Pt. 2)
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By Tolulope A. Adegoke
“Regardless of our levels of giftedness or even accomplishment, we all must keep learning. There must never be room for complacency, because he who stops being better stops being good. Moreover, it has been proven again and again that constant learners are constant earners! In as much that there is breath in you, there is no excuse not to learn; even if it is just to learn and understand that the heart beats for a reason so that the purpose of our existence may be valued, honoured and managed with dignity and effectiveness to the glory of God Almighty and for the benefits of mankind!” – Tolulope A. Adegoke, Ph.D., MNIM
The Authentic Key for Emergence and MANifestations
Redemption in Christ Jesus is the ultimate key to true empowerment. This the only key that gives you full access to fulfilling the mandate of Heaven on this earthly plane. Your gifts and talents are heavenly resources deposited inside your earthen vessel. Activating them through an intimate relationship with Christ gives you full empowerment to reign on earth as revealed in the Book of Life – Matthew 28:18 (KJV). According to the Book of Life in John 1:12-14 (KJV) “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name…”
You may be in this world, but you are not of this world, neither are your gifts. But you are needed on this earth because you have an important mission to execute with your divine endowments. Your true identity is not your physical body but the heavenly gifts that it conveys. You are the full identity of the power of God that you carry!
Do not die with your gifts in you; rather, die empty! It is your zero-turned-hero (your activated and maximised gifts) that will speak for you while you are gone as a result of your impacts on humanity! It is by their fruits (that is, talents, gifts and extent of impacts) that every man would be weighed and remembered.
The Example of David
David again serves as a great model for us in activating and making the most of the deposits of treasures within us. Even as a young man, David realised the potentials he had; and he put them to work to his own advantage and to the progress of his nation and the glory of God! He tapped into his gifts and engaged them with the power of AUDACIOUS (RUGGED) FAITH AND RESPONSIBILITY!
David was responsible for safeguarding his father’s flock of sheep. He did his job so faithfully and diligently that he was ready to die to make a success of it. He confronted a lion and a bear at different times when they came to prey on the flock (1 Samuel 17:34-36). He was determined to serve the interest of his father, even at his own expense. I can imagine him telling the lion and the bear, “You will have to kill me first to get to any of these sheep. I am responsible for their welfare!”
David could have easily fled for his life and given his father excuses about the fate of the flock. Interestingly, what the Bible records is that David confronted the lion and the bear (which can be interpreted as his fears, limitations and challenges) and killed them with his bare hands. We are not told that he prayed to God to deliver him or that God sent His angels to protect him; yet, he conquered and kept his flock safe as a dutiful shepherd.
I believe that David’s sterling character and approach to responsibility must have further moved God at this point. I imagine God beginning to compare David, a guide of sheep, with Saul, a king over the Israelites, at this point. It was obvious, as his later encounter with Goliath showed, that Saul could not risk his life to safeguard the people whom God had entrusted to his care – unlike David who could risk his life for mere animals. Saul couldn’t confront Goliath, let alone kill him; he was too obsessed with comfort and luxury and couldn’t be moved to quit his comfort zone. No wonder God catapulted David from the wilderness to the palace. He made David king over all Israel, despite all odds; and there was no longer a trace of Saul on the throne of Israel.
Here is God’s message to you in all of these: “I am the Almighty God…my speciality is doing the impossible…I use the foolish things of this world to confound the wise…I use the egg to crack the nut to disgrace the stone…I use the basket to fetch water to disgrace the bucket! I am willing and able to turn your empowered zero into a hero!”
Activation for MANifestation through the Desire to Develop
Regardless of our levels of giftedness or even accomplishment, we all must keep learning. There must never be room for complacency because he who stops being better stops being good. Moreover, it has been proven again and again that constant learners are constant earners!
Here is an interesting example of a Brooklyn physician, whom Arthur R. Pell called Dr. Curtis. Being a baseball fan, he often went to see the Giants team practise. In time, he became quite friendly with the team, and was invited to attend a banquet given in their honour. After the coffee and nuts were served, several prominent guests were called upon to “say a few words”.
Suddenly, he heard the toastmaster remark: “We have a physician with us tonight, and I am going to ask Dr. Curtis to talk on baseball playing.” Was he prepared? Of course! He had the best preparation in the world. He had been studying hygiene and practising Medicine for almost a third of a century. He could have sat in his chair and talked about this subject (health impacts of baseball playing) all night to the man seated on his right or left. But to get up and say the same things to even a small audience, well, that was another matter. In fact, that was a paralysing matter. His heart doubled its pace and skipped beats at the very contemplation of it. He had never made a public speech in his life, and every thought that he previously developed now took wings.
What was he to do? The audience was applauding. Everyone was looking at him. He shook his head. But that served only to heighten the applause, to increase the demand. The cries of “Dr Curtis, speech!” grew louder and more insistent. He was in a serious dilemma. He knew that if he got up, he would fail; that he would be unable to utter half a dozen sentences. So, he arose, and without saying a word, turned his back on his friends and walked silently out of the room, a deeply embarrassed and humiliated man.
The positive side however was that he didn’t let things remain that way for long. Soon after he returned to Brooklyn, he enrolled in Dale Carnegie’s course in public speaking. He was ready to do all he could not to face that embarrassing situation again. He was a kind of student that delights an instructor: He was in dead earnest. He wanted to be able to talk, and there was no half-heartedness about his desires. He prepared his talks thoroughly, practised them with a will, and never missed a single session of the course. He did precisely what such a student always does: He progressed at the rate that surprised him, that surpassed his fondest hopes.
After the first few sessions, his nervousness subsided, his confidence mounted higher and higher. In two months, he had become the star speaker of the group. He was soon accepting invitation to speak elsewhere; he now loved the feel and exhilaration of it, the distinction and additional friends it brought him.
A member of the New York City Republican Campaign Committee, hearing one of his public addresses, invited Dr. Curtis to his party. How surprised that politician would have been, had he realized that, only a year before, the speaker had fled a public banquet hall in shame and confusion because he was tongue-tied with audience fear.
It is instructive that Dr Curtis took a very bold step without looking back to develop his latent ability, and thus empowering his zero (weakness) to become a hero. He demonstrated wisdom in seeking to acquire public speaking skills to improve his life and society.
I urge you, reader, to take a cue from this man and many others who have turned their weaknesses to strengths and achieved the seemingly impossible by submitting themselves to the diligence, determination, discipline and sacrifice that training requires. Whatever level you are now, you can be so much better. YOUR BEST IS YET TO COME!
Ahead of the 2027 general elections, the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of removing some of its nominated candidates from the commission’s list and replacing them with names allegedly unknown to the party.
The National Chairman of the party, Senator Moses Cleopas Zuwoghe, made the allegation in a statement on Sunday, following INEC’s publication of candidates for the 2027 State Houses of Assembly elections.
Cleopas said the names published by INEC, particularly in Anambra State, suggested an attempt to undermine the party ahead of the elections and create disaffection among its supporters.
The NDC chairman specifically alleged that nine persons whose names were not authorised or submitted by the party had been listed as its candidates in various constituencies in Anambra State, the home state of the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi.
He called on the INEC Chairman to immediately investigate the development and determine how the names got onto the commission’s list.
Cleopas also urged INEC to extend the investigation to other states, including Benue and Imo, where he said the party had observed a similar pattern.
According to him, the development had embarrassed the party, its leadership and its genuine candidates, while creating disaffection among its supporters in Nigeria and the Diaspora.
“We, as a party, are also carrying out our own independent investigation, the preliminary findings of which are already pointing to the complicity of INEC officials in foisting names purporting to be our candidates, but who are not from us,” he alleged.
He said the party’s investigation indicated that the uploading process was being used to intimidate and embarrass the NDC.
The party listed the following persons as names allegedly published by INEC as its candidates in Anambra:
Onitsha South 1 — Umennaajiego Jude Ezenwa
Onitsha South 2 — Akpotue Obinna Chibuike
Orumba North — Nwankwo Chiemerie
Anaocha 1 — Maduagwu Eric K
Idemili North — Ngoebisi Obinna
Njikoka 1 — Isintume Charles
Nnewi South — Nwachukwu Nonso
Nnewi South 2 — Okeke Ifeanyi Akunne
Ayamelum — Nnonyelu Samson E
Dunukofia — Azotani Chuks Francis
Cleopas, however, said the party is particularly concerned about the process through which the names were uploaded and published.
He said after the conclusion of the party’s primaries and appeal process, stakeholders from Anambra, the party leadership, representatives of Obi and the appeals panel agreed on a final list of candidates.
According to him, the list was signed off by the relevant stakeholders before being uploaded to the INEC portal using the code provided to the party by the electoral commission.
He alleged that INEC officials subsequently kept nine of the names on “Pending” status, claiming that the names were already in the commission’s system based on submissions by officials who monitored the party’s primaries.
Cleopas said the NDC formally challenged the names and submitted the identities of candidates it said were legitimately nominated by the party, but INEC allegedly declined to replace the disputed names.
He further alleged that INEC subsequently collected Form EC-9 directly from the persons whose names were in dispute and uploaded the forms without going through the party.
“To further confirm that there was a predetermined effort on the part of INEC to impose the said nine candidates on the party, and embarrass both NDC and Mr. Peter Obi, INEC went behind the NDC to collect the Form EC-9 directly from the candidates, bypassing the party, and uploading same,” he alleged.
Cleopas argued that where there was a discrepancy between names submitted by a political party and information received by INEC from its monitoring teams, the commission should have left the affected positions vacant pending clarification, rather than publish names the party said it did not nominate.
“At the very worst, INEC could have left us with no candidates for those positions, if they knew they were unwilling to engage us in addressing any perceived anomaly,” he said.
The NDC chairman accused INEC of creating a pattern in which opposition parties were allegedly prevented from uploading their preferred candidates while other names were introduced into their candidate lists.
He vowed that the party would pursue the matter through all available legal channels and seek to have what it described as its authentic candidates restored.
“We are moving to approach the court of competent jurisdiction to seek redress and restore our authentic candidates. The general public and our millions of supporters should note that these are not our candidates,” he said.
Nepal said Sunday it had begun burying some of the hundreds of bodies recovered after devastating floods, after taking DNA samples and marking them so families can later retrieve them.
The dead are traditionally cremated on funeral pyres in Hindu-majority Nepal, so the burials are viewed as long-term storage until families can retrieve them.
Foreign Secretary Amrit Bahadur Rai told reporters that all those buried were carefully recorded, but also appealed for international support, saying Nepal needed “more than a thousand” freezer units to store bodies.
The announcement of the burials came as Nepal’s disaster ministry increased its toll again on Sunday to 752 bodies recovered and 2,502 people missing.
That list includes 589 foreigners unaccounted for.
Chinese state media earlier confirmed 16 dead in Tibet and 546 people missing following Wednesday’s disaster, taking the overall toll to 768 dead and 3,048 unaccounted for.
“Following standard and accepted protocols, such as those of ICRC (Red Cross), the mortal remains of the dead, especially those not recognisable… have been temporarily buried,” Rai told reporters.
“Medical teams took DNA samples from every victim prior to the burial so that families can match-reference later, and would be allowed to exhume for necessary rituals.”
Nepal has called for freezer storage units and DNA testing kits, as it is overwhelmed with the number of bodies to store safely.
“We have requested different countries for freezers; we will need more than a thousand,” Rai added.
“Many dead bodies have been collected, and they have started decomposing. To preserve public health, we had to bury the decomposing bodies,” he added.
AFP
By Henry Ukazu
Dear Destiny Friends,
Everyone loves influence. Everyone wants to be a person of influence. Everyone wants to be relevant. Everyone wants to be celebrated. Everyone likes attention, appreciation, approval, and admiration. All these are products of influence.
The question I need you to ask yourself is, are you a person of influence? Are you influencing anyone? Do you have a positive or negative influence on your children, spouse, friends, mentors/mentee, or even strangers? Take a minute to listen to yourself.
When we talk about influence, uninformed minds just think influence is only about money, power, authority, or even being a mentor. Influence is far from it. We are all influencers in one way or another. Many people have influenced us in different ways, some positive, some negative. Similarly, we have also influenced many people in good and bad ways.
But today, I’m here to share with you what influence is about and the positive ways one can be a person of influence. Influence comes in different ways: as a politician, you are influencing people; as a leader, you are influencing policy; as a youth advocate, mentor, teacher, pastor, and employee, you are influencing somebody in one way or the other.
Do you know you can influence someone with your lifestyle? Yes, the way you talk, write, lead, dress, eat, exercise, preach the word of God, do your job, serve people, train your children, etc., are all part of influence. Influence is powerful. It has a way of permeating someone without them knowing. I believe that’s why my late mother would always say, if you are hanging out with a friend, only take the good part and leave the bad part.
We currently live in the 21st century, where the internet leads. The internet is regarded as the fifth estate for a reason, because it empowers networked individuals and alternative media to hold traditional institutions, governments, and mainstream media accountable. Everyone and almost everything is on the internet; however, sometimes, the information we get on the internet is regarded as fake because it’s unverified.
In some quarters, the internet has been regarded as a bad influence on the younger generation because of the limited restrictions and the negative information it has exposed their minds to think in a particular way. Some other schools of thought have opined that the internet has done more good than harm due to the knowledge it has exposed their minds to, as opposed to the information being peddled by some other schools of thought. Regardless of the aisle one belongs to, the internet truly has its pros and cons, especially as it relates to influence.
The big question one needs to answer is what influence is. According to Nosakhare Tune Oni – A Pan-African Strategist, leadership and business coach, “influence is when people trust your judgment enough to act on it. It is when someone calls you before making an important decision. When your recommendation opens a door. When your name carries weight in a room, you’re not even in. When people are willing to put their reputation behind yours. That’s influence.
Let’s take a minute to dwell on those lines again. Has anyone played any of such roles in your life? If yes, that’s the best definition of influence in a nutshell. Influence is not about quantity, but quality. The quality of people in your life is more valuable than the quantity of people one’s life. Do you know we don’t really need battalions of friends, whether online or in person, but just one person of influence can be a game-changer. According to Les Brown, a leadership coach, we need only quality people.
Do you know we are everywhere and nowhere at the same time? Do you also know that we can be everywhere and still have very little influence? Influence is about knowing your value and the right people who appreciate the value you bring. Do you know one can be a person of value to the wrong person or audience?
Influence is about having followers who believe and follow your teaching. We can have visibility with little or no influence. One may have 100,000 followers. We may trend on Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, or even WhatsApp. Your name is a household name. That is visibility.
Let me give you a practical example. If you have a large crowd of people following you online or in person. The critical question one must ask oneself is: why are they following me? Are they following me because of my ideology, my talent/gift, academic process, position, profession, vocation, skill, or jokes? If they follow you because of the ideology you represent, you are a person of influence. If they are following you because of your jokes, you may be a content creator or comedian with little or no value in influencing them to do or not do certain things. Real influence provokes action.
According to Nosakhare Tune Oni, influence is built differently from attention. Attention can be bought. Influence must be earned. You can manufacture visibility with advertising, controversy, or constant posting. But you cannot manufacture trust that easily. It comes from consistently being useful. Keeping your word. Knowing what you’re talking about. Showing up when it matters. Building relationships before you need them.
And creating value for people without constantly asking, “What’s in it for me?”
Do you know a person with 1,000 followers and deep trust within a particular industry may have more real influence than someone with 100,000 followers who nobody listens to. So, I don’t think the goal should simply be: “How many people know me?” A better question is: “How much does my presence actually change things?” Because visibility gets you noticed. Value gets you remembered. Trust gets you listened to, but influence is what happens when people trust your value enough to move.
As I prepare to conclude, please take a minute to ask yourself: are you a person of influence? Do you have influence? What positive influence have you had on people or anyone? Today, I want you to be a man/lady of influence like Martin Luther King Jnr, Mother Theresea, Evangelist Ebuka Obi, President Nelson Mandela, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Dr. Kola Adesina, Dr. Joe Abah, Dr. Dele Momodu, Barr. Henry Ukazu and Miss Ginika Dike.
Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator. He’s the founder of Gloemi. He’s a Transformative Human Capacity and Mindset coach. He is also a public speaker, youth advocate, creative writer, and author of Design Your Destiny- Actualizing Your Birthright to Success, Unleash Your Destiny, and The Six Pillars of Success. He can be reached via info@gloemi.com
